Job 30:28

I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(28) I went mourning without the sun.—Rather, I go mourning without the sun; or, according to some, “blackened, but not by the sun.” We give the preference to the other.

I stood up, and I cried in the congregation—i.e., not merely in secret, but in the face of all men.

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

I went mourning - Or rather, "I go," in the present tense, for he is now referring to his present calamities, and not to what was past. The word rendered "mourning," however (קדר qâdar), means here rather to be dark, dingy, tanned. It literally means to be foul or turbid, like a torrent, Job 6:16; then to go about in filthy garments, as they do who mourn, Job 5:11; Jeremiah 14:2; then to be dusky, or of a dark color, or to become dark. Thus, it is applied to the sun and moon becoming dark in an eclipse, or when covered with clouds, Jeremiah 4:28; Joel 2:10; Joel 3:15; Micah 3:6. Here it refers to the fact that, by the mere force of his disease, his skin had become dark and swarthy, though he had not been exposed to the burning rays of the sun. The wrath of God had burned upon him, and he had become black under it. Jerome, however, renders it moerens, mourning. The Septuagint, "I go groaning (στένων stenōn) without restraint, or limit" - ἄνευ φιμοῦ aneu fimou. The Chaldee translates it אוכם, "black."

Without the sun - Without being exposed to the sun; or without the agency of the sun. Though not exposed, he had become as dark as if he had been a day-laborer exposed to a burning sun.

I stood up - Or, I stand up.

And cried in the congregation - I utter my cries in the congregation, or when surrounded by the assembled people. Once I stood up to counsel them, and they hung upon my lips for advice; now I stand up only to weep over my accumulated calamities. This indicates the great change which had come upon him, and the depth of his sorrows. A man will weep readily in private; but he will be slow to do it, if he can avoid it, when surrounded by a multitude.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

28. mourning—rather, I move about blackened, though not by the sun; that is, whereas many are blackened by the sun, I am, by the heat of God's wrath (so "boiled," Job 30:27); the elephantiasis covering me with blackness of skin (Job 30:30), as with the garb of mourning (Jer 14:2). This striking enigmatic form of Hebrew expression occurs, Isa 29:9.

stood up—as an innocent man crying for justice in an assembled court (Job 30:20).

Matthew Poole's Commentary

I went, or, I walked hither and thither as I could. Or, I converse or appear among others.

Mourning without the sun; spending my days in mourning, without any sun-light or comfort; or so oppressed with sadness, that I did not care nor desire to see the light of the sun. Heb. black not by the sun. My very countenance is changed and become black, but not by the sun, which makes many other persons black, Song of Solomon 1:5,6; but by the force of my disease and deep melancholy, which ofttimes makes a man’s visage black and dismal. See Psalm 119:83 Lamentations 5:10. And this he repeats in plainer terms, Job 30:30, as an eminent token of his excessive grief and misery.

I stood up; either because my disease and pain made me weary of other postures; or that others might take notice of me, and be moved with pity towards me.

I cried with a loud and direful clamour, through great and sudden anguish.

In the congregation; where prudence and modesty taught me to forbear it, if extreme necessity and misery had not forced me to it.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

I went mourning without the sun,.... So overwhelmed with grief, that he refused to have any comfort from, or any advantage by the sun; hence Mr. Broughton renders it, "out of the sun"; he did not choose to walk in the sunshine, but out of it, to indulge his grief and sorrow the more; or he went in black attire, and wrapped and covered himself with it, that he might not see the sun, or receive any relief by it: or "I go black, but not by the sun" (q); his face and his skin were black, but not through the sun looking upon him and discolouring him, as in Sol 1:6; but through the force of his disease, which had changed his complexion, and made him as black as a Kedarene, or those that dwell in the tents of Kedar, Sol 1:5; and he also walked without the sun of righteousness arising on him, with healing in his wings, which was worst of all:

I stood up, and I cried in the congregation: either in the congregation of the saints met together for religious worship, where he cried unto God for help and deliverance, and for the light of his countenance, Job 30:20; or such was the extreme anguish of his soul, that when a multitude of people got about him to see him in his distressed condition, he could not contain himself, but burst out before them in crying and tears, though he knew it was unbecoming a man of his age and character; or he could not content himself to stay within doors and soothe his grief, but must go abroad and in public, and there expressed with strong cries and tears his miserable condition.

(q) "non propter solem", Vatablus; "non a sole", Junius & Tremellius, Drusius, Mercerus; "non ob solem", Piscator.

Geneva Study Bible

I went mourning {s} without the sun: I stood up, {t} and I cried in the congregation.

(s) Not delighting in any worldly thing, no not so much as in the use of the sun.

(t) Lamenting them that were in affliction and moving others to pity them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

28. I went mourning] Better perhaps, I go blackened, not by the sun. The reference is to his appearance from his disease: he is black, but his blackness is not due to the sun, comp. Song of Solomon 1:6.

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 28, 29. - I went mourning without the sun; rather, I go about blackened, but not by the sun. Grief and suffering, according to Oriental notions, blackened the face (see Lamentations 4:8; Lamentations 5:10; Psalm 119:83; and below, ver. 30). I stood up, and I cried in the congregation; rather, I stand up in the assembly and cry for help (see the Revised Version). Job feels this as the most pitiable feature in his ease. He is broken down; he can no longer endure. At first he could sit in silence for seven days (Job 2:13); now he is reduced to uttering complaints and lamentations. He is a brother, not to dragons, but to jackals. His laments are like the long melancholy cries that those animals emit during the silence of the night, so well known to Eastern travellers. He adds further that he is a companion, not to owls, but to ostriches; which, like jackals, have a melancholy cry (see Micah 1:8; and comp. Dr. Hooker's article in Smith's 'Dict. of the Bible,' vol. 2. p. 650). Job 30:28

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

28 I wandered about in mourning without the sun;

I rose in the assembly, I gave free course to my complaint.

