_JOB DETESTS THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH; WISHES THAT HE HAD NEVER BEEN BORN, AND COMPLAINS THAT THE THING WHICH HE FEARED IS COME UPON HIM._ _Before Christ 1645._ _JOB 3:1. AFTER THIS OPENED JOB HIS MOUTH_— The days of mourning being now over, and no hopes appearing of Job's amendment, but his afflicti... [ Continue Reading ]
AND THE NIGHT IN WHICH IT WAS SAID, &C.— _And the night which said, See, a man-child is born;_ Heath: who observes from Schultens, that the bearing of a son was a matter of great consequence among the Arabians; the form of their salutation to a newly-married woman being, frequently, "May you live ha... [ Continue Reading ]
LET DARKNESS—STAIN IT, &C.— _Let darkness—claim it; let thick night involve it._ Houbigant; who observes well, that there enters nothing of pollution into the idea of darkness.... [ Continue Reading ]
LET THAT NIGHT BE SOLITARY— _Be full of grief._ Houbigant; which is the proper contrast to the following clause; for we here observe, once for all, that the poetry of Job is of the same kind with that of the preceding pieces in the Old Testament, in which, as we have before remarked, the latter clau... [ Continue Reading ]
CURSE THE DAY, WHO ARE READY TO RAISE UP THEIR MOURNING— Houbigant renders it, _May those curse it, who dread the day, who are ready to rouze the Leviathan._ The word כבה _kabah_ rendered _curse,_ says Heath, hath in the Arabic the signification of _conceiving_ or _exciting terror;_ and, being trans... [ Continue Reading ]
WHY DIED I NOT FROM THE WOMB?— The LXX render it, _in the womb._ See Jeremiah 20:17 and Noldius, p. 153. The _breasts that I should suck,_ in the next verse, would be rendered more properly, _the breasts which I have sucked._... [ Continue Reading ]
WHICH BUILT DESOLATE PLACES— The Hebrew word חרבות _charaboth_ rendered _desolate places,_ comes from an Arabic root, denoting buildings of the pompous kind; and so may signify apartments of great elegance, or the place where a monarch sits apart from the rest. This, when applied to a dead king, wil... [ Continue Reading ]
THE WEARY BE AT REST— The Hebrew here כח יגיעי _yegiiai koach_ signifies, _The toils of power;_ and these toils of the great are put in opposition to those of the slave, the meanest condition. The verse may be rendered, _There the wicked cease to be a terror, and there the toils of power are in repo... [ Continue Reading ]
WHICH LONG FOR DEATH— _Who call aloud for death._ Heath.... [ Continue Reading ]
WHY IS LIGHT GIVEN TO A MAN, &C.— There is nothing for _why is light given,_ in the original. Houbigant supposes it repeated from the 20th verse; and he renders the present, _Why, to that man, whose way is dark, and intercepted against him from heaven?_ But Heath, after Schultens, renders it thus: _... [ Continue Reading ]
FOR MY SIGHING COMETH BEFORE I EAT— _My groaning cometh like my daily bread._ Heath. _In presence of my meat,_ or _at my meals,_ says Peters. _And my roarings are poured out like the waters; i.e._ which I then drink. After which it immediately follows: _For the fear which I feared is come upon me._... [ Continue Reading ]