1112 matching verse commentaries
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
For want and famine [they were] solitary,.... The Targum interprets it, without children; but then this cannot be understood of the fathers; rather through famine and want they were reduced to the utmost extremity, and were as destitute of food as a rock, or hard flint, from whence nothing is to be had, as the word signifies, see Job 3:7; fleeing...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Who cut up mallows by the bushes,.... Which with the Troglodytes were of a vast size (r); or rather "upon the bush" (s) or "tree"; and therefore cannot mean what we call mallows, which are herbs on the ground, and grow not on trees or bushes; and, besides, are not for food, but rather for medicine: though Plutarch (t) says they, were the food of...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They were driven from among [men],.... From towns and cities, and all civil society, as unfit to be among them; not for any good, it may be observed, but for crimes that they had done, like our felons, and transported persons: they cried after them as [after] a thief; as they were driven and run along, the people called after them, saying, there...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys,.... Or "brooks" (l), in such hollow places as were made by floods and streams of waters: [in] caves of the earth, and [in] the rocks; where they betook themselves for fear of men, and through shame, being naked and miserable not fit to be seen: Job has respect to the Horites and Troglodytes, his neighbours,...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Among the bushes they brayed,.... Like wild asses; so Sephorno, to which wicked men are fitly compared, Job 11:12; or they "cried", or "groaned" (m), and "moaned" among the bushes, where they lay lurking; either they groaned through cold, or want of food; for the wild ass brays not but when in want, Job 6:5; under the nettles they were gathered...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
[They were] children of fools,.... Their parents were fools, or they themselves were such; foolish children, or foolish men, were they that derided Job; and their derision of him was a proof of it: the meaning is not that they were idiots, or quite destitute of reason and natural knowledge, but that they were men of slender capacities; they were...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And now am I their song,.... The subject of their song, of whom they sung ballads about the streets, in public places, and at their festivals and merriments, as Christ the antitype of Job was the song of the drunkard, Psalms 69:12; see Lamentations 3:14; or the meaning may be, they rejoiced in his afflictions and calamities, and made themselves...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They abhor me,.... As it is no wonder they should, since his inward and most intimate friends did, Job 19:19; they abhorred him, not for any evil in him; Job was ready enough to abhor that himself, and himself for it, as he did when sensible of it, Job 42:6; but for the good that was in him, spoken or done by him; which carried in it a reproof to...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Because he hath loosed my cord,.... Not his silver cord, for then he must have died immediately, Ecclesiastes 12:6; though it may be understood of the loosening of his nerves through the force of his disease, and the afflictions he endured from God and man, see Job 30:17; or rather of the shattered state and condition of his family and substance;...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth,.... "Springeth", as Mr. Broughton translates the word; such as were just sprung into being, as it were; the word (n) seems to have the signification of young birds that are not fledged; have not got their feathers on them, but are just got out of the shell, as it were; and such were these young men: some...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They mar my path,.... Hindered him in the exercise of religious duties; would not suffer him to attend the ways and worship of God, or to walk in the paths of holiness and righteousness; or they reproached his holy walk and conversation, and treated it with contempt, and triumphed over religion and godliness: they set forward my calamity; added...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters],.... As when a wide breach is made in the banks of a river, or of the sea, the waters rush through in great abundance, with great rapidity and swiftness; and with a force irresistible; and in like manner did Job's enemies rush in upon him in great numbers, overwhelming him in an instant, and he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Terrors are turned upon me,.... Not the terrors of a guilty conscience, for Job had a clear one, and held fast his integrity; nor the terrors of a cursing and condemning law, for he knew he was justified by his living Redeemer, and his sins forgiven for his sake; nor the terrors of death, for that he had made familiar to him, and greatly desired...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
And now my soul is poured out upon me,.... Either in prayer to God for help and deliverance; or rather he was dissolved as it were in floods of tears, because of his distress and anguish; or his spirits were sunk, his strength and courage failed, and his heart melted, and was poured out like water; yea, his soul was pouring out unto death, and he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
My bones are pierced in me in the night season,.... Such was the force of his disease, that it pierced and penetrated even into his bones, and the marrow of them; and such the pain that he endured in the muscles and tendons about them, and especially in the joints of them, that it was as if all his bones were piercing and breaking to pieces; he...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
By the great force [of my disease] is my garment changed,.... Either the colour of it, through the purulent matter from his ulcers running down upon it, or penetrating through it; or by reason of it he was obliged to shift himself, and to have a change of raiment very frequently; or the supplement, "of my disease", may be left out, and the sense...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
He hath cast me into the mire,.... As Jeremiah was literally; here it is to be understood in a figurative sense; not of the mire of sin, into which God casts none, men fall into it of themselves, but of the mire of affliction and calamity; see Psalms 40:2; and which Job here ascribes to God; and whereby he was in as mean, abject, and contemptible...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me,.... Which added greatly to his affliction, that though he cried to the Lord for help and deliverance, yet he turned a deaf ear to him; and though he heard him, as undoubtedly he did, he did not answer him immediately; at least not in the way in which he desired and expected he would: crying is expressive...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Thou art become cruel to me,.... Or "turned", or "changed" (g), to be cruel to me. Job suggests that God had been kind and gracious to him, both in a way of providence, and in showing special love and favour to him, in a very distinguishing manner; but now he intimates his affections were changed and altered, and these were alienated from him, and...
John Gill - Exposition - John Gill
Thou liftest me up to the wind,.... Of affliction and adversity, to be carried up with it, and tossed about by it, as chaff or stubble, or a dry leaf, being no more able to stand up against it than such things are to oppose the wind; though some interpret this of God's lifting him up in his state of prosperity, in which he was very visible and...