Job 16:16

My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(16) Foul.—Rather, perhaps, red, as with wine.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

16:6-16 Here is a doleful representation of Job's grievances. What reason we have to bless God, that we are not making such complaints! Even good men, when in great troubles, have much ado not to entertain hard thoughts of God. Eliphaz had represented Job as unhumbled under his affliction: No, says Job, I know better things; the dust is now the fittest place for me. In this he reminds us of Christ, who was a man of sorrows, and pronounced those blessed that mourn, for they shall be comforted.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

My face is foul with weeping - Wemyss, "swelled." Noyes, "red." Good, "tarnished." Luther, "ist geschwollen" - is swelled. So Jerome. The Septuagint, strangely enough, ἡ γαστήρ μον συνκέκαυται, κ. τ. λ. hē gastēr mou sunkekautai, etc. "my belly is burned with weeping." The Hebrew word (חמר châmar) means to boil up, to ferment, to foam. Hence, it means to be red, and the word is often used in this sense in Arabic - from the idea of becoming heated or inflamed. Here it probably means either to be "swelled," as any thing does that "ferments," or to be "red" as if "heated" - the usual effect of weeping. The idea of being "defiled" is not in the word.

And on my eyelid; is the shadow of death - On the meaning of the word rendered "shadow of death," see the notes at Job 3:5. The meaning is, that darkness covered his eyes, and he felt that he was about to die. One of the usual indications of the approach of death is, that the sight fails, and everything seems to be dark. Hence, Homer so often describes death by the phrase, "and darkness covered his eyes;" or the form "a cloud of death covered his eyes" - θανάτου νέφος ὄσσε ἐκάλυψη thanatou nephos osse ekalupsē. The idea here is, that he experienced the indications of approaching death.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

16. foul—rather, "is red," that is, flushed and heated [Umbreit and Noyes].

shadow of death—that is, darkening through many tears (La 5:17). Job here refers to Zophar's implied charge (Job 11:14). Nearly the same words occur as to Jesus Christ (Isa 53:9). So Job 16:10 above answers to the description of Jesus Christ (Ps 22:13; Isa 50:6, and Job 16:4 to Ps 22:7). He alone realized what Job aspired after, namely, outward righteousness of acts and inward purity of devotion. Jesus Christ as the representative man is typified in some degree in every servant of God in the Old Testament.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

i. e. A gross and terrible darkness. My sight is very dim and dark, as is usual in case of sore diseases, or excessive grief and weeping, Lamentations 2:11; and especially in the approach of death: compare Psalm 6:7 38:10 Lamentations 5:17.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

My face is foul with weeping,.... On account of the loss of his substance, and especially of his children; at the unkindness of his friends, and over his own corruptions, which he felt working in him, and breaking forth in unbecoming language; and because of the hidings of the face of God from him: the word used in the Arabic language (i) has the, signification of redness in it, as Aben Ezra and others observe; of red wine, and, as Schultens adds, of the fermentation of it; and is fitly used to express a man's face in excessive weeping, which looks red, and swelled, and blubbered:

and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; which were become dim through weeping, so that he could scarcely see out of them, and, like a dying man, could hardly lift them up; and such was his sorrowful condition, that he never expected deliverance from it, but that it would issue in death; and which he supposed was very near, and that he had many symptoms of it, of which the decay of his eyesight was one; and he was so far from winking with his eyes in a wanton and ludicrous way, as Eliphaz had hinted, Job 15:12; that there was such a dead weight upon them, even the shadow of death itself, that he was not able to lift them up.

(i) "intumuit", V. L. Tigurine version; "fermentescit", Schultens.

Geneva Study Bible

My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death;

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

16. My face is foul] The word may mean inflamed, from a root signifying to be red; or the root of the word may mean to ferment, and the reference be to the swollen and blurred appearance of the face from excessive weeping. Involuntary weeping is said to be a symptom of Elephantiasis. The second clause expresses another effect of this weeping, his eyes became dim (ch. Job 17:7, Psalm 6:7; Psalm 69:3), and there lay thick darkness upon them—though this was also a sign of diminishing vitality; comp. Goethe’s dying cry, More light!

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 16. - My face is foul with weeping He has wept so much that his face is stained with his tears. And on my eyelids is the shadow of death. There is an awful shadow on his eyes and eyelids, portending death Job 16:16

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

The construction of the Chethib is like 1 Samuel 4:15, of the Keri on the other hand like Lamentations 1:20; Lamentations 2:11 (where the same is said of מעי, viscera mea); חמרמר is a passive intensive form (Ges. 55, 3), not in the signification: they are completely kindled (lxx συγκέκανται, Jer. intumuit, from the חמר, Arab. chmr, which signifies to ferment), but: they are red all over (from חמר, Arab. ḥmr, whence the Alhambra, as a red building, takes its name), reddened, i.e., from weeping; and this has so weakened them, that the shadow of death (vid., on Job 10:21.) seems to rest upon his eyelids; they are therefore sad even to the deepest gloom. Thus exceedingly miserable is his state and appearance, although he is no disguised hypocrite, who might need to do penance in sackcloth and ashes, and shed tears of penitence without any solace. Hirz. explains על as a preposition: by the absence of evil in my hands; but Job 16:17 and Job 16:17 are substantival clauses, and על is therefore just, like Isaiah 53:9, a conjunction ( equals על־אשׁר). His hands are clean from wrong-doing, free from violence and oppression; his prayer is pure, pura; as Merc. observes, ex puritate cordis et fidei. From the feeling of the strong contrast between his piety and his being stigmatized as an evil-doer by such terrible suffering, - from this extreme contrast which has risen now to its highest in his consciousness of patient endurance of suffering, the lofty thoughts of the next strophe take their rise.