Job 2
DOYLYJob 2:11
- — Eliphaz &c.] Teman was a city of Edom, Jer. xlix. 7, 20; Esek. xxv. 12, 13; Amos i. 11, 12. Shush was a district in the “east country” of Arabia Petrea, where Abraham’s sons by Keturah were settled, Gen. xxv. 2, 6. Naamah was a city of Edom, Josh. xv. 21, 41. Dr. Hales.
Job 2:12
- — and sprinkled dust upon their heads toward heaven.] This place would be more intelligible were it rendered, And threw dust through the air upon their heads; see Acts xxii. 23, where this custom is alluded to. Dr. Dwell.
Job 2:13
- So they sat down with him upon the ground seven days &c.] “Sitting on the ground” is an Oriental phrase, to express their passing the time in the deepest mourning: this, according to the Eastern manner, was for seven days; see Gen. i. 10. Heath.
Chap. III. The two first chapters of this book are written in prose. In the third chapter the poem opens with that kind of tragical distress, which is lofty in its conceptions, and highly figurative in its language; which labours for the strongest images, and most energetic words, to express its feelings, and to spread over all objects around it its own gloominess and horrour. A paroxysm of such violent grief vents itself in the following imprecations. The passion however subsides a little in the latter part of the speech, and flows in the soft complaining strain of elegy. This impotence of mind in Job, so inconsistent with his former firmness, may probably be accounted for in part from the influence of his disease: to which must be added, his not having obtained any abatement of his affliction, notwithstanding his submission; and his suspicion, from the silence of his friends, that he was to expect no consolation from them. Scott.
Those who have been affected with Job’s disorder, are said to have been weary of life, and to have wished for nothing so much as death: it made them impatient, passionate, discontented with every thing, wild, and desperate. Michaelis.
Ver. 1. — cursed his day.] Job wishes he had never been born, or, at least, that he had died immediately after his birth; and describes the happiness of the dead. He then ventures to ask, why God has given existence to the miserable, and why He does not rather put an end to their unhappiness by death, which they long for. Michaelis.
Job is neither rigidly to be taxed with blasphemy or # CHAP. III.