My skin is black upon me,.... Either through deep melancholy, as may be observed in persons of such a disposition, through grief and trouble; or rather through the force of his disease, the burning ulcers and black scabs with which he was covered, as the Jews were through famine, in their captivity, Lamentations 4:8;
and my bones are burnt with heat; with the heat of a burning fever; which not only made his inwards boil, but reached to his bones, and dried up the marrow of them. Galen says r that bones may become so dry as to be crumbled into sand: the Syriac version is
"my bones are burnt as his who is in a hot wind;''
such as were common in the eastern countries, which killed men at once, and they became as black as a coal s.
r Apud Bartholin. de Cruce, sect. 12. p. 107. s Job 27:21.