Job 19:20 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

My bone, i.e. my bones; the singular collectively put for the plural, as Job 2:5 Proverbs 15:30. Cleaveth to my skin, to wit, immediately, the fat and flesh next to the skin being consumed. The sense is, I am worn to skin and bone: see the same phrase Psalms 102:5. And to my flesh; or, as (the particle and being often so used, as hath been observed before) to my flesh, i.e. either as formerly it clave to my flesh, or as near and as closely as it doth to these remainders of flesh which are left in my inward parts. I am escaped with the skin of my teeth; I am scarce sound and whole and free from sores in any part of my skin, except that of my jaws, which holdeth and covereth the roots of my teeth. This being, as divers observe, the devil's policy, to leave his mouth untouched, that he might more freely express his mind, and vent his blasphemies against God, which he supposed sharp pain would force him to do, and which he knew would be of pernicious consequence not only to Job, but to others also.

Job 19:20

20 My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.