(7) But now he hath made me weary: thou hast made desolate all my company. (8) And thou hast filled me with wrinkles, which is a witness against me: and my leanness rising up in me beareth witness to my face. (9) He teareth me in his wrath, who hateth me: he gnasheth upon me with his teeth; mine enemy sharpeneth his eyes upon me. (10) They have gaped upon me with their mouth; they have smitten me upon the cheek reproachfully; they have gathered themselves together against me. (11) God hath delivered me to the ungodly, and turned me over into the hands of the wicked. (12) I was at ease, but he hath broken me asunder: he hath also taken me by my neck, and shaken me to pieces, and set me up for his mark. (13) His archers compass me round about, he cleaveth my reins asunder, and doth not spare; he poureth out my gall upon the ground. (14) He breaketh me with breach upon breach, he runneth upon me like a giant. (15) I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin, and defiled my horn in the dust. (16) My face is foul with weeping, and on my eyelids is the shadow of death; (17) В¶ Not for any injustice in mine hands: also my prayer is pure. (18) O earth, cover not thou my blood, and let my cry have no place.
Perhaps in no part of Job's complaints doth the torrent with which his whole frame was overwhelmed rise higher, than in what is contained in this discourse. His heart seemed to have been full, and he gives it vent. How exercised in his family, in his person, by the enemy of souls the unkind and unjust reproaches of his friends; and to sum up all, his GOD looking on, and yet to his earnest cries returning no answer. Job knew not the blessed issue which awaited the whole, and therefore only spoke while under the full pressure of the accumulated burthens. There is a great elegance in the figure of Job's leanness, when he considered the wrinkles of his wasted body, as carrying about with him an unceasing witness to his grief. And the close of the complaint, in crying to the earth to cover not his blood, but to be above the ground in testimony for him; these are most striking expressions of the mind of Job.