My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret, and curiously wrought in the lowest parts of the earth.
My substance was not hid from thee, when I was made in secret "My substance" - literally, my strength (Deuteronomy 8:17; Job 30:21). So my bones and sinews, the seat of strength (Job 10:11). The English version accords with the Chaldaic Targum. The Septuagint and Vulgate translate, 'my bone.'
And curiously wrought, х raaqam (H7551)] - literally, 'interwoven of variously-coloured threads;' embroidered: a beautiful figure for the complicated and elaborately-contrived texture of the human body. "The lowest parts of the earth" (or Sheol, or Hades, Psalms 63:9) are used here as a figure for the dark "womb" (Psalms 139:13): cf. Isaiah 45:19. Nowhere in Scripture is man spoken of as having pre-existed in Sheol. Therefore there must be here an abbreviated comparison of the earth, out of which we came, to the dark womb: cf. Job 1:21.