Job - 30:30



30 My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

Verse In-Depth

Explanation and meaning of Job 30:30.

Differing Translations

Compare verses for better understanding.
My skin is black, and falleth from me, And my bones are burned with heat.
My skin is become black upon me, and my bones are dried up with heat.
My skin is become black and falleth off me, and my bones are parched with heat.
My skin hath been black upon me, And my bone hath burned from heat,
My skin is black and dropping off me; and my bones are burning with the heat of my disease.
My skin has become blackened over me, and my bones have dried up because of the heat.

*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.


Historical Commentaries

Scholarly Analysis and Interpretation.

My skin is black upon me; - see Job 30:28. It had become black by the force of the disease.
My bones are burnt with heat - The bones, in the Scriptures, are often represented as the seat of pain. The disease of Job seems to have pervaded the whole body. If it was the elephantiasis (see the notes at Job 2:7-8), these effects would be naturally produced.

My skin is black - By continual exposure to the open air, and parching influence of the sun.
My bones are burned with heat - A strong expression, to point out the raging fever that was continually preying upon his vitals.

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with (x) heat.
(x) With the heat of affliction.

My skin is black upon me,.... Either through deep melancholy, as may be observed in persons of such a disposition, through grief and trouble; or rather through the force of his disease, the burning ulcers and black scabs with which he was covered, as the Jews were through famine, in their captivity, Lamentations 4:8;
and my bones are burnt with heat; with the heat of a burning fever; which not only made his inwards boil, but reached to his bones, and dried up the marrow of them. Galen says (r) that bones may become so dry as to be crumbled into sand: the Syriac version is
"my bones are burnt as his who is in a hot wind;''
such as were common in the eastern countries, which killed men at once, and they became as black as a coal (s).
(r) Apud Bartholin. de Cruce, sect. 12. p. 107. (s) See Gill on Job 27:21.

upon me--rather, as in Job 30:17 (see on Job 30:17), "my skin is black (and falls away) from me."
my bones-- (Job 19:20; Psalm 102:5).

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.

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