How much less in them, &c.— How much more in them. Heath. The expression, dwelling in houses of clay, is used with great propriety to convey the idea of the frailty of the human nature: whose foundation is in the dust, is a poetical expression to denote the formation of man from the dust of the ground. There are various opinions concerning the next clause; who are crushed before the moth, עשׁ לפני lipni osh, like or after the manner of the moth. "I retain this interpretation," says Mr. Hervey, "both as it is most suitable to my purpose, and as it is patronised by some eminent commentators, especially the celebrated Schultens; though I cannot but give the preference to the opinion of a judicious friend, who would render the passage more literally, before the face of a moth; making it to represent a creature so exceedingly frail, that even a moth flying against it may dash it to pieces: which, besides its closer correspondence with the exact import of the Hebrew, presents us with a much finer image of the most extreme imbecility; for it certainly implies a far greater degree of weakness, to be crushed by the feeble flutter of the feeblest creature, than only to be crushed as easily as that creature, by the hand of man. The French version is very expressive and beautiful; a la recontre d'un vermisseau."
Related Commentaries of Job 4:19
Job 4:19
19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?