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insensible to the dispensations of God, which might bring him to a right way of thinking, is symbolized by the additional clause: with the thickness (עבי cognate form to עבי) of the bosses of his shields. גּב is the back (Arab. dhr) or boss (umbo) of the shield; the plurality of shields has reference to the diversified means by which he hardens himself. Job 15:27, similarly to Psa 73:4-7, pictures this impregnable carnal security against all unrest and pain, to which, on account of his own sinfulness and the distress of others, the nobler-minded man is so sensitive: he has covered his face with his fat, so that by the accumulation of fat, for which he anxiously labours, it becomes a gross material lump of flesh, devoid of mind and soul, and made fat, i.e., added fat, caused it to accumulate, upon his loins (כּסל for כּסליו); עשׂה (which has nothing to do with Arab. gšâ, to cover) is used as in Job 14:9, and in the phrase corpus facere (in Justin), in the sense of producing outwardly something from within. פּימה reminds one of πιμ-ελή (as Aquila and Symmachus translate here), o-pim-us, and of the Sanscrit piai, to be fat (whence adj. pı̂van, pı̂vara, πιαρός, part. pı̂na, subst. according to Roth pı̂vas); the Arabic renders it probable that it is a contraction of פּאימה (Olsh. §171, b). The Jewish expositors explain it according to the misunderstood פּים, 1Sa 13:21, of the furrows or wrinkles which are formed in flabby flesh, as if the ah were paragogic.
Job 15:28 describes the second capital sin of the evil-doer. The desolated cities that he dwells in are not cities that he himself has laid waste; Job 15:28 distinctly refers to a divinely appointed punishment, for התעתּדוּ does not signify: which they (evil-doers) have made ruins (Hahn), which is neither probable from the change of number, nor accords with the meaning of the verb, which signifies “to appoint to something in the future.” Hirzel, by referring to the law, Deu 13:13-18 (comp. 1Ki 16:34), which forbids the rebuilding of such cities as are laid under the curse, explains it to a