--- title: "Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible" author: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown" languages: [en] shelf: "Commentaries" section: 159 of 927 url: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/159/ cite: "Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible, section 159. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/159/" --- # Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible *Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset and David Brown* The Victorian standard commentary, critical and practical, from Genesis to Revelation. ## 159. Job · 2 of 36 Source: https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/159/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/jamieson-fausset-brown-commentary-critical-and-explanatory-on-the-whole-bible/159/#p-N ### Chapter 2 ### Job 2:1-8. Satan Further Tempts Job [¶2] 1. a day--appointed for the angels giving an account of their ministry to God. The words "to present himself before the Lord" occur here, though not in [Job 1:6], as Satan has now a special report to make as to Job. [¶3] 3. integrity--literally, "completeness"; so "perfect," another form of the same Hebrew word, [Job 11:7]. [¶4] movedst ... against--So [1Sa 26:19]; compare [1Ch 21:1] with [2Sa 24:1]. [¶5] 4. Skin for skin--a proverb. Supply, "He will give." The "skin" is figurative for any outward good. Nothing outward is so dear that a man will not exchange it for some other outward good; "but" (not "yea") "life," the inward good, cannot be replaced; a man will sacrifice everything else for its sake. Satan sneers bitterly at man's egotism and says that Job bears the loss of property and children because these are mere outward and exchangeable goods, but he will give up all things, even his religion, in order to save his life, if you touch his bones and flesh. "Skin" and "life" are in antithesis [Umbreit]. The martyrs prove Satan's sneer false. Rosenmuller explains it not so well. A man willingly gives up another's skin (life) for his own skin (life). So Job might bear the loss of his children, &c., with equanimity, so long as he remained unhurt himself; but when touched in his own person, he would renounce God. Thus the first "skin" means the other's skin, that is, body; the second "skin," one's own, as in [Ex 21:28]. [¶6] 6. but save--rather, "only spare his life." Satan shows his ingenuity in inflicting pain, and also his knowledge of what man's body can bear without vital injury. [¶7] 7. sore boils--malignant boils; rather, as it is singular in the Hebrew, a "burning sore." Job was covered with one universal inflammation. The use of the potsherd [Job 2:8] agrees with this view. It was that form of leprosy called black (to distinguish it from the white), or elephantiasis, because the feet swell like those of the elephant. The Arabic judham ([De 28:35]), where "sore botch" is rather the black burning boil ([Is 1:6]). [¶8] 8. a potsherd--not a piece of a broken earthen vessel, but an instrument made for scratching (the root of the Hebrew word is "scratch"); the sore was too disgusting to touch. "To sit in the ashes" marks the deepest mourning ([Jon 3:6]); also humility, as if the mourner were nothing but dust and ashes; so Abraham ([Ge 18:27]). ### Job 2:9-13. Job Reproves His Wife [¶10] 9. curse God--rather, "renounce" God. (See on [Job 1:5]) [Umbreit]. However, it was usual among the heathens, when disappointed in their prayers accompanied with offerings to their gods, to reproach and curse them. [¶11] and die--that is, take thy farewell of God and so die. For no good is to be got out of religion, either here or hereafter; or, at least, not in this life [Gill]; Nothing makes the ungodly so angry as to see the godly under trial not angry. [¶12] 10. the foolish women--Sin and folly are allied in Scripture ([1Sa 25:25]; [2Sa 13:13]; [Psa 14:1]). [¶13] receive evil--bear willingly ([La 3:39]). [¶14] 11. Eliphaz--The view of Rawlinson that "the names of Job's three friends represent the Chaldean times, about 700 B.C.," cannot be accepted. Eliphaz is an Idumean name, Esau's oldest son ([Ge 36:4]); and Teman, son of Eliphaz ([Ge 36:15]), called "duke." Eusebius places Teman in Arabia-Petræa (but see on [Job 6:19]). Teman means "at the right hand"; and then the south, namely, part of Idumea; capital of Edom ([Am 1:12]). Hebrew geographers faced the east, not the north as we do; hence with them "the right hand" was the south. Temanites were famed for wisdom ([Jr 49:7]). Baruch mentions them as "authors of fables" (namely, proverbs embodying the results of observation), and "searchers out of understanding." [¶15] Bildad the Shuhite--Shuah ("a pit"), son of Abraham and Keturah ([Ge 25:2]). Ptolemy mentions the region Syccea, in Arabia-Deserta, east of Batanea. [¶16] Zophar the Naamathite--not of the Naamans in Judah ([Jos 15:41]), which was too distant; but some region in Arabia-Deserta. Fretelius says there was a Naamath in Uz. [¶17] 12. toward heaven--They threw ashes violently upwards, that they might fall on their heads and cover them--the deepest mourning ([Jos 7:6]; [Ac 22:23]). [¶18] 13. seven days ... nights--They did not remain in the same posture and without food, &c., all this time, but for most of this period daily and nightly. Sitting on the earth marked mourning ([La 2:10]). Seven days was the usual length of it ([Ge 50:10]; [1Sa 31:13]). This silence may have been due to a rising suspicion of evil in Job; but chiefly because it is only ordinary griefs that find vent in language; extraordinary griefs are too great for utterance. ### Chapter 3 [¶20] THE POEM OR