to fail · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
garment
כְּ֝בֶ֗גֶדke.Ve.ged
H899
a covering · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
moth
עָֽשׁ'Ash
H6211
a moth · noun, common masculine singular absolute
eaten
אֲכָ֣לוֹ'a.Kha.lov
H398
to eat (literally or figuratively) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person masculine singular + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Psalms 39:11 When thou with rebukes dost correct man for iniquity, thou makest his beauty to consume away like a moth: surely every man is vanity. Selah.
Job 4:19 How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth?
Numbers 12:12 Let her not be as one dead, of whom the flesh is half consumed when he cometh out of his mother’s womb.
Job 30:17-19 My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.
Job 30:29-30 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.
Hosea 5:12 Therefore will I be unto Ephraim as a moth, and to the house of Judah as rottenness.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 13:23–end
Here, I. Job enquires after his sins, and begs to have them discovered to him. He looks up to God, and asks him what was the number of them (How many are my iniquities?) and what were the particulars of them: Make me to know my transgressions, Job 13:23. His friends were ready enough to tell him how numerous and how heinous they were, Job 22:5. "But, Lord," says he, "let me know them from thee; for thy judgment is according to truth, theirs is not." This may be taken either, 1. As a passionate complaint of hard usage, that he was punished for his faults and yet was not told what his faults were. Or, 2. As a prudent appeal to God from the censures of his friends. He desired that all his sins…
Job speaks of himself in the third person, thus forming the transition to the general lot of man (Job 14:1; Psa 39:11; Hos 5:12).
Next: Job Chapter 14
John Gill on Job 13:28
And he as a rotten thing consumeth,.... This by some Jewish writers (z) is referred to and connected with the driven leaf and dry stubble Job compares himself to, Job 13:25; and so the sense is, that his body, which, for its frailty and weakness, is compared to such things, is like any rotten thing, a rotten tree, as Ben Melech; or any thing else that is rotten, that is consuming and wasting away, as Job's body was, being clothed with worms and clods of dust:
as a garment that is moth eaten; a woollen garment, which gathers dust, out of which motifs arise; for dust, in wool and woollen garments produces moths, as Aristotle (a) and Pliny (b) observe; and a garment eaten by them, slowly, grad…
26 For Thou decreest bitter things against me,
And causest me to possess the iniquities of my youth,
27 And puttest my feet in the stocks,
And observest all my ways.
Thou makest for thyself a circle round the soles of my feet,
28 Round one who moulders away as worm-eaten,
As a garment that the moth gnaweth.
He is conscious of having often prayed: "Remember not the sins of my youth, and my transgressions: according to Thy mercy remember Thou me," Psa 25:7; and still he can only regard his affliction as the inheritance (i.e., entailed upon him by sins not repented of) of the sins of his youth, since he has no sins of his mature years that would incur wrath, to reproach himself with. He does no…
The Church Fathers
"I am like old stuff:" which can not contain the new wine. "Or like the clothing gnawed by insects," attached to a new stuff.
Who am as a rotten thing to be consumed, and as a garment that is moth eaten. For as a garment is eaten by the moth sprung out of itself, so man containeth rottenness in himself, whereby he consumeth, and that which he is, is that whereby he consumeth that he should not be. Which may be taken in another sense also, if it be said in the voice of man when tempted; And I as a rotten thing am to consume, as a garment that is moth eaten. For man 'as a rotten thing consumeth,' in that he is wasted by the corruption of his flesh. And because impure temptation springs up to him from no other source than from himself, like a moth, temptation consumes the flesh, as a garment from which it issues. For man contains in himself the occasion whence he is tempted. Therefore as it were 'the moth consumeth the garment,' whilst it proceeded from that very same garment. However, we ought to bear in mind that the moth digs its way through the garment without any sound, and it very often happens that thought pierces the mind in such a way, that the mind itself is not sensible of it, until after it has been pierced by its sting. Therefore it is well said that man 'consumeth like a garment that is moth eaten,' for sometimes we do not know the wounds of temptation, unless after we be pierced thereby within our souls. Which same frailty of ours the holy man yet further considering justly adds; Man that is born of a woman liveth a short time, and is full of many miseries.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Moth — Heb. ‘ash, from a root meaning “to fall away,” as moth-eaten garments fall to pieces (Job 4:19; 13:28; Isa. 50:9; 51:8; Hos. 5:12). Gr. ses, thus rendered in Matt. 6:19, 20; Luke 12:33. Allusion is…
Garments · Of the rich: Often moth-eaten — Of the rich: Often moth-eaten
Life · BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF — BREVITY AND UNCERTAINTY OF
Moth · General references — General references
Moth, The · Illustrative: (Garments eaten by,) of those who have suffered severe judgments — Illustrative: (Garments eaten by,) of those who have suffered severe judgments
Reasoning · With God — With God
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
In the Old Testament, dry straw is a common image for what can be blown away (“chaff,” Ps 83:13; Isa 40:24; Jer 13:24) or burned (Exod 15:7; Isa 47:14; Mal 4:1; see also “dry grass,” Isa 5:24; 33:11), or for what is weak (Job 41:20-21) and trifling (Isa 41:2).
Rashi on Job 13:28
And it is like rot that decays The body You pursue will decay like rot, and it is beneath Your dignity to pursue it.
