Job 15:27

Job 15:27 Because he covereth his face with his fatness, and maketh collops of fat on [his] flanks.

Ver. 27. Because he covereth his face with his fatness] This is given in as one chief cause of his insolence; he is a belly god, he maketh plaits upon the paunch, so Broughton rendereth it; he hath fattened his guts, so Calvin; he maketh it his business to pamper his body; his heart also is as fat as grease, Psa 119:70. Bene curavit cutem suam in hoc mundo He takes good care of his skin in this world. (Vat.). He is waxen fat, that is, prosperity proud, and kicketh, Deu 32:15. Pride and fulness of bread were Sodom’s twin sins, Eze 16:49. When people are provender pricked, as we call it, they easily turn the grace of God into lasciviousness, Jdg 1:4, and that fulness breeds forgetfulness; as the fed hawk soon forgets his master, and the moon at fullest gets farthest off the sun. Sensualists who love feasts, Jdg 5:10, are void of the Spirit, Jdg 1:19. A full belly maketh a foul heart. The rankest weeds grow out of the fattest soil; and those that make their gut a gulf, well, they may have collops in their flanks, but they have leanness in their souls; indeed, they have (as swine) their souls for salt only, to keep their bodies from putrefying.

And maketh collops of fat on his flanks] Heb. And maketh mouths, that is, wrinkles, upon his flanks. He is active about it, and makes it his business to make provision for the flesh, Rom 13:14. He labours "for the meat that perisheth," Joh 6:27. He lives to eat, and laughs himself fat, till his heart, now hardened for the deceitfulness of his sin, becomes as insensible as Dionysius’, the Heracleot, who felt not when men thrust needles into his fat belly; or those bears in Pliny, that could not be stirred with the sharpest prickles.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job 15:27. He covereth his face with his fatness — This is mentioned as the reason of his insolent carriage toward God. because he was fat, rich, potent, and successful, as that expression signifies, Deu 32:15; Psa 78:31; Jer 46:21. His great prosperity made him proud and secure, and regardless of God and men. Maketh collops of fat on his flanks — His only care is to pamper and please himself, and satisfy his own lusts, and in defence and pursuance of them he contends with God.

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

27. Maketh collops of fat on his flanks — Literally, he maketh (gathereth) fat upon his loins. Job_15:27-28 contain the second reason for the destiny of the wicked, “his contentment on the ruin of another’s prosperity.” — Delitzsch. The misery of others does not trouble him, he grows fat in its midst. The words are rank with the corruption of human nature. The Greeks had a word, επιχαιρεκακια, (ARISTOTLE, Ethics, 2:7, 15,) which appears also in the German, schadenfreude, signifying the joy which man feels in the sufferings of others. The text sets before us the anger of Heaven at the contemplation of a self-complacent, bloated sinner, “the fatness” upon whose “face” has been made out of the destruction of others — a pampered human spider, surrounded by his gray web, lined with the refuse of many a gory feast. Isa_5:8; Hab_2:5; Hab_2:12. The two rich men of whom Christ speaks will recur to the reader. (Luk_12:18; Luk_16:19.)

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

That is, he was so puffed up with great prosperity and abundance of all things, that he forgat God: noting, that Job in his felicity had not the true fear of God.

Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain. Text via Bolls.life.

The well-nourished body of the rebel is the sign of his prosperity.

collops--masses of fat. He pampers and fattens himself with sensual indulgences; hence his rebellion against God (Deu 32:15; Sa1 2:29).

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 27. Because he covereth his face] He has lived in luxury and excess; and like a man overloaded with flesh, he cannot defend himself against the strong gripe of his adversary.

The Arabic, for maketh collops of fat on his flanks, has [Arabic] He lays the Pleiades upon the Hyades, or, He places Surreea upon aiyuk, a proverbial expression for, His ambition is boundless; He aspires as high as heaven; His head touches the stars; or, is like the giants of old, who were fabled to have attempted to scale heaven by placing one high mountain upon another: -

Ter sunt conati imponere Pelio Ossam

Scilicet, atque Ossae frondosum involvere Olympum

Ter Pater extructos disjecit fulmine montes.

VIRG. Geor. i., ver. 281.

"With mountains piled on mountains, thrice they strove

To scale the steepy battlements of Jove;

And thrice his lightning and red thunder play'd,

And their demolished works in ruins laid."

DRYDEN.

