Job 30:18

By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(18) My garment changed.—Some render “By His (i.e., God’s) great power the garment (of my skin) is disfigured;” and others, “With great effort must my garment be changed because of the sores to which it clings? It bindeth me about as closely as the collar of my coat.”

Benson Commentary

Job 30:18-19. By the great force of my disease, &c. — The words, of my disease, are not in the Hebrew, neither do they seem to be rightly supplied, but rather to obscure the sense of the clause, which, without any supplement, is literally rendered, With great force my garment is changed, for so this verb יתחפשׁ, jithchappesh, is used, 1 Kings 22:30. Thus the sense is, I cannot shift or put off my garment without great difficulty; the reason whereof is given in the following words: It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat — It cleaveth fast to me, being glued by that purulent matter which issues from my sores. He seems to allude to the fashion of the eastern outward garments, which were all of a piece, and had a strait mouth at the top, which was brought over the head and fastened close about the neck. Some, however, understand the clause figuratively, thus: By the great force, that is, the power of God, is my garment changed, that is, my condition is wholly altered; it bindeth me about, &c. — I am straitly bound in on every side with my sorrows and afflictions, as it were, with a collar; every part of me, from head to foot, is, as it were, wrapped round with pains; and all my limbs are, in a manner, bound with them. He hath cast me into the mire, &c. — I am reduced to the lowest and filthiest condition possible. Houbigant, who thinks that the idea here is taken from a man struggling with another, laying hold on his garment, and casting him into the mire, renders these two verses, With great force he layeth hold on my garment, and infolds me by the collar of my robe: He hath cast me into the mire, &c.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

30:15-31 Job complains a great deal. Harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset Job. When inward temptations join with outward calamities, the soul is hurried as in a tempest, and is filled with confusion. But woe be to those who really have God for an enemy! Compared with the awful state of ungodly men, what are all outward, or even inward temporal afflictions? There is something with which Job comforts himself, yet it is but a little. He foresees that death will be the end of all his troubles. God's wrath might bring him to death; but his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits. If none pity us, yet our God, who corrects, pities us, even as a father pitieth his own children. And let us look more to the things of eternity: then the believer will cease from mourning, and joyfully praise redeeming love.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

By the great force of my disease - The words "of my disease" are not in the Hebrew. The usual interpretation of the passage is, that in consequence of the foul and offensive nature of his malady, his garment had become discolored or defiled - changed from being white and clear to filthiness and offensiveness. Some have understood it as referring to the skin, and as denoting that it was so affected with the leprosy, that he could scarcely be recognized. Umbreit supposes it to mean, "Through the omnipotence of God has my white robe of honor been changed into a narrow garment of grief" - trauerkleid. Dr. Good renders it, "From the abundance of the acrimony;" that is, of the fierce or acrimonious humor, "it is changed into a garment for me." Coverdale, "With all their power have they changed my garment, and girded me therewith, as it were with a coat." Prof. Lee, "With much violence doth my clothing bind me."

According to Schultens, it means, "My affliction puts itself on in the form of my clothing;" and the whole passage, that without and within, from the head to the feet, he was entirely diseased. His affliction was his outer garment, and it was his inner garment - his mantle and his tunic. The Hebrew is difficult. The phrase rendered "by the great force," means, literally, "by the multitude of strength" - and may refer to the strength of disease, or to the strength of God, or to the force with which his garment girded him. The word rendered "is changed" - יתחפשׂ yitchâphaś, is from חפשׂ châphaś, to seek, to search after in the Qal; in the Hithpael, the form used here, to let oneself be sought; to hide oneself; to disguise one's self; 1 Kings 20:38. According to this, it would mean that his garment was disquised; that is, its appearance was changed by the force of his disease. Gesenius. Jerome renders it, "In their multitude, my garment is consumed; the Septuagint, "With great force he took hold of my garment." Of these various interpretations, it is impossible to determine which is the correct one. The prevailing interpretation seems to be, that by the strength of his disease his garment was changed in its appearance, so as to become offensive, and yet this is a somewhat feeble sense to give to the passage. Perhaps the explanation of Schultens is the best, "By the greatness of power, pain or disease has become my garment; it girds me about like the mouth of my tunic." He has shown, by a great variety of instances, that it is common in Arabic poetry to compare pain, sickness, anxiety, etc., to clothing.

It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat - The collar of my tunic, or under garment. This was made like a shirt, to be gathered around the neck, and the idea is, that his disease fitted close to him, and was gathered close around him.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. of my disease—rather, "of God" (Job 23:6).

garment changed—from a robe of honor to one of mourning, literally (Job 2:8; Joh 3:6) and metaphorically [Umbreit]. Or rather, as Schuttens, following up Job 30:17, My outer garment is changed into affliction; that is, affliction has become my outer garment; it also bindeth me fast round (my throat) as the collar of the inner coat; that is, it is both my inner and outer garment. Observe the distinction between the inner and outer garments. The latter refers to his afflictions from without (Job 30:1-13); the former his personal afflictions (Job 30:14-23). Umbreit makes "God" subject to "bindeth," as in Job 30:19.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

My disease is so strong and prevalent, that it breaks forth every where in my body, in such plenty of purulent and filthy matter, that it infects and discolours my very garments. Others, By the great power of God

my garment is changed. In both these translations the words, of disease, and of God, are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied by the translators. But the words are by some not untruly nor unfitly rendered thus, without any supplement, With great force my garment is changed; for so this verb is used, 1 Kings 22:30. So the sense is, I cannot shift or put off my garment without great strength and difficulty; the reason whereof is rendered in the following words.

