By the great force [of my disease] is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
Ver. 18. By the great force of my disease is my garment changed] sc. Sudore, cruore, sanie, sanguine, By the matter that my disease forceth outward in boils and botches, is my garment (which once was decoris et magistratus insigne, the ensign of my authority) utterly stained and spoiled, loathsome to myself, and noisome to others, Totum cruentum et sordidatum (Merc.). Every one (say some chemists) hath his own balsam within him; his own bane it is sure he hath. Physicians hold that in every two years there is such store of ill humours and excrements engendered in the body, that a vessel of one hundred ounces will scarce contain them. Now if these, by God's appointment (for he is the great centurion, Matthew 8:9, who hath all diseases at his beck and call), break outward, what an ulcerous leper and lazar must that man needs be! This was Job's case, and Munster's, who called his sores Gemmas, et preciosa Dei ornamenta, God's gems and jewels, wherewith he decketh those whom he loveth; and King Philip's, of Spain, who, besides many other diseases, had ingentem puris ex ulceribus redundantiam, quae binas indies scutellas divite paedore impleret, abundance of filthy matter issuing out of his sores, insomuch as that no change of clothes, or art of physicians, could keep him from being devoured by lice and vermin thereby engendered (Carol. Scriban. Instit. Princip. cap. 20).
It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat] It is become so stiff and starky, that it wrings me and hurts me, as an uneasy collar girds and gripes a man's neck; as the edge of my coat it girds me, so Broughton readeth it. Beza rendereth this latter part of the verse thus: He (God) compasseth me about as the collar of my coat. Piscator, the whole thus: By the greatness of his (God's) strength (which he putteth forth in scourging me with diseases), my garment changeth itself (putteth upon, as it were, another garment of scabs and scurf), as the mouth of my coat, he (God) girdeth me; i.e. Morbo premit corpus meum, he pincheth my body with diseases. But the former reading is better.