translation_id: net-engnet

book_id: JOB

label: NET study note

text: The action is a sign of mockery (see Ps 22:7 [8]; Isa 37:22 ; Matt 27:39 ).


text: The figure used now is that of a wild beast. God’s affliction of Job is compared to the attack of such an animal. Cf. Amos 1:11 .


text: Job does not refer here to his friends, but more likely to the wicked men who set about to destroy him and his possessions, or to the rabble in ch. .


text: The language is hyperbolic; Job is saying that the sackcloth he has put on in his lamentable state is now stuck to his skin as if he had stitched it into the skin. It is now a habitual garment that he never takes off.


text: A. B. Davidson ( Job , 122) notes that spontaneous and repeated weeping is one of the symptoms of elephantiasis.


text: See Job 3:5 . Just as joy brings light and life to the eyes, sorrow and suffering bring darkness. The “eyelids” here would be synecdoche, reflecting the whole facial expression as sad and sullen.


text: Job knows that he will die, and that his death, signified here by blood on the ground, will cry out for vindication.


text: The witness in heaven must be God, to whom the cries and prayers come. Job’s dilemma is serious, but common to the human experience: the hostility of God toward him is baffling, but he is conscious of his innocence and can call on God to be his witness.