Attributed commentary excerpt
Barnes' Notes on Job 4:19
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Albert Barnes (1798–1870) · 19th-century historical commentary
Source: BibleWord.ai's local reference edition of this named work.
How much less - (אף 'aph). This particle has the general sense of addition, accession, especially of something more important;” yea more, besides, even.” Gesenius. The meaning here is, “how much more true is this of man!” He puts no confidence in his angels; he charges them with frailty; how much more strikingly true must this be of man! It is not merely, as our common translation would seem to imply, that he put much less confidence in man than in angels; it is, that all he had said must be more strikingly true of man, who dwelt in so frail and humble a habitation. In them that dwell in houses of clay - In man. The phrase “houses of clay” refers to the body made of dust. The sense is, that man, from the fact that he dwells in such a tabernacle, is far inferior to the pure spirits that surround the throne of God, and much more liable to sin. The body is represented as a temporary tent, tabernacle, or dwelling for the soul. That dwelling is soon to be taken down, and its tenant, the soul, to be removed to other abodes. So Paul 2 Corinthians 5:1 speaks of the body as ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους hē epigeios hēmōn oikia tou skēnous - “our earthly house of this tabernacle.” So Plato speaks of it as γηΐ́νον σκῆνος gēinon skēnos - an earthly tent; and so Aristophanes (Av. 587), among other contemptuous expressions applied to people, calls them πλάσματα πηλοῦ plasmata pēlou, “vessels of clay.” The idea in the verse before us is beautiful, and as affecting as it is beautiful. A house of clay (חמר chômer) was little fitted to bear the extremes of heat and cold, of storm and sunshine, of rain, and frost, and snow, and would soon crumble and decay. It must be a frail and temporary dwelling. It could not endure the changes of the seasons and the lapse of years like a dwelling of granite or marble. So with our bodies. They can bear little. They are frail, infirm, and feeble. They are easily prostrated, and soon fall back to their native dust. How can they who dwelt in such edifices, be in any way compared with the Infinite and Eternal God? Whose foundation is in the dust - A house to be firm and secure should be founded on a rock; see Matthew 7:25. The figure is kept up here of comparing man with a house; and as a house that is built on the sand or the dust may be easily washed away (compare Matthew 7:26-27), and could not be confided in, so it was with man. He was like such a dwelling; and no more confidence could be reposed in him than in such a house. Which are crushed - They are broken in pieces, trampled on, destroyed (דכא dâkâ'), by the most insignificant objects. Before the moth - See Isaiah 50:9, note; Isaiah 51:8, note. The word moth (עשׁ ‛âsh), Greek σής sēs, Vulgate, tinea, denotes properly an insect which flies by night, and particularly that which attaches itself to woolen cloth and consumes it. It is possible, however, that the word here denotes the moth-worm. This “moth-worm is one state of the creature. which first is inclosed in an egg, and thence issues in the form of a worm; after a time, it quits the form of a worm, to assume that of the complete state of the insect, or the moth.” Calmet. The comparison here, therefore, is not that of a moth flying against a house to overset it, nor of the moth consuming man as it does a garment, but it is that of a feeble worm that preys upon man and destroys him; and the idea is, that the most feeble of all objects may crush him. The following remarks from Nieb…
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