It bindeth me about; it cleaveth fast to me, being glued by that filthy matter issuing from my sores.

As the collar of my coat; as my collar girdeth in and cleaveth to my neck. He alludes to the fashion of the Eastern outward garments, which were seamless, and all of a piece, and had a straight mouth at the top, which was brought over the head, and contracted and fastened close about the neck.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

By the great force of my disease is my garment changed,.... Either the colour of it, through the purulent matter from his ulcers running down upon it, or penetrating through it; or by reason of it he was obliged to shift himself, and to have a change of raiment very frequently; or the supplement, "of my disease", may be left out, and the sense be, with great force, through main strength, and with much difficulty, his garment was changed, was got off from him, sticking so close to him, and another put on:

it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat; his disease encompassed him about on all sides as the collar or edge of his coat encompassed his neck, and cleaved as close, and was as tight unto him as that, and threatened him perhaps with a suffocation or strangling; see Job 7:15; the allusion is to garments used in the eastern countries, which were only open at top and bottom; at the top there was a hole to put the head through when put on, and a binding about it, and a button to it, or some such thing, which kept it tight about the neck; see Exodus 28:32.

Geneva Study Bible

By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

18. The verse is obscure.

the great force of my disease] Or, by his great power; i. e. God’s power, put forth in Job’s afflictions.

my garment changed] lit. disguised or disfigured.

it bindeth me] The meaning may be: it clingeth to me like the neck of my inner garment. The reference is supposed to be to his emaciated condition; his outer garment hangs on him disfigured, clinging to him like the neck or opening of the close-fitting inner tunic. The connexion and the phrase “by His great power,” i. e. the power that causes intolerable agonies, might suggest that the reference in the verse is to Job’s writhing under his pains till the clothes are twisted tightly about him.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - By the great force of my disease is my garment changed; or, disfigured. The purulent discharge from his ulcers disfigured and made filthy his garment, which stiffened as the discharge dried, and clung to his frame. It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat. The whole garment clung to his body as closely as it is usual for a mall's collar, or "neck-hole" (Professor Lee), to cling about his throat. Job 30:18

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

16 And now my soul is poured out within me,

Days of suffering hold me fast.

17 The night rendeth my bones from me,

And my gnawers sleep not.

18 By great force my garment is distorted,

As the collar of my shirt it encompasseth me.

19 He hath cast me into the mire,

And I am in appearance as dust and ashes.

With this third ועתּה (Job 30:1, Job 30:9) the elegiac lament over the harsh contrast between the present and the past begins for the third time. The dash after our translation of the second and fourth strophes will indicate that a division of the elegy ends there, after which it begins as it were anew. The soul is poured out within a man (עלי as Job 10:1, Psychol. S. 152), when, "yielding itself without resistance to sadness, it is dejected to the very bottom, and all its organization flows together, and it is dissolved in the one condition of sorrow" - a figure which is not, however, come about by water being regarded as the symbol of the soul (thus Hitzig on Psalm 42:5), but rather by the intimate resemblance of the representation of a flood of tears (Lamentations 2:19): the life of the soul flows in the blood, and the anguish of the soul in tears and lamentations; and since the outward man is as it were dissolved in the gently flowing tears (Isaiah 15:3), his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestation and result of an inward action. ימי־עני we have translated days of suffering, for עני, with its verb and the rest of its derivatives, is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah. Days of suffering - Job complains - hold him fast; עחז unites in itself, like החזיק, the significations prehendere and prehensum tenere. In Job 30:17 we must not, with Arnh. and others, translate: by night it (affliction) pierces ... , for עני does not stand sufficiently in the foreground to be the subject of what follows; it might sooner be rendered: by night it is pierced through (Targ., Rosenm., Hahn); but why is not לילה to be the subject, and נקּר consequently Piel (not Niph.)? The night has been personified already, Job 3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night (the restless night, Job 7:3, in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it, increases) pierces his bones from him, i.e., roots out his limbs (synon. בּדּים, Job 18:13) so inwardly and completely. The lepra Arabica (Arab. 'l-brṣ, el-baras) terminates, like syphilis, with an eating away of the limbs, and the disease has its name Arab. juḏâm from jḏm, truncare, mutilare: it feeds on the bones, and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached.

In Job 30:17, lxx (νεῦρα), Parchon, Kimchi, and others translate ערקי according to the Targum. ערקין ( equals גּידים), and the Arab. ‛rûq, veins, after which Blumenf.: my veins are in constant motion. But ערקי in the sense of Job 30:3 : my gnawers (Jer. qui me comedunt, Targ. דּמעסּן יתי, qui me conculcant, conterunt), is far more in accordance with the predicate and the parallelism, whether it be gnawing pains that are thought of - pains are unnatural to man, they come upon him against his will, he separates them from himself as wild beasts - or, which we prefer, those worms (רמּה, Job 7:5) which were formed in Job's ulcers (comp. Aruch, ערקא, a leech, plur. ערקתא, worms, e.g., in the liver), and which in the extra-biblical tradition of Job's decease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Job's monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposedly petrified worms of Job.

(Note: In Mugir ed-dn's large history of Jerusalem and Hebron (kitâb el-ins el-gelı̂l), in an article on Job, we read: God had so visited him in his body, that he got the disease that devours the limbs (tegedhdhem), and worms were produced (dawwad) in the wounds, while he lay on a dunghill (mezbele), and except his wife, who tended him, no one ventured to come too near him. In a beautiful Kurdic ballad "on the basket dealer" (zembilfrosh), which I have obtained from the Kurds in Salihje, are these words:

Veki Gergis beshara beri

Jusuf veki abdan keri

Bikesr' Ejub kurman deri

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