Hast thou not poured me out as milk, and curdled me like cheese?
Ver. 10. Hast thou not poured me out as milk] Or, melted me, that is, made me of some such thing as liquid and white milk. Generationem hominis describit (Vatab.). Man is a very mean thing in his first conception, modestly here set forth by the making of cheeses.
Unde superbit homo, cuius conceptio turpis,
Nasci poena, labor vita, necesse mort?
Where comes man's pride, I am conceived in sorrow, I am born as a penalty, I work for life, and needs die.
Concerning man's formation in the womb see the Naturalists, and Lactantius de Opifieio Dei, cap. 12, but especially Psalms 139:13,16 , where, and in this text, there is enough spoken to satisfy us about this great natural mystery, saith Mercer. That is a good moral that one maketh of it; God strains out the motes of corruption from a godly man, while his heart is poured out like milk with grief and fear, whereby the iniquity of Jacob is purged, and this is all the fruit to take away his sin, Isaiah 27:9 .
And curdled me like cheese? ] Sic castissimo ore, et elegantibus metaphoris, saith an interpreter; i.e. Thus, in a most modest manner, and with elegant metaphors, doth Job, as a great philosopher, set out man's conception in the womb. Aristotle (whose manner is obscurioribus obscura implicare, as Bodin observeth) hath some such expression as this, but nothing so clear and full (Bodin. Theat. Natur., 434. Arist. de Gen. Anim. cap. 20).