properly · verb, piel perfect, 3rd person masculine singular
face
פָנָ֣יוfa.Nav
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · noun, common masculine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
fatness
בְּחֶלְבּ֑וֹbe.chel.Bo
H2459
fat · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
maketh
וַיַּ֖עַשׂvai.Ya.'as
H6213
to do or make · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
fat
פִּימָ֣הpi.Mah
H6371
obesity · noun, common feminine singular absolute
flanks
כָֽסֶלKha.sel
H3689
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
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 17:10 They are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they speak proudly.
Psalms 73:7 Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish.
Isaiah 6:10 Make the heart of this people fat, and make their ears heavy, and shut their eyes; lest they see with their eyes, and hear with their ears,…
Jeremiah 5:28 They are waxen fat, they shine: yea, they overpass the deeds of the wicked: they judge not the cause, the cause of the fatherless, yet they…
Deuteronomy 32:15 But Jeshurun waxed fat, and kicked: thou art waxen fat, thou art grown thick, thou art covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made…
Job 17:10 But as for you all, do ye return, and come now: for I cannot find one wise man among you.
Psalms 78:31 The wrath of God came upon them, and slew the fattest of them, and smote down the chosen men of Israel.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 15:17–end
Eliphaz, having reproved Job for his answers, here comes to maintain his own thesis, upon which he built his censure of Job. His opinion is that those who are wicked are certainly miserable, whence he would infer that those who are miserable are certainly wicked, and that therefore Job was so. Observe,
I. His solemn preface to this discourse, in which he bespeaks Job's attention, which he had little reason to expect, he having given so little heed to and put so little value upon what Job had said (Job 15:17): "I will show thee that which is worth hearing, and not reason, as thou dost, with unprofitable talk." Thus apt are men, when they condemn the reasonings of others, to commend their own.…
The well-nourished body of the rebel is the sign of his prosperity.
collops--masses of fat. He pampers and fattens himself with sensual indulgences; hence his rebellion against God (Deu 32:15; Sa1 2:29).
John Gill on Job 15:27
Because he covereth his face with his fatness,.... He has no fear of God, nor shame for his sin; he blushes not to rise up against God in the manner he does, because his eyes stand out with fatness; or rather his face is covered with it, that is, he abounds in riches, he enjoys great prosperity, a large affluence of all good things; and this makes him haughty and imperious, neither to fear God, nor regard man like Jeshurun, who, when he "waxed fat, was grown thick, and covered with fatness, kicked" against God, and his providences, sinned and rebelled against him; "forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation", Deuteronomy 32:15; and to the same purpose is the f…
25 Because he stretched out his hand against God,
And was insolent towards the Almighty;
26 He assailed Him with a stiff neck,
With the thick bosses of his shield;
27 Because he covered his face with his fatness,
And addeth fat to his loins,
28 And inhabited desolated cities,
Houses which should not be inhabited,
Which were appointed to be ruins.
29 He shall not be rich, and his substance shall not continue
And their substance boweth not to the ground.
30 He escapeth not darkness;
The flame withereth his shoots;
And he perisheth in the breath of His mouth.
This strophe has periodic members: Job 15:25-28 an antecedent clause with a double beginning (כּי־נטה because he has stretched out, כּי־כ…
The Church Fathers
"He hid the face of God in his fat. Fat is that triumphant pride that has diverted God from him. "He placed a muzzle on his thigh. His passions chained him and dragged him like a captive to death.
Ver. 27. Fatness hath covered his face. For the sight is in the face, wherein too is the first more honourable part of the body. Therefore the best of the mind is not unjustly denoted by the face, which wherever we turn it, there we see. And so 'fatness covers the face,' in that the earnestly coveted abundance of earthly good things presses down the eyes of the mind, and that which should be honourable in them, it makes foul in the eyes of God, in that it weighs it to the earth with a multitude of concerns. Who do not however find it enough that they themselves should be full of pride, unless those too that are united to them, themselves also are made boastful by their fatness. For there are some who on being countenanced by the patronage of the greater ones, are set up with pride, and on the strength of their power uplifted against the destitute. Hence it is yet further subjoined; And the fat hangs from his sides. Because the fat is the richness of the flesh, and we are accustomed to call those persons the 'sides' of the rich, whom we see united to them, 'the fat hangs down from his sides,' in that every one that attaches himself to the powerful and wicked man is by his power himself also as it were swollen with the fatness of good things, so that following the wickedness of an evil patron he has no fear of God, he distresses the poor, whom he is able, and as much as he is able, and uplifts his heart on the strength of temporal glory. So when there is such an one who is attached to a powerful wicked man, 'from his side,' surely enough, 'the fat hangs down.'
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Job had complained earlier that God was treating him like a formidable foe (7:19-21; 13:24).
Rashi on Job 15:27
collops of fat on his loins He made a mouth on his loins, for his fat and the thickness of his blubber is folded on his loins, and they look like a sort of mouth.
