I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my strength in the dust.
Job turns from his friends' accusations to his own body and what it shows. Two questions drive the rest of the chapter: who has brought him this low, and is there anyone in heaven who will speak for him?
The Dress of a Mourner
Sackcloth is the rough cloth of mourning. Job has sewn it straight onto his raw skin, and that sight is his reply to Zophar, one of the friends arguing with him.
Leslie M. GrantJob now points to the extreme misery he was going through. About this, Zophar had callously said that Job's suffering was less than he deserved... If he had been guilty of violence and hypocrisy, this would make sense. But he insists that no violence was in his hands and his prayer was pure.
The Horn in the Dust
Where the ESV says Job laid his strength in the dust, older translations read "horn." Scripture uses that word in a settled way.
Samuel RidoutHorns in Scripture symbolize strength: "But you have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox" (Ps. 92:10). They were the badge or symbol of power: "my horn is exalted in the LORD" (1 Sam. 2:1).
God's Hand in the Trial
Job could have blamed bad luck. Instead he points to God, and commentators weigh what that shows about him.
William KellyJob was right enough in feeling that God had to do with his painful trial. He had no idea what had taken place in heaven, which gave the key to at least part of it... He says with complete frankness that without God none of these trials could "happen." That was real faith, even though he was not yet well taught.
Hard Thoughts Born of Pain
Seeing God's hand in trouble is one thing. Reading that hand rightly is another, and here Job misreads it.
William KellyBecause of the fiery trial Job was going through, he speaks as if God were treating him harshly, as if He had somehow become his enemy. So he breaks out in bitterness, which is the natural result of such a thought. The state of the soul must always depend on how a person looks, or fails to look, at God.
Faith Buried, Not Dead
Job's complaint against God is loud. Ridout listens for what lies underneath it.
Samuel RidoutPoor Job fails to see God in His unchanging love through all these sufferings. Every pain he feels, every tear he sheds, every humiliation he goes through becomes a fresh charge against God. And yet, not entirely, for there is real faith in his heart... He knows, though not fully, since he has not yet seen, that there is One who pleads for him before God. What he longs for, we know that we have — One who pleads for us with God as a man pleads for his neighbor. We know a High Priest who sympathizes with our weaknesses, who always lives to make intercession for us.
Sackcloth on the Skin, Dust in the Heart
Job wears sackcloth here in grief. By the end of the book he sits in dust for a different reason, and Wolston turns that change into a question for the reader.
W. T. P. WolstonHave you ever been brought down? Has there ever come a moment in your soul's history when you have put on moral sackcloth? Have you ever been like Job, as he says: "I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes" (Job 42:5-6). Job and the Ninevites occupied the same ground morally.
Summary
- Dust first. Sackcloth sewn onto raw skin, and his strength — the "horn" — laid in the dust. Job has nothing left to stand on.
- Dust honest. He blames no circumstance. Nothing could touch him without God, he says, and commentators call that real faith, even though he was not yet well taught.
- Dust bitter. But he reads God as an enemy, so the pain turns to bitterness. The state of the soul always depends on how it looks at God.
- Dust praying. Job longs for someone to plead his case before God. What he could only long for, believers already have in the One who always lives to intercede for them.
- Dust healing. The sackcloth of grief is not the end. Job's final "dust and ashes" is repentance — the same ground the men of Nineveh took, and the ground still open today.