Job 7:15

Job 7:15 So that my soul chooseth strangling, [and] death rather than my life.

Ver. 15. So that my soul chooseth strangling] i.e. Quamvis durissimam sed praesentissimam mortem, any violent or ignominious death, as long as it were a speedy death. Hippocrates telleth us, that many have been so frightened with dreams and apparitions, that they have hanged themselves, leaped into deep pits, or otherwise committed suicide. Let those that either have not been so terrified, or so tempted, or so deserted of God, bless him for that mercy.

And death rather than life] Heb. Rather than my bones; that is, any kind of death rather than such a body, which is now nothing else but a bag of bones; or than such rotten bones full of sores and ulcers. He maketh mention of his bones, because his pain had pierced as far as his very bones; the putrefaction had sunk down into his marrow.

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 7:15. So that my soul chooseth strangling — The most violent death, so it be but certain and sudden, rather than such a wretched life. Hebrews מעצמותי, megnatsmothai, rather than my bones — That is, than my body, the skin of which was everywhere broken, and the flesh almost consumed, so that little remained but bones.

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

He speaketh as one overcome with sorrow, and not of judgment, or of the examination of his faith.

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

UMBREIT translates, "So that I could wish to strangle myself--dead by my own hands." He softens this idea of Job's harboring the thought of suicide, by representing it as entertained only in agonizing dreams, and immediately repudiated with horror in Job 7:16, "Yet that (self-strangling) I loathe." This is forcible and graphic. Perhaps the meaning is simply, "My soul chooses (even) strangling (or any violent death) rather than my life," literally, "my bones" (Psa 35:10); that is, rather than the wasted and diseased skeleton, left to him. In this view, "I loathe it" (Job 7:16) refers to his life.

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 15. Chooseth strangling] It is very likely that he felt, in those interrupted and dismal slumbers, an oppression and difficulty of breathing something like the incubus or nightmare; and, distressing as this was, he would prefer death by this means to any longer life in such miseries.

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

(15) So that my soul maketh choice of strangling and death rather than a life like this. Literally, than these my bones, or, as some take it, a death by these my members: a death inflicted by myself, suicide.

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

15. Consequence of the preceding, Job_7:14.

chooseth strangling] A sense of choking is one of the accompaniments of the disease, which is said to end sometimes in actual suffocation. Job refers to this symptom, saying that he is driven to desire that it might be really fatal. The parallel word death in the next clause shews that this is what he is driven to wish for, but he selects this form of death as one incidental to his disease, and one with which he had perhaps felt himself more than once threatened.

death rather than my life] lit. death rather than these my bones. So he describes the emaciated skeleton to which he was reduced.

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.

So that my soul chooseth strangling,.... Not to strangle himself, as Ahithophel did, or to be strangled by others, this being a kind of death inflicted on capital offenders; but rather, as Mr. Broughton renders it, "to be choked to death" by any distemper and disease, as some are of a suffocating nature, as a catarrh, quinsy, &c. and kill in that way; and indeed death in whatsoever way is the stopping of a man's breath; and it was death that Job chose, let it be in what way it would, whether natural or violent; so weary was he of life through his sore and heavy afflictions:

and death rather than my life; or, "than my bones" (i); which are the more solid parts of the body, and the support of it, and are put for the whole and the life thereof; or than these bones of his, which were full of strong pain, and which had nothing but skin upon them, and that was broken and covered with worms, rottenness, and dust; the Vulgate Latin version renders it, "and my bones death"; that is, desired and chose death, being so full of pain, see Psa 35:10.

(i) "prae ossibus meis", Montanus, Tigurine version, Bolducius, Cocceius, Schmidt, Schultens; so Mercerus, Piscator, Michaelis.

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

So that my soul - So that I; the soul being put for himself.

Chooseth strangling - Dr. Good renders it “suffocation,” and supposes that Job alludes to the oppression of breathing, produced by what is commonly called the night-mare, and that he means that he would prefer the sense of suffocation excited at such a time to the terrible images before his mind. Herder renders it, death. Jerome, suspendium. The Septuagint, “Thou separatest (ἀπαλλάξεις apallaceis) my life from my spirit, and my bones from death;” but what idea they attached to it, it is impossible now to tell. The Syriac renders it, “Thou choosest my soul from perdition, and my bones from death.” The word rendered strangling (מחנק machănaq) is from חנק chânaq, to be narrow, strait, close; and then means to strangle, to throttle, Nah 2:12; 2Sa 17:23. Here it means death; and Job designs to say that he would prefer even the most violent kind of death to the life that he was then leading. I see no evidence that the idea suggested by Dr. Good is to be found in the passage.

And death rather than my life - Margin, as in Hebrew, bones. There has been great variety in the exposition of this part of the verse. Herder renders it, “death rather than this frail body.” Rosenmuller and Noyes, “death rather than my bones;” that is, he preferred death to such an emaciated body as he then had, to the wasted skeleton which was then all that he had left to him. This is probably the true sense. Job was a sufferer in body and in soul. His flesh was wasting away, his body was covered with ulcers, and his mind was harassed with apprehensions. By day he had no peace, and at night he was terrified by alarming visions and spectres; and he preferred death in any form to such a condition.

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

Hanging. Protestants, "strangling and death, rather than my life," or Marginal note, "bones." (Haydock) --- Any species of Death would be preferable to this misery. (Calmet) --- Who would not entertain the same sentiments, if the fear of worse in the other world did not withhold him? But Job had reason to hope that his sorrows would end with his life. (Haydock) --- It is thought that he was dreadfully tempted to despair. (Calmet) --- Yet he resisted manfully, and overcame all attempts of the wicked one.

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).

Chooseth; not simply and in itself, but comparatively, rather than such a wretched life.

Strangling; the most violent, so it be but a certain and sudden death.

Rather than my life, Heb. than my bones, i.e. than my body, formerly the soul’s dear and desired companion; or than to be in the body, which commonly consists of skin, and flesh, and bones, but in Job was in a manner nothing but a bundle of boiles; for his skin was every where broken, and his flesh was quite consumed, as he oft complains, and his bones also were not free from pain and torment; for as Satan’s commission reached to Job’s bones, Job 2:5, so doubtless his malice and wicked design would engage him to execute it to the utmost.

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

15. Strangling — Difficulty of swallowing is one of the symptoms of elephantiasis, (Bridel,) and suffocation is its usual end. (Delitzsch.) It often becomes necessary to open the jugular vein to relieve the hoarseness and the tendency to suffocation. (Avicenna.)

Life — Literally, my bones. So emaciated was he that he calls his body but mere bones. Schlottmann and Umbreit render מן“than,” from, and read from my bones, and attribute to Job the thought of suicide. But there is no authority for using “bones” in the sense of hands. Umbreit’s admission “that the sufferer is represented as strangling himself in agonizing dreams,” is fatal to his theory. “There is fearful irony,” says Davidson, “in the comparison of this skeleton, impotent and helpless, his very weakness a terror to himself and his on-lookers, to the great heaven-assaulting ocean, lifting itself up in the consciousness of infinite power, or to some dragon of the prime, in which the whole energy of creation in its youth lay compressed.”

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

So that my soul chooseth strangling; i.e. "so that I would prefer strangling to such horrid dreams," which are worse than any physical sufferings. Some see here a reference to suicide: but this is s very forced explanation. Suicide, as already observed, seems never even to have occurred to the thoughts of Job. (see the comment on Job_6:8) And death rather than my life; literally, rather than my bones. Death, that is, would be preferable to such a life as he leads, which is that of a living skeleton.

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

death rather than these my bones I choose death rather than these limbs in my body.

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.