My skin is black upon me; - see Job 30:28. It had become black by the force of the disease.

My bones are burnt with heat - The bones, in the Scriptures, are often represented as the seat of pain. The disease of Job seems to have pervaded the whole body. If it was the elephantiasis (see the notes at Job 2:7-8), these effects would be naturally produced.

My skin is black - By continual exposure to the open air, and parching influence of the sun.

My bones are burned with heat - A strong expression, to point out the raging fever that was continually preying upon his vitals.

My skin is black upon me,.... Either through deep melancholy, as may be observed in persons of such a disposition, through grief and trouble; or rather through the force of his disease, the burning ulcers and black scabs with which he was covered, as the Jews were through famine, in their captivity, Lamentations 4:8;

and my bones are burnt with heat; with the heat of a burning fever; which not only made his inwards boil, but reached to his bones, and dried up the marrow of them. Galen says (r) that bones may become so dry as to be crumbled into sand: the Syriac version is

"my bones are burnt as his who is in a hot wind;''

such as were common in the eastern countries, which killed men at once, and they became as black as a coal (s).

(r) Apud Bartholin. de Cruce, sect. 12. p. 107. (s) See Gill on Job 27:21.

Now for the first time he speaks of his disfigurement by leprosy in particular: my skin (עורי, masc., as it is also used in Job 19:26, only apparently as fem.) is become black (nigruit) from me, i.e., being become black, has peeled from me, and my bones (עצמי, construed as fem. like Job 19:20; Psalm 102:6) are consumed, or put in a glow (חרה, Milel, from חרר, as Ezekiel 24:11) by a parching heat. Thus, then, his harp became mournful, and his pipe (ועגבי with ג raphatum) the cry of the weepers; the cheerful music (comp. Job 21:12) has been turned into gloomy weeping and sobbing (comp. Lamentations 5:15). Thus the second part of the monologue closes. It is somewhat lengthened and tedious; it is Job's last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job 30:31, die away so melodiously! One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto, flebile.

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with {x} heat.

(x) With the heat of affliction.

30. upon me-rather, as in Job 30:17 (see on [531]Job 30:17), "my skin is black (and falls away) from me."

my bones-(Job 19:20; Ps 102:5).

30:15-31 Job complains a great deal. Harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset Job. When inward temptations join with outward calamities, the soul is hurried as in a tempest, and is filled with confusion. But woe be to those who really have God for an enemy! Compared with the awful state of ungodly men, what are all outward, or even inward temporal afflictions? There is something with which Job comforts himself, yet it is but a little. He foresees that death will be the end of all his troubles. God's wrath might bring him to death; but his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits. If none pity us, yet our God, who corrects, pities us, even as a father pitieth his own children. And let us look more to the things of eternity: then the believer will cease from mourning, and joyfully praise redeeming love.