Job 2:7

So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord,.... With leave and license, with power and authority, as the Targum; having got his commission enlarged, on a fresh grant, to do more mischief to

So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. Sore boils - malignant boils.

Like those inflicted upon the Egyptians, which are expressed by the same word, and threatened to apostate Israelites, , whereby he was made loathsome to himself and to his nearest relations, ,19, and a visible monument of Divine displeasure, and filled with tiring and consuming pains in his body, and no less torment and anguish in his mind. From the sole of his foot unto his crown; in all the outward parts of his body. His tongue he spared, that it might be capable of venting those blasphemies against God which he expected and desired.

Job 2:7 So went Satan forth from the presence of the LORD, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown.Ver. 7. So went Satan forth from the presence of the Lord] The like is said of Cain, when he meditated the murder of his innocent brother, and went to put it in practice. Malefactors amongst us, we know, are indicted in this form: For that thou, not having God before thine eyes, but moved by the instigation of the devil, didst - And smote Job] He pretended to touch him only, Job 2:5, but let every good man bless himself out of Satan’ s bloody fingers; his iron entered into Joseph’ s soul, his stroke was very vehement upon Job’ s body, making return pro vulnere corpus: for to wound his body, for he smote Job With sore boils] Hot boiling boils, such as the sorcerers of Egypt were smitten with, Exodus 9:10, and afterwards the limbs of Antichrist, Revelation 16:2. The Indian scab some say it was, or the French disease. A most filthy and odious ulcer it appeareth to have been, sore and mattory (why else should he so scrape himself with a potsherd, as Job 2:8), such as whose sharp and pricking humour penetrated the very bone, and put him to exquisite pain, being worse to him than Augustus’ s tres vomicae tria carcinomata, above mentioned, or Philip II of Spain’ s loathsome and lousy disease, whereof he died A.D. 1598. Carolus Scribanius thus describeth it (Instit. Princip. cap. 20), This potent prince for a long time endured ulcerum magnitudinem, multitudinem, acerbitatem, faetorem, &c., i.e. many great, sharp, and stinking ulcers, which fastened him to his bed, as to a cross, for a whole year before his death; besides six years torture by the gout, a hectic fever, with a double tertian for two years feeding upon his bowels and the very marrow of his bones; besides a most grievous flux for twenty two days, a continual nauseousness of his stomach, an unsatisfiable thirst, a continual pain of his head and eyes, abundance of matter working out of his ulcers, quae binas in dies scutellas divite paedore impleret, which in two short days, he spent is wealth, besides a most loathsome stench that took away his sleep, &c,: thus he. Think the same and worse of Job, the object of Satan’ s utmost malice, and that for a whole year, say the Hebrews; for seven whole years, saith Suidas. Chrysostom compareth him with Lazarus, and maketh him to be in a far worse condition. Pineda showeth that his sufferings were a great deal worse than those of the wicked Egyptians under all their ten plagues; this was a boil, an evil boil, saith the text, one of the worst sort, the most painful and malignant that might be, and this all over his body.

(7) Sore boils.—Supposed to be Elephantiasis, an extreme form of leprosy, in which the skin becomes clotted and hard like an elephant’s, with painful cracks and sores underneath.

Verse 7. Sore boils] בשחין רע bischin ra, "with an evil inflammation." What this diabolical disorder was, interpreters are not agreed. Some think it was the leprosy, and this is the reason why he dwelt by himself, and had his habitation in an unclean place, without the city, (Septuagint, εξωτηςπωλεως,) or in the open air: and the reason why his friends beheld him afar off, Job 2:12, was because they knew that the disorder was infectious. His scraping himself with a potsherd indicates a disease accompanied with intolerable itching, one of the characteristics of the smallpox. Query, Was it not this disorder? And in order to save his life (for that he had in especial command) did not Satan himself direct him to the cool regimen, without which, humanly speaking, the disease must have proved fatal? In the elephantiasis and leprosy there is, properly speaking, no boil or detached inflammation, or swelling, but one uniform disordered state of the whole surface, so that the whole body is covered with loathsome scales, and the skin appears like that of the elephant, thick and wrinkled, from which appearance the disorder has its name. In the smallpox it is different; each pock or pustule is a separate inflammation, tending to suppuration; and during this process, the fever is in general very high, and the anguish and distress of the patient intolerable. When the suppuration is pretty far advanced, the itching is extreme; and the hands are often obliged to be confined to prevent the patient from literally tearing his own flesh.

7. with sore boils] It is generally agreed that the disease of Job was the leprosy called Elephantiasis, so named because the swollen limbs and the black and corrugated skin of those afflicted by it resemble those of the elephant. It is said by ancient authors, as Pliny, to be peculiar to Egypt, but it is found in other hot countries such as the Hijâz, and even in northern climates as Norway. It is said to attack the limbs first, breaking out below the knees and gradually spreading over the whole body. We are probably to consider, however, that Job was smitten “from the sole of his foot unto his crown” all at once. Full details of its appearance and the sensations of those affected may be gathered from the Book, though, being poetically coloured, they will hardly bear to be read like a page from a handbook of Pathology. The ulcers were accompanied by an itching so intolerable that a piece of potsherd was taken to scrape the sores and remove the feculent discharge, Job 2:8. The form and countenance were so disfigured by the disease that the sufferer’s friends could not recognise him, Job 2:12. The ulcers seized the whole body both without and inwardly, Job 19:20, making the breath fetid, and emitting a loathsome smell that drove every one from the sufferer’s presence, Job 19:17, and made him seek refuge outside the village upon the heap of ashes, Job 2:8. The sores, which bred worms, Job 7:5, alternately closed, having the appearance of clods of earth, and opened and ran, so that the body was alternately swollen and emaciated, Job 16:8. The patient was haunted with horrible dreams, Job 7:14, and unearthly terrors, Job 3:25, and harassed by a sensation of choking, Job 7:15, which made his nights restless and frightful, Job 7:4, as his incessant pains made his days weary, Job 7:1-4. His bones were filled with gnawing pains, as if a fire burned in them, Job 30:30, or as if his limbs were tortured in the stocks, Job 13:27, or wrenched off, Job 30:17. He was helpless, and his futile attempts to rise from the ground provoked the merriment of the children who played about the heap where he lay, Job 19:18. The disease was held incurable, though the patient might linger many years, and his hopelessness of recovery made him long for death, Job 3:20 and often. Delitzsch and Dillmann refer to various treatises on the subject, in particular, to one published at the cost of the Norwegian Government, Danielsen et Boeck, Traité de la Spédalskhed ou Éléphantiasis des Grecs (with coloured plates), Paris, 1848.

So went Satan forth - Job 1:12. And smote Job with sore boils - The English word boil denotes the well-known turnout upon the flesh, accompanied with severe inflammation; a sore angry swelling.

7. Sore boils — The word ωׁ ?ηιο, translated boils, in the verbal form signifies to be hot. Dr.