Job 30:31

My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(31) My harp also is turned to mourning.—Or, Therefore is my harp turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of them that weep. The musical instruments here named, like those of Genesis 4:21, are respectively the stringed and wind instruments.

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

My harp also is turned to mourning - What formerly gave cheerful sounds, now gives only notes of plaintiveness and lamentation. The harp was probably an instrument originally designed to give sounds of joy. For a description of it, see the notes at Isaiah 5:12.

And my organ - The form of what is here called the organ, is not certainly known. The word עגב ‛ûgâb is doubtless from עגב ‛âgab, "to breathe, to blow"; and most probably the instrument hero intended was the pipe. For a description of it, see the notes at Isaiah 5:12. This instrument, also, was played, as would appear, on joyous occasions, but Job now says that it was turned to grief. All that had been joyous with him had fled. His honor was taken away; his friends were gone; they who had treated him with reverence now stood at a distance, or treated him with contempt; his health was departed, and his former appearance, indicating a station of affluence, was changed for the dark complexion produced by disease, and the instruments of joyousness now gave forth only notes of sorrow.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

31. organ—rather, "pipe" (Job 21:12). "My joy is turned into the voice of weeping" (La 5:15). These instruments are properly appropriated to joy (Isa 30:29, 32), which makes their use now in sorrow the sadder by contrast.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

Either,

1. I have now nothing but bitter lamentations instead of my former expressions of joy. Or,

2. Those very things which formerly were occasions and instruments of my delight, do now renew and aggravate my sorrows.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My harp also is turned to mourning,.... Which he used, as David, either in religious worship, expressing praise to God thereby, or for his recreation in an innocent way; but now it was laid aside, and, instead of it, nothing was heard from him, or in his house, but the voice of mourning:

and my organ into the voice of them that weep; another instrument of music, which had its name from the pleasantness of its sound, and was of early use, being first invented by Jubal, Genesis 4:21; but not that we now so call, which is of late invention: those instruments which Job might have and use, both in a civil and in a religious way, were now, through afflictions, become useless to him, and neglected by him; or these expressions in general may signify, that, instead of mirth and joy he was wont to have, there were nothing now to be heard but lamentation and woe; see Lamentations 5:15.

Geneva Study Bible

My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

31. The joyous music of his former life is turned into wailing. The “organ” is the pipe, ch. Job 21:12; comp. Lamentations 5:15.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 31. - My harp also is turned to mourning. The result of all is that Job's harp is laid aside, either literally or figuratively. Its music is replaced by the sound of mourning (see vers. 28, 29). And my organ (or rather, my pipe) into the voice of them that weep. The pipe also is no longer sounded in his presence; he hears only the voice of weeping and lamentation. Thus appropriately ends the long dirge in which he has bewailed his miserable fare.



Job 30:31

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

Now for the first time he speaks of his disfigurement by leprosy in particular: my skin (עורי, masc., as it is also used in Job 19:26, only apparently as fem.) is become black (nigruit) from me, i.e., being become black, has peeled from me, and my bones (עצמי, construed as fem. like Job 19:20; Psalm 102:6) are consumed, or put in a glow (חרה, Milel, from חרר, as Ezekiel 24:11) by a parching heat. Thus, then, his harp became mournful, and his pipe (ועגבי with ג raphatum) the cry of the weepers; the cheerful music (comp. Job 21:12) has been turned into gloomy weeping and sobbing (comp. Lamentations 5:15). Thus the second part of the monologue closes. It is somewhat lengthened and tedious; it is Job's last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job 30:31, die away so melodiously! One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto, flebile.