To the lust of power and the schemes of ambition there are no bounds; but see the end of such persons: the haughty spirit precedes a fall; their palaces become desolate; and their heaven is reduced to a chaos.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

27. he covereth] Rather, he covered; and similarly, he made collops. The words express the idea of falling into a brutish fleshliness, which causes insensibility to all that is spiritual and resistance of it, cf. Deu_32:15; Psa_73:7.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

And he dwelleth in desolate cities,.... This is either a continuation of the account of the wicked man's prosperity, which makes him haughty; such is his might and power, that he destroys cities and palaces, built and enjoyed by others, and then out of the ruins of them builds greater cities and more noble palaces, to perpetuate his name to posterity; which sense agrees with Job 3:14; and with the Targum,

"and he makes tabernacles in desert cities, that he may dwelt in houses which were not inhabited;''

and so Ben Gersom: and hence because of his success among men, and the grandeur he lives in, his heart is lifted up, and his hand is stretched out against God; or else this may express the sinful course of life such a man lives, who chooses to dwell in desolate places, and deserts, to do harm to others, to seize upon travellers as they pass by, and rob and plunder them of their substance, sitting and waiting for them in such places, as the Arabians in the wilderness, Jer 3:2; which is the sense of some, as Aben Ezra observes; or rather this points at the punishment of the wicked man, who though for the present may be in great prosperity, possessed of large cities and stately palaces, "yet" or "but" (a), for so the particle may be rendered, "he dwelleth in desolate cities"; in such as shall become desolate, being destroyed by a superior enemy, that shall come upon him; or through his subjects forsaking him, not being able to bear his tyranny and cruelty; or he shall be driven from his dominions by them, and be obliged to fly, and dwell in desert places; or he shall choose to dwell there, through the horrors of a guilty conscience; or, best of all, he shall be reduced to such distress and poverty, that he shall not have a house fit to dwell in; but "shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in a salt land, and not inhabited", Jer 17:6; as follows:

and in houses which no man inhabiteth, which are ready to become heaps; such as have been deserted by their former inhabitants, because come to decay, and ready to fall down upon them, and become heaps of stones and rubbish.

(a) So the Annotator of the Assembly of Divines.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Because he covereth his face with his fatness - That is, he not only stretches out his hand against God Job 15:25 and rushes upon him as an armed foe Job 15:26, but he gives himself up to a life of luxury, gluttony, and licentiousness; and therefore, these calamities must come upon him. This is designed to be a description of a luxurious and licentious person - a man who is an enemy of God, and who, therefore, must incur his displeasure.

And maketh collops of fat - Like an ox that is fattened. The word collop properly means “a small slice of meat, a piece of flesh” (Webster), but here it means a thick piece, or a mass. The word is used in this sense in New England. The sense is, that he becomes excessively fat and gross - as they usually do who live in sensual indulgence and who forget God.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

With his fatness: this is mentioned as the reason of his insolent carriage towards God, because he was fat, i.e. rich, and potent, and successful, as that expression signifies, Deu 32:15; Psa 78:31; Jer 46:21. His great prosperity made him proud and secure, and regardless of God and men.

Maketh collops of fat on his flanks; his only care and study is to pamper and please himself, and obey his own mind and lusts, and in defence and pursuance of them he contends with God.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

Because he covereth his face with his fatness. The ground and origin of the wicked man"s audacity is his luxurious and intemperate living. In the days of his prosperity he pampered his body, freely indulged all his carnal appetites, and gave himself up to gluttony and gourmandism. This depraved his moral nature, separated between him and God, and finally produced in him the insolence and presumption described in vers. 25, 26 And maketh collops of fat on his flanks. The same idea, only very slightly varied, as so often in the second member of a verse.

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Because - This is mentioned as the reason of his insolent carriage towards God, because he was fat, rich, potent, and successful, as that expression signifies, Deut. xxxii, 15 Psalm lxxviii, 31 Jer. xlvi, 21. His great prosperity made him proud and secure, and regardless of God and men. Fat - His only care is to pamper himself.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

This is true

"This" refers to the wicked man running at God from the previous verse.

he has covered his face with his fat and gathered fat on his loins

This wicked man is described as fat and weak, while believing himself to be strong enough to defeat God. AT: "he is weak with a fat face and fat loins" (See: Irony)

which no man inhabits

"which are abandoned"

heaps

piles of useless things

translationWords

true

loins

desolate

unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.

collops of fat on his loins He made a mouth on his loins, for his fat and the thickness of his blubber is folded on his loins, and they look like a sort of mouth.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.