DEBATE ITSELF (Job 3:2-42:6). FIRST SERIES IN IT (Job 3:[1-14:22]). JOB FIRST ([Job 3:1-26]). ### Job 3:1-19. Job Curses the Day of His Birth and Wishes for Death [¶22] 1. opened his mouth--The Orientals speak seldom, and then sententiously; hence this formula expressing deliberation and gravity ([Psa 78:2]). He formally began. [¶23] cursed his day--the strict Hebrew word for "cursing:" not the same as in [Job 1:5]. Job cursed his birthday, but not his God. [¶24] 2. spake--Hebrew, "answered," that is, not to any actual question that preceded, but to the question virtually involved in the case. His outburst is singularly wild and bold ([Jr 20:14]). To desire to die so as to be free from sin is a mark of grace; to desire to die so as to escape troubles is a mark of corruption. He was ill-fitted to die who was so unwilling to live. But his trials were greater, and his light less, than ours. [¶25] 3. the night in which--rather "the night which said." The words in italics are not in the Hebrew. Night is personified and poetically made to speak. So in [Job 3:7], and in [Psa 19:2]. The birth of a male in the East is a matter of joy; often not so of a female. [¶26] 4. let not God regard it--rather, more poetically, "seek it out." "Let not God stoop from His bright throne to raise it up from its dark hiding-place." The curse on the day in [Job 3:3], is amplified in [Job 3:4], ; that on the night, in [Job 3:6-10]. [¶27] 5. Let ... the shadow of death--("deepest darkness," [Is 9:2]). [¶28] stain it--This is a later sense of the verb [Gesenius]; better the old and more poetic idea, "Let darkness (the ancient night of chaotic gloom) resume its rights over light ([Ge 1:2]), and claim that day as its own." [¶29] a cloud--collectively, a gathered mass of dark clouds. [¶30] the blackness of the day terrify it--literally, "the obscurations"; whatever darkens the day [Gesenius]. The verb in Hebrew expresses sudden terrifying. May it be suddenly affrighted at its own darkness. Umbreit explains it as "magical incantations that darken the day," forming the climax to the previous clauses; [Job 3:8] speaks of "cursers of the day" similarly. But the former view is simpler. Others refer it to the poisonous simoom wind. [¶31] 6. seize upon it--as its prey, that is, utterly dissolve it. [¶32] joined unto the days of the year--rather, by poetic personification, "Let it not rejoice in the circle of days and nights and months, which form the circle of years." [¶33] 7. solitary--rather, "unfruitful." "Would that it had not given birth to me." [¶34] 8. them ... curse the day--If "mourning" be the right rendering in the latter clause of this verse, these words refer to the hired mourners of the dead ([Jr 9:17]). But the Hebrew for "mourning" elsewhere always denotes an animal, whether it be the crocodile or some huge serpent ([Is 27:1]), such as is meant by "leviathan." Therefore, the expression, "cursers of day," refers to magicians, who were believed to be able by charms to make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam, [Nu 22:5]). This accords with Umbreit's view ([Job 3:7]); or to the Ethiopians and Atlantes, who "used to curse the sun at his rising for burning up them and their country" [Herodotus]. Necromancers claimed power to control or rouse wild beasts at will, as do the Indian serpent-charmers of our day ([Psa 58:5]). Job does not say they had the power they claimed; but, supposing they had, may they curse the day. Schuttens renders it by supplying words as follows:--Let those that are ready for anything, call it (the day) the raiser up of leviathan, that is, of a host of evils. [¶35] 9. dawning of the day--literally, "eyelashes of morning." The Arab poets call the sun the eye of day. His early rays, therefore, breaking forth before sunrise, are the opening eyelids or eyelashes of morning. [¶36] 12. Why did the knees prevent me?--Old English for "anticipate my wants." The reference is to the solemn recognition of a new-born child by the father, who used to place it on his knees as his own, whom he was bound to rear ([Ge 30:3]; ; [Is 66:12]). [¶37] 13. lain ... quiet ... slept--a gradation. I should not only have lain, but been quiet, and not only been quiet, but slept. Death in Scripture is called "sleep" ([Psa 13:3]); especially in the New Testament, where the resurrection-awakening is more clearly set forth ([1Co 15:51]; [1Th 4:14]; ). [¶38] 14. With kings ... which built desolate places for themselves--who built up for themselves what proved to be (not palaces, but) ruins! The wounded spirit of Job, once a great emir himself, sick of the vain struggles of mortal great men, after grandeur, contemplates the palaces of kings, now desolate heaps of ruins. His regarding the repose of death the most desirable end of the great ones of earth, wearied with heaping up perishable treasures, marks the irony that breaks out from the black clouds of melancholy [Umbreit]. The "for themselves" marks their selfishness. Michaelis explains it weakly of mausoleums, such as are found still, of stupendous proportions, in the ruins of Petra of Idumea. [¶39] 15. filled their houses with silver--Some take this to refer to the treasures which the ancients used to bury with their dead. But see [Job 3:26]. [¶40] 16. untimely birth--([Psa 58:8]); preferable to the life of the restless miser ([Ec 6:3-5]). [¶41] 17. the wicked--the original meaning, "those ever restless," "full of desires" ([Is 57:20], ). [¶42] the weary--literally, "those whose strength is wearied out" ([Re 14:13]). [¶43] 18. There the prisoners rest--from their chains. [¶44] 19. servant--The slave is there manumitted from slavery.