a tooth (as sharp) · noun, common feminine dual construct + pronominal suffix
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 102:5 By reason of the voice of my groaning my bones cleave to my skin.
Lamentations 4:8 Their visage is blacker than a coal; they are not known in the streets: their skin cleaveth to their bones; it is withered, it is become lik…
Job 33:19-22 He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain:
Job 2:4-6 And Satan answered the LORD, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life.
Job 7:5 My flesh is clothed with worms and clods of dust; my skin is broken, and become loathsome.
Job 30:30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
Psalms 22:14-17 I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint: my heart is like wax; it is melted in the midst of my bowels.
Psalms 32:3-4 When I kept silence, my bones waxed old through my roaring all the day long.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 19:8-22
Bildad had very disingenuously perverted Job's complaints by making them the description of the miserable condition of a wicked man; and yet he repeats them here, to move their pity, and to work upon their good nature, if they had any left in them.
I. He complains of the tokens of God's displeasure which he was under, and which infused the wormwood and gall into the affliction and misery. How doleful are the accents of his complaints! "He hath kindled his wrath against me, which flames and terrifies me, which burns and pains me," Job 19:11. What is the fire of hell but the wrath of God? Seared consciences will feel it hereafter, but do not fear it now. Enlightened consciences fear it now, bu…
Extreme meagerness. The bone seemed to stick in the skin, being seen through it, owing to the flesh drying up and falling away from the bone. The Margin, "as to my flesh," makes this sense clearer. The English Version, however, expresses the same: "And to my flesh," namely, which has fallen away from the bone, instead of firmly covering it.
skin of my teeth--proverbial. I have escaped with bare life; I am whole only with the skin of my teeth; that is, my gums alone are whole, the rest of the skin of my body is broken with sores (Job 7:5; Psa 102:5). Satan left Job his speech, in hope that he might therewith curse God.
John Gill on Job 19:20
My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh,.... Or, "as to my flesh" (o), as Mr. Broughton and others render the words; as his bones used to stick to his flesh, and were covered with it, now his flesh being consumed and wasted away with his disease, they stuck to his skin, and were seen through it; he was reduced to skin and bone, and was a mere skeleton, what with the force of his bodily disorder, and the grief of his mind through the treatment he met with from God and men, see Lamentations 4:8;
and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth; meaning not, as some understand it, his lips, which covered his teeth; for those cannot be properly called the skin of them; rather the fine polish of t…
"My flesh is corrupt under my skin, and my teeth grip my bones." "While I am alive," Job says, "my flesh putrefies, and my bones are chewed by the teeth of some wild animal."
"My flesh in my skin has become corrupted. ". The attachment to external objects has corrupted the inside of my soul. It would be too little to hear this passage to the letter of a skin disease. "And in my mouth are nothing but my bones. My firmness and my courage are more in my words than in my actions.
My bone cleaveth to my skin, through my flesh being wasted. By 'bone' we have strength, and by flesh weakness of the body denoted; therefore, whereas Christ and the Church are one person, what is signified by the 'bone' but the Lord Himself? what by the 'flesh' save the disciples, who in the hour of His Passion were weakly disposed? but by the 'skin,' which in the body remains more outward than the flesh, what is represented but those holy women, who with the view to furnish the stays of the body, served the Lord by outward offices of ministration? for when His disciples, though not yet firm, were preaching faith to the people, the flesh kept close to its bone; and when the holy women prepared the outward things that were necessary, they as it were like 'a skin' remained on the body outwards; but when it came to the hour of the Cross, exceeding great fear, caused by the persecution of the Jews, took possession of His disciples: they severally fled, the women 'stuck close,' and so, the 'flesh,' as it were, 'being consumed,' 'the bone of the Lord clave to its skin,' in that His strength, when the disciples fled in the hour of the Passion, had the women close beside it. Peter indeed stood for some time, but yet afterwards being affrighted he denied Him. John too stood, to whom at the very time of the Cross it was said, Behold thy mother. But he could not persevere; since it is also written concerning him, And there followed Him a certain young man, having a linen cloth cast about his naked body, and the young men laid hold of him. And he left the linen cloth, and fled from them naked; who although afterwards, to hear the words of his Redeemer, he returned at the hour of the Cross, yet first he was affrighted and fled; but the women are related not only not to have been afraid nor to have fled, but even to have stood fast even to the sepulchre; and so let him say, My bone cleaveth to my skin, through the flesh being wasted; i.e. 'they that ought to have attached themselves closer to My strength, in the season of My Passion were consumed with dread; and those whom I set to external ministrations, in My Passion I found attached themselves faithfully to Me without fear.' And here it is plainly implied that these words are delivered in mystery, in that it follows; And the lips only are left about my teeth. For what do we have 'about our teeth,' but 'lips,' even if…
Dictionary and topics
Diseases · Mentioned in scripture: Atrophy — Mentioned in scripture: Atrophy
Friendship · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
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).
Keil & Delitzsch on Job 19:16-20
16 I call to my servant and he answereth not,
I am obliged to entreat him with my mouth.
17 My breath is offensive to my wife,
And my stench to my own brethren.
18 Even boys act contemptuously towards me;
If I will rise up, they speak against me.
19 All my confidential friends abhor me,
And those whom I loved have turned against me.
20 My bone cleaveth to my skin and flesh,
And I am escaped only with the skin of my teeth.
His servant, who otherwise saw every command in his eyes, and was attent upon his wink, now not only does not come at his call, but does not return him any answer. The one of the home-born slaves (vid., on Gen 14:14),
(Note: The (black) slaves born within the tribe itself a…
escaped death by the skin of my teeth: This is an idiom for a narrow escape; the Hebrew could also mean that Job was reduced to a skeleton with a toothy skull.
Rashi on Job 19:20
My bones cleaved because I am emaciated from thickness of flesh.
by the skin of my teeth All his flesh was afflicted with boils and worms except his gums.
