Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
Ver. 11. Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh] Out of that soft and liquid substance (the slime of my parents' loins), grossed first into a rude fleshy mass, and consolidated, thou hast made not only a thin skin and firm flesh, but also hard bones and knitting nerves; and all this for a garment or guardment to those more noble inward parts, the brain, heart, liver, &c., which Job here accounts to be the man, when he saith, "Thou hast clothed me," that is, my vital parts, with the upper garment of skin, and with the under garment of flesh, all which, and the rest of the parts, both similar and organical, are in their origin but the same matter which God hath thus diversified, and all by the book, Psalms 139:16. Had he left out any member in his common place book, thou hadst wanted it, saith one.
And hast fenced me with bones and sinews] Bones are the pillars of the body, giving it stability, straightness, and form. The Rabbis say, there are as many of them in man's body as there are affirmative precepts in the law, that all his bones may say, Lord, who is like unto thee? &c., Psalms 35:10. By the sinews are the bones knit together, that upon them man may move from place to place as he pleaseth. Sense also and motion is by these, in their wonderful and inexplicable conjugations, conveyed to the rest of the parts. It is God alone that knoweth how the bones (think the same of the sinews, arteries, veins, gristles, flesh, and blood, &c.) do grow in the womb of her that is with child, Ecclesiastes 11:5. The anatomists find out every day almost new wonders; and an ancient styles man the miracle of miracles. Besides what is seen, God hath packed many rarities, mysteries, yea, miracles together in man's chest. And surely, saith Mr Caryl, if all the angels in heaven had studied to this day, they could not have cast man into a more curious mould, or have given a fairer or more correct edition of him.