His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction [shall be] ready at his side.
Ver. 12. His strength shall be hunger bitten] Heb. His strength (or wealth) shall be famine, Fit famelicum robur eius. Or, Famine shall be his strength. He, who while, having health and wealth at will, fared deliciously and gathered strength, shall be hunger starved, and hardly have prisoner's pittance; so much only as will neither keep him alive nor suffer him to die. See 1 Samuel 2:5; 1 Samuel 2:36. It is as much, saith Brentius, as we use to say of an extreme poor or feeble person, his wealth is poverty, his strength weakness.
And destruction shall be ready at his side] i.e. Shall suddenly and inevitably seize upon him, there will be no running away from it, for can a man run from his side? The word signifieth not an ordinary calamity, but a dreadful and direful destruction. Some understand it to be the pleurisy, or ulcers in the side of a man. Others of rib rest, as they call it, tortures inflicted on condemned persons, as Hebrews 11:34, who are beaten with bats.