away with them thence these supposedly petrified worms of Job.[1]
Job 30:18 would be closely and naturally connected with what precedes if לבוּשׁי could be understood of the skin and explained: By omnipotence (viz., divine, as Job 23:6, Ew. §270a) the covering of my body is distorted, as even Raschi: משׁתנה גלד אחר גלד, it is changed, by one skin or crust being formed after another. But even Schultens rightly thinks it remarkable that לבושׁ, Job 30:18, is not meant to signify the proper upper garment but the covering of the skin, but כּתּנת, Job 30:18, the under garment in a proper sense. The astonishment is increased by the fact that התהפּשׂ signifies to disguise one's self, and thereby render one's self unrecognisable, which leads to the proper idea of לבושׁ, to a clothing which looks like a disguise. It cannot be cited in favour of this unusual meaning that לבושׁ is used in Job 41:5 of the scaly skin of the crocodile: an animal has no other לבושׁ but its skin. Therefore, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we take לבושׁ strictly: “by (divine) omnipotence my garment is distorted (becomes unlike itself), like the collar of my shirt it fits close to me.” It is unnecessary to take כּפי as a compound praep.: according to
- ↑ In Mugir ed-dîn's large history of Jerusalem and Hebron (kitâb el-ins el-gelı̂l), in an article on Job, we read: God had so visited him in his body, that he got the disease that devours the limbs (tegedhdhem), and worms were produced (dawwad) in the wounds, while he lay on a dunghill (mezbele), and except his wife, who tended him, no one ventured to come too near him. In a beautiful Kurdic ballad “on the basket dealer” (zembilfrosh), which I have obtained from the Kurds in Salihîje, are these words:Veki Gergis beshara beri | Jusuf veki abdan keri | bikesr' Ejub kurman deri | toh anin ser sultaneti | to men chalaski 'j zahmeti.
“When they divided Gergîs with a saw
And sold Joseph like a slave,
When worms fed themselves in Job's body,
Then Thou didst guide them by a sure way:
Thou wilt also deliver me from need.”
More concerning these worms of Job in the description of the monastery of Job. - Wetzst.)
