Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth - Noyes renders this, "And I, like an abandoned thing, shall waste away." Dr. Good translates it, "Well may he dissolve as corrupttion." Rosenmuller supposes that Job refers to himself by the word ּ hû' - he, and that having spoken of himself in the previous verses, he now changes the mode of speech, and speaks in the third person. In illustration of this, he refers to a passage in Euripides, "Alcestes," verse 690. The Vulgate renders it in the first person, "Qui quasi putredo consumendus sum." The design seems to be, to represent himself as an object not worthy such consent surveillance on the part of God. God set his mark upon him; watched him with a close vigilance and a steady eye - and yet he was watching one who was turning fast to corruption, and who would soon be gone. He regarded it as unworthy of God, to be so attentive in watching over so worthless an object. This is closely connected with the following chapter, and there should have been no interruption here. The allusion to himself as feeble and decaying, leads him into the beautiful description in the following chapter of the state of man in general. The connection is something like this: - "I am afflicted and tried in various ways. My feet are in the stocks; my way is hedged up. I am weak, frail, and dying. But so it is with man universally. My condition is like that of the man at large, for
"Man, the offspring of a woman,
Is short-lived, and is full of trouble."
As a rotten thing, - ke râqâb . The word râqab means rottenness, or caries of bones; Proverbs 12:4; Proverbs 14:30; Hosea 5:12. Here it means anything that is going to decay, and the comparison is that of man to anything that is thus constantly decaying, and that will soon be wholly gone.
Consumeth. - Or rather "decays," yı̂bâlâh . The word bâlâh is applied to that which falls away or decays, which is worn out and waxes old - as a garment; Deuteronomy 8:4; Isaiah 50:9; Isaiah 51:6.
As a garment that is moth-eaten - " As a garment the moth consumes it." Hebrew On the word moth, and the sentiment here expressed, see the notes at Job 4:19.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Job 13:28:
Job 2:7
Job 9:9
Job 14:1
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