יערכוּני is short for עלי מלחמה יערכי, they make war against me, set themselves in battle array against me. Böttcher, without brachylogy: they cause me to arm myself, put one of necessity on the defensive, which does not suit the subject. The terrors of God strike down all defence. The wrath of God is irresistible. The sting of his suffering, however, is the wrath of God which his spirit drinks as a draught of poison (comp. Job 21:20), and consequently wrings from him, even from his deepest soul, the thought that God is become his enemy: therefore his is an endless suffering, and therefore is it that he speaks so despondingly.
Verses 5-7
Job 6:5-7 5 Doth the wild ass bray at fresh grass?
Or loweth an ox over good fodder? 6 Is that which is tasteless eaten unsalted?
Or is there flavour in the white of an egg? 7 That which my soul refused to touch,
The same is as my loathsome food.
The meaning of the first two figures is: He would not complain, if there were really no cause for it; of the two others: It is not to be expected that he should smile at his suffering, and enjoy it as delicate food. על־בּלילו I have translated “over good fodder,” for בּליל is mixed fodder of different kinds of grain, farrago. “Without salt” is virtually adjective to תּפל, insipid, tasteless. What is without salt one does not relish, and there is no flavour in the slime of the yolk of an egg, i.e., the white of an egg (Targ.),[1] or in the slime of purslain (according to Chalmetho in the Peschito, Arab. ḥamqâ), fatua = purslain), which is less probable on account of ריר (slime, not: broth): there is no flavour so that it can be enjoyed. Thus is it with his sufferings. Those things which he before inwardly detested (dirt and dust of leprosy) are now sicut fastidiosa cibi mei, i.e., as loathsome food which he must eat. The first clause, Job 6:7, must be taken as an elliptic relative clause forming the subject: vid.,
- ↑ Saadia compares b. Aboda zara, 40, a, where it is given as a mark of the purity of the eggs in the roe of fish: מבפנים וחלמון מב מבחוץ חלבון, when the white is outside and the yellow within.
