Job 19:20

19:8-22 How doleful are Job's complaints! What is the fire of hell but the wrath of God! Seared consciences will feel it hereafter, but do not fear it now: enlightened consciences fear it now, but shall not feel it hereafter. It is a very common mistake to think that those whom God afflicts he treats as his enemies. Every creature is that to us which God makes it to be; yet this does not excuse Job's relations and friends. How uncertain is the friendship of men! but if God be our Friend, he will not fail us in time of need. What little reason we have to indulge the body, which, after all our care, is consumed by diseases it has in itself. Job recommends himself to the compassion of his friends, and justly blames their harshness. It is very distressing to one who loves God, to be bereaved at once of outward comfort and of inward consolation; yet if this, and more, come upon a believer, it does not weaken the proof of his being a child of God and heir of glory.

My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh,.... Or, "as to my flesh" (o), as Mr. Broughton and others render the words; as his bones used to stick to his flesh, and were covered with it, now his flesh being consumed and wasted away with his disease, they stuck to his skin, and were seen through it; he was reduced to skin and bone, and was a mere skeleton, what with the force of his bodily disorder, and the grief of his mind through the treatment he met with from God and men, see Lamentations 4:8 ; and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth; meaning not, as some understand it, his lips, which covered his teeth; for those cannot be properly called the skin of them; rather the fine polish of the teeth, which fortifies them against the hurt and damage they would receive by what is ate and drank; though it seems best to interpret it of the skin of the gums, in which the teeth are set; and the sense is, that Job had escaped with his life, but not with a whole skin, his skin was broken all over him, with the sores and ulcers upon him, see Job 7:5; only the skin of his teeth was preserved, and so Mr.

(20 ) My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh in one indistinguishable mass, and I have escaped with the skin of my teeth, because the teeth have no skin, or, as others explain, because the teeth have fallen out. This expression, which is by no means clear in the context, has passed into a proverb expressive of a very narrow escape—a meaning which can only by inference be obtained from this place in Job.

Job 19:20 . My bone — Or, bones, the singular collectively being put for the plural: cleaveth to my skin — Namely, immediately, the flesh next to the skin being consumed. The sense is, Afflictions have so wasted me, that I am little more than skin and bone. And to my flesh — Or, As to my flesh; as closely as it does to those remainders of my flesh, which are left in my inward parts. And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth — I am scarcely free from sores in any part of my skin, except that of my gums, which holdeth and covereth the roots of my teeth. Schultens says, that “it seems to be a proverbial expression, for those who lie beaten and covered with wounds from head to foot, and whose mouths also are broken with blows, so that, being half dead, they are scarcely able to breathe.” Heath and Le Clerc render the verse, My bones pierce through my skin, and my flesh and my teeth slip out from my gums.

20 . The desertion and loathing of mankind is universal, and to this is added his exhausted state from disease. My bone cleaveth to my skin ] The words describe his emaciated condition, cf. Lamentations 4:8 ; Psalm 102:5 , My bones cleave to my skin (marg. flesh); Psalm 22:17 , I may tell (count) all my bones. escaped with the skin of my teeth ] i. e. with nothing else. The “skin of my teeth” is usually held to mean the gums, which Job represents as still sound, otherwise he would be unable to speak; the last stage of his disease has not yet been reached. In Job 19:17 however he referred to his fetid breath, and in such distempers the mouth and throat are usually rapidly affected. Besides, such a sense is prosaic and flat. The phrase is probably proverbial; the meaning of Job being that he is wholly fallen a prey to his disease, cf. Amos 3:12 .

Verse 20. - My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh . Here the third source of Job's misery is brought forward - his painful and incurable disease. This has brought him to such a pitch of emaciation that his bones seem to adhere to the tightened skin, and the scanty and shrunken muscles, that cover them (comp. Job 33:21 and Lamentations 4:8 ). Such emaciation of the general frame is quite compatible with the unsightly swelling of certain parts of the body which characterizes elephantiasis . And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth . The expression is, no doubt, proverbial, and signifies "barely escaped;" but its origin is obscure. Job 19:20

20. Extreme meagerness. The bone seemed to stick in the skin, being seen through it, owing to the flesh drying up and falling away from the bone. The Margin, "as to my flesh," makes this sense clearer. The English Version, however, expresses the same: "And to my flesh," namely, which has fallen away from the bone, instead of firmly covering it. skin of my teeth—proverbial. I have escaped with bare life; I am whole only with the skin of my teeth; that is, my gums alone are whole, the rest of the skin of my body is broken with sores (Job 7:5; Ps 102:5). Satan left Job his speech, in hope that he might therewith curse God.

My bone, i.e. my bones; the singular collectively put for the plural, as Job 2:5 Proverbs 15:30 . Cleaveth to my skin, to wit, immediately, the fat and flesh next to the skin being consumed. The sense is, I am worn to skin and bone: see the same phrase Psalm 102:5 . And to my flesh; or, as (the particle and being often so used, as hath been observed before) to my flesh , i.e. either as formerly it clave to my flesh, or as near and as closely as it doth to these remainders of flesh which are left in my inward parts. I am escaped with the skin of my teeth; I am scarce sound and whole and free from sores in any part of my skin, except that of my jaws, which holdeth and covereth the roots of my teeth. This being, as divers observe, the devil’s policy, to leave his mouth untouched, that he might more freely express his mind, and vent his blasphemies against God, which he supposed sharp pain would force him to do, and which he knew would be of pernicious consequence not only to Job, but to others also.

My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh - The meaning of this probably is, "my skin and flesh are dried up so that the bone seems adhere to the skin, and so tht the form of the bone becomes visible." It is designed to denote a state of great emaciation, and describes an effect which we often see. And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth - A very difficult expression, and which has greatly perplexed commentators, and on whose meaning they are by no means agreed. Dr. Good renders it, "and in the skin of my teeth am I dissolved;" but what that means is as difficult of explanation as the original. Noyes, "and I have scarcely escaped with the skin of my teeth." Herde, (as translated by Marsh,) "and scarcely the skin in my teeth have I brought away as a spoil." He says that "the figure is taken from the prey which wild beasts carry in their teeth; his skin is his poor and wretched body, which alone he had escaped with. His friends are represented as carnivorous animals which gnaw upon his skin, upon the poor remnant of life;" but the Hebrew will not bear this construction. Poole observes, quaintly enough, that it means, "I am scarcely sound and whole and free from sores in any part of my skin, except that of my jaws, which holdeth and covereth the roots of my teeth.

This being, as divers observe, the devil's policy, to leave his mouth untouched, that be might more freely express his mind, and vent his blasphemies against God, which he supposed sharp pain would force him to do." Schultens has mentioned four different interpretations given to the phrase, none of which seems to be perfectly satisfactory. They are the following: (1) That it means that the skin "about" the teeth alone was preserved, or the gums and the lips, so that he had the power of speaking, though every other part was wasted away, and this exposition is given, accompanied with the suggestion that his faculty of speech was preserved entire by Satan, in order that he might be "able" to utter the language of complaint and blasphemy against God. (2) That he was emaciated and exhausted completely, "except" the skin about his teeth, that is, his lips, and that by them he was kept alive; that if it were not for them he could not breathe, but must soon expire. (3) That the teeth themselves had fallen out by the force of disease, and that nothing was left but the gums. This opinion Schultens himself adopts. The image, be says, is taken from pugilists, whose teeth are knocked out by each other; and the meaning he supposes to be, that Job had been treated by his disease in the same manner.