My flesh is clothed with worms and dirt; my skin hardens, then breaks out afresh.
Pain That Never Lifts
Job's words here come in the middle of his answer to Eliphaz, where he stops arguing and simply describes what his body has become. His complaint is not that the pain is sharp but that it never ends, and one commentator sets out the flow of thought in these chapters:
Samuel RidoutJob has challenged his friends to test him. Now he goes back to dwelling on his sufferings, thinking how short life is. Sleepless nights of tossing to and fro, through months of pain that never lets up, make him long for that appointed time set for all flesh. He longs for it as eagerly as a hired worker waiting for the end of his day's work.
Ordinary suffering has breaks in it. Job's did not, and that is what crushed him:
William KellySuppose people are in great agony, say in the foot or the head. If it is the head, they often lose all feeling. If it is the foot, no doubt it is very trying, but it passes; the attack passes. "But how is it that I am nothing but a mass of sores from head to foot, and suffering the deepest agony inside?"… Hired workers had their rest from work each day. The work may be hard, but they still had their night of ease and rest. "But I have nothing, day or night. It is all the same terrible, unbroken suffering."
The Words Themselves
The picture in the first line is of the grave arriving early. The worm and the clod belong to a buried body, and they are already on him while he still breathes. As for the skin, one writer draws the picture from a sea churned into rough waves:
J. N. DarbyThe image is of the sea raised into wild, tumbling waves. So in Job 7:5 he compares his skin to this — it was split, broken up, and rough… and put away as bad.
The second half of the verse describes a cycle, not a single wound. Ridout gathers up both halves of the line:
Samuel RidoutAlready the signs of the grave are on him — the worm and the clod. Any slight healing of his sores is only the signal for a fresh outbreak.
Every small recovery sets up the next collapse.
Whose Hand Was On Him
Job's disease was not random. The opening chapters show how it began:
A. J. PollockGod gave permission to Satan to deal with Job's body, short of taking his life. At Satan's bidding, boils broke out on Job from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head. Can you imagine a more terrible plight? Stripped of property and family in one short day, now he has lost his health. His illness meant terrible fever and agonising pain. Nothing is more wearing than pain.
But the deeper source is not the accuser at all:
J. N. DarbyNote carefully here that the spring and source of all these dealings is not Satan's accusations, but God Himself. God knew what His servant Job needed. He Himself brings Job's case forward and sets everything in motion… Satan is only an instrument, an ignorant though clever instrument, to bring about God's purposes of grace… But for Job's good, Satan is allowed his own way up to a certain point. The aim is to bring Job to know his own heart, and so to a deeper ground of practical relationship with God.
The Body As A Mirror
One writer reads the sores as a picture of something invisible — what Job was in God's sight:
The Christian's FriendJob was a model man in his day. But he was never at rest until he learned what a mass of moral corruption he was in the sight of God. Satan was used to bring out the boils that covered his body from head to foot. The purpose was to make his moral condition plain, so that he might appear outwardly, in the sight of man, what he was inwardly, in the sight of God… Once he accepted God's estimate of himself, he no longer defended himself. He judged himself as one who had deceived himself in the past. Afterwards he received abundant tokens of God's favour.
The Furnace
Yet the ruin of his body was not the end of the story:
William KellyBut God was putting him into the furnace so that he might come out purer than ever. "My flesh is clothed with worms." Think of that — clothed with worms, not with wool or linen.
Summary
- The complaint — Job's flesh already wears what belongs to a grave. His skin heals only to break open again. There is no relief by day and no rest by night.
- The wording — the skin is split, roughened and thrown aside as worthless. It is a repeating cycle, not one wound.
- The hand — Satan struck the body from sole to crown, but only by permission, and only up to a set limit.
- The spring — the real source of the whole trial is God, who knew what Job needed and used even the accuser to bring it about.
- The purpose — the furnace was meant to bring Job out purer. It showed him outwardly what he already was inwardly, until he knew his own heart and rested in God's estimate of him.