Job 30:17

Job 30:17 My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

Ver. 17. My bones are pierced in me in the night season] Sleep is the nurse of nature, and the sweet parenthesis of men’s griefs and cares. But Job had so many aches and ailments in his body (over and above the terrors and troubles of his mind), that rest he could take none at all in the night season, when all creatures are wont to be at quiet. For for what reason? the very marrow of his bones raged through intolerable pain; as if it had been run through with a tuck. Nay more,

And my sinews (or, my pulses) take no rest] Heb. Sleep not; my sinews or arteries are racked with the cramp; and my pulses, by the force of fever, beat excessively, and pant without intermission; Qui tamen minui deberent, quia calor retrahitur in partem interiorem; which yet should move more slowly by night, because then the heat is drawn into the internal parts (Vatablus).

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.

Meaning, sorrow.

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

In the Hebrew, night is poetically personified, as in Job 3:3 : "night pierceth my bones (so that they fall) from me" (not as English Version, "in me"; see Job 30:30).

sinews--so the Arabic, "veins," akin to the Hebrew; rather, "gnawers" (see on Job 30:3), namely, my gnawing pains never cease. Effects of elephantiasis.

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

17. His tormenting pains.

In the night season my bones are pierced (and fall) off from me,

And my gnawing pains take no rest.

The first clause refers to his tormenting pains, severest in the night, under which his bones seem pierced and his limbs to be wrenched from him. “My gnawing pains” is lit. my gnawers.

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.

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 was in a like condition the sick man is described in Job 33:19; and as David and Hezekiah were, Psa 6:2; and what aggravated his case was, that this was "in the night season", when he should have got some sleep and rest, but could not for his pain: some render the words by supplying them thus; God, or the disease, or the pain, pierced my bones in the night season; or "the night pierced my bones from me"; so Mr. Broughton; but rather they may be rendered, and the sense be,

"in the night season everyone of my bones pierce "the flesh" that is upon me:''

his flesh was almost wasted and consumed, through the boil and ulcers on him, and he was reduced to a mere skeleton; and when he laid himself down on his bed, these pierced through his skin, and stuck out, and gave him exquisite pain:

and my sinews take no rest; being contracted; or his nerves, as the word in the Arabic language signifies, as is observed by Aben Ezra, Jarchi, Donesh, and others; which were loosened, and the animal spirits were sunk, and he so low and dispirited, that he could get no rest: or the pulsatile veins and arteries, as Ben Gersom and Elias Levita (a), in which the pulse beats, and which beats with less strength when persons are asleep than when awake; but such was the force of Job's disease, that it beat even in the night, when on his bed, so strongly, that he could take no rest for it; the pulse beats, as physicians say (b), sixty times in a minute, and double the number in a burning fever, and which might be Job's case. Some take the word in the sense of fleeing or gnawing (c), as it is used Job 30:3; and interpret it either of his enemies, who pursued after him, and had no rest in their beds, but went out in the night to inquire and hear what they could learn concerning him and his illness, whether it was become greater (d); or who devoured him by their calumnies and detractions, and could not sleep unless they did mischief to him; see Pro 4:16; or of the worms with which his body was covered, and which were continually gnawing, never rested, nor suffered him to take any rest; the Targum is, they that gnash at me rest not.

(a) In Tishbi, p. 67. So Lud. Capellus in loc. (b) Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. vol. 4. p 764. (c) "et rodentia mea", Schultens; "fugientia membra mea", so some in Michaelis. (d) Vid. Bar Tzemach in loc.

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

My bones are pierced in me - The bones are often represented in the Scriptures as the seat of acute pain; Psa 6:2; Psa 22:14; Psa 31:10; Psa 38:3; Psa 42:10; Pro 14:30; compare Job 20:11. The meaning here is, that he had had shooting or piercing pains in the night, which disturbed and prevented his rest. It is mentioned as a special aggravation of his sufferings that they were “in the night” - a time when we expect repose.

And my sinews take no rest - See the word here rendered sinews explained in the note at ver. 3. The word literally means gnawers, and hence, the teeth. The Vulgate renders it, qui me comedunt, non dormiunt, “they who devour me do not slumber.” The Septuagint, νευρά μον neura mou - my sinews, or arteries. Schleusner. Luther, “They who gnaw me.” Coverdale, Sinews. I see no reason to doubt that the teeth or the jaws are meant, and that Job refers to the violent pain in the tooth, among the acutest pains to which the body is subject. The idea is, that every part of the body was diseased and filled with pain.

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

They that. Heberw, "my sinews take no rest." Septuagint, "are dissolved." (Haydock) --- The worms prey upon me, and I am like one in a raging fever. (Calmet)

George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).

My bones are pierced: Heb. It, to wit, the terror or affliction last mentioned; or, He, i.e. God, hath pierced my bones. This is no slight and superficial, but a most deep wound, that reacheth to my very heart, and bones, and marrow. Nothing in me is so secret but it reacheth it, nothing so hard and solid but it feels the weight and burden of it.

In me, Heb. from above me, by an arrow shot from Heaven, whence my calamities come, and that in a singular and eminent manner. Or, by that which is upon me: the sores which are upon my skin, or outward flesh, do pierce and pain me even to the bones. For now he is come from describing the terrors of his mind, to express the torments of his body.

In the night season; when others do, and I should, receive some rest and refreshment.

My sinews; and the flesh of my body which covereth the sinews, and is mixed with them, and may seem to be synecdochically expressed by the sinews, which are the strength and support of the flesh. So he signifies that neither his bones nor his flesh resteth. Or, and my veins or arteries, which rest or move slowly when the mind and body are well composed; but in Job did move vehemently and restlessly, by reason of his great heat, and pain, and passion.

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

17. My bones are pierced — According to many, night is here personified, thus: The night pierces my bones. Night intensifies pain and sorrow. Job attributes to night, as an agent, the work done in the night. See note Job_3:3. Herder calls Job the brother of Ossian in personification.

In me — Literally, From upon me. So that they (the bones) are detached from him. It is possible that Job was already maimed by this “maiming disease.” See note Job_2:7, and below Job_30:30. Sinews — Same as in Job_30:3, gnawers, that is, the gnawing disease or gnawing pains; possibly worms, the maggots in his ulcers, Job_7:5.

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

My bones are pierced in me in the night season. In Elephantiasis anaesthetics" says Dr. Erasmus Wilson, "when the integument is insensible, there are deep-seated burning pains, sometimes of a bone or joint, and sometimes of the vertebral column. These pains are greatest at night; they prevent sleep, and give rise to restlessless and frightful dreams" (Quain"s "Dictionary of Medicine," vol. 1. p. 817). And my sinews take no rest; rather, my gnawings, or my gnawing pains (see the Revised Version; and comp. ver. 3, where the same word is properly rendered by "gnawing the wilderness").

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

are picked off Heb. נקר, like (Num. 16:14), “will you put out (תנקר) the eyes of those people?” (forer in French, to bore). The worms pick my flesh off my bones.

my sinews Heb. עֹרְקַי. My sinews have no rest. Sinew in Arabic is “orek.” So did Dunash explain it (Teshuvoth Dunash p.85). Another explanation: עֹרְקַי, my pursuers who cause me to flee. (Machbereth Menachem p. 139)

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.