29 I am become a brother of the jackals

And a companion of ostriches.

30 My skin having become black, peels off from me,

And my bones are parched with dryness.

31 My harp was turned to mourning,

And my pipe to tones of sorrow.

Several expositors (Umbr., Vaih., Hlgst.) understand קדר of the dirty-black skin of the leper, but contrary to the usage of the language, according to which, in similar utterances (Psalm 35:14; Psalm 38:7; Psalm 42:10; Psalm 43:2, comp. supra, Job 5:11), it rather denotes the dirty-black dress of mourners (comp. Arab. qḏḏr, conspurcare vestem); to understand it of the dirty-black skin as quasi sordida veste (Welte) is inadmissible, since this distortion of the skin which Job bewails in Job 30:30 would hardly be spoken of thus tautologically. קדר therefore means in the black of the שׂק, or mourning-linen, Job 16:15, by which, however, also the interpretation of בּלא חמּה, "without sunburn" (Ew., Hirz.), which has gained ground since Raschi's day (לא שׁשׁזפתני השׁמשׁ), is disposed of; for "one can perhaps say of the blackness of the skin that it does not proceed from the sun, but not of the blackness of mourning attire" (Hahn). קדר also refutes the reading בלא חמה in lxx Complut. (ἄνευ θυμοῦ),

(Note: Whereas Codd. Alex., Vat., and Sinait., ἄνευ φιμοῦ, which is correctly explained by κημοῦ in Zwingli's Aldine, but gives no sense.)

Syr., Jer. (sine furore), which ought to be understood of the deposition of the gall-pigment on the skin, and therefore of jaundice, which turns it (especially in tropical regions) not merely yellow, but a dark-brown. Hahn and a few others render בלא חמה correctly in the sense of בחשׁך, "without the sun having shone on him." Bereft of all his possessions, and finally also of his children, he wanders about in mourning (הלּך as Job 24:10; Psalm 38:7), and even the sun had clothed itself in black to him (which is what קדר השׁמשׁ means, Joel 2:10 and freq.); the celestial light, which otherwise brightened his path, Job 29:3, was become invisible. We must not forget that Job here reviews the whole chain of afflictions which have come upon him, so that by Job 30:28 we have not to think exclusively, and also not prominently, of the leprosy, since הלכתי indeed represents him as still able to move about freely.

In Job 30:28 the accentuation wavers between Dech, Munach, Silluk, according to which בּקּהל אשׁוּע belong together, which is favoured by the Dagesh in the Beth, and Tarcha, Munach, Silluk, according to which (because Munach, according to Psalter ii. 503, 2, is a transformation of Rebia mugrasch) קמתּי בּקּהל belong together. The latter mode of accentuation, according to which בקהל must be written without the Dag. instead of בּקהל (vid., Norzi), is the only correct one (because Dech cannot come in the last member of the sentence before Silluk), and is also more pleasing as to matter: I rose (and stood) in the assembly, crying for help, or more generally: wailing. The assembly is not to be thought of as an assembly of the people, or even tribunal (Ew.: "before the tribunal seeking a judge, with lamentations"), but as the public; for the thought that Job sought help against his unmerited sufferings before a human tribunal is absurd; and, moreover, the thought that he cried for help before an assembly of the people called together to take counsel and pronounce decisions is equally absurd. Welte, however, who interprets: I was as one who, before an assembled tribunal, etc., introduces a quasi of which there is no trace in the text. בּקּהל must therefore, without pressing it further, be taken in the sense of publice, before all the world (Hirz.: comp. בקהל, ἐν φανερῷ, Proverbs 26:26); אשׁוּע, however, is a circumstantial clause declaring the purpose (Ew. 337, b; comp. De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe ii. 357), as is frequently the case after קום, Job 16:8; Psalm 88:11; Psalm 102:14 : surrexi in publico ut lamentarer, or lamentaturus, or lamentando. In this lament, extorted by the most intense pain, which he cannot hold back, however many may surround him, he is become a brother of those תּנּים, jackals (canes aurei), whose dolorous howling produces dejection and shuddering in all who hear it, and a companion of בּנות יענה, whose shrill cry is varied by wailing tones of deep melancholy.

(Note: It is worth while to cite a passage from Shaw's Travels in Barbary, ii. 348 (transl.), here: "When the ostriches are running and fighting, they sometimes make a wild, hideous, hissing noise with their throats distended and beaks open; at another time, if they meet with a slight opposition, they have a clucking or cackling voice like our domestic fowls: they seem to rejoice and laugh at the terror of their adversary. During the loneliness of the night however, as if their voice had a totally different tone, they often set up a dolorous, hideous moan, which at one time resembles the roar of the lion, and at another is more like the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, especially the bull and cow. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies." In General Doumas' book on the Horse of the Sahara, I have read that the male ostrich (delı̂m), when it is killed, especially if its young ones are near, sends forth a dolorous note, wile the female (remda), on the other hand, does not utter a sound; and so, when the ostrich digs out its nest, one hears a languishing and dolorous tone all day long, and when it has laid its egg, its usual cry is again heard, only about three o'clock in the afternoon.)

The point of comparison is not the insensibility of the hearers (Sforno), but the fellowship of wailing and howling together with the accompanying idea of the desert in which it is heard, which is connected with the idea itself (comp. Micah 1:8).