Job 19:17

My breath is strange to my wife,.... Being corrupt and unsavoury, through some internal disorder; see Job 17:1; so that she could not bear to come nigh him, to do any kind deed for him; but if this

My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children's sake of mine own body. Strange.

To my wife; who by reason of the stink of my breath and sores denied me her company. For the children’ s sake of mine own body; by these pledges of our mutual and matrimonial tie and affection, the children which came out of my loins, and were begotten by me upon her body. But divers render the words thus, and I entreated the children of my own body, i.e. either some of Job’ s younger children, who by reason of their tender years were kept at home with their father, when their elder brethren and sisters were gone abroad to the feast; or some of his grandchildren by those grown sons and daughters; for such also oft come under the name of children. But this sense seems not so proper, partly because according to that translation here is mention only of Job’ s entreating them, but not a word of their denying his request; which is the only matter of his present complaint; and partly because according to the former translation it is a great and just aggravation of his wife’ s unkindness, and exactly answers to the foregoing verse, where the servant’ s perverseness is aggravated in the same manner, and by part of the same words.

Job 19:17 My breath is strange to my wife, though I intreated for the children’ s [sake] of mine own body.Ver. 17. My breath is strange to my wife] The corruption of his inwards (besides the noisomeness of his outward ulcers) made his breath strong and unwholesome. This his wife (as did that Roman lady, who said she thought all men’ s breath as unsavoury as her husband’ s was), should have borne with, in a time of sickness especially, when she should have shown herself a help, and not a heartbreak, to her husband. Famous in our chronicles is the Lady Eleanor, wife to Prince Edward (afterwards Edward I), who extracted the poison out of her husband’ s wounds with her tongue, licking daily, while he slept, his rankling wounds, whereby they perfectly closed (Cambd. in Middlesex, Speed. 630). And no less famous is the wife of Valdaurus, celebrated by Ludov. Vires, lib. 2, de Christiana Femina, p. 360. A young and beautiful maid, saith he, was matched to a man stricken in years, whom after she found to have a very fulsome breath and a diseased body, yet (out of conscience, being by God’ s providence become his wife) she most worthily digested, with incredible patience and contentment, the languishing and loathsomeness of a husband, continually visited with variety of most irksome and infectious diseases; and though friends and physicians advised her by no means to come near him, for fear of danger and infection, yet she, passing by with a loving disdain and contempt these unkind dissuasions, plied him night and day with extraordinary tenderness and care, and services of all sorts above her strength and ability; she was to him friends, physician, wife, nurse; yea, she was father, mother, brother, sister, daughter, everything, anything to do him good in any manner or way, &c. Though I intreated for the children’ s sake, &c.] i.e. By the holy right of wedlock, and the fruit thereof, those dear pledges of our matrimonial good affection; children, as they are dear to their parents (Charos, Plautus somewhere calleth them), so they are an endearing to their parents, whose seed they are called, as if there were nothing left to the parents but the husks. This therefore was a melting argument; but it moved not Job’ s wife. Men may speak persuasively, but God only persuadeth.

(17) Though I intreated for the children’s sake of mine own body.—Rather, and so is my affection or kindness (see Psalms 77:10, where the same word occurs) to the children of my mother’s womb, i.e., my brethren. Others render, I am become offensive to, &c.

Verse 17. Though I entreated for the children's sake of mine own body.] This may imply no more than adjuring her by the tenderest ties, by their affectionate intercourse, and consequently by the children which had been the seals of their mutual affection, though these children were no more. But the mention of his children in this place may intimate that he had still some remaining; that there might have been young ones, who, not being of a proper age to attend the festival of their elder brothers and sisters, escaped that sad catastrophe. The Septuagint have, Προσεκαλουμηνδεκολακευωνυἰουςπαλλακιδωνμου, "I affectionately entreated the children of my concubines." But there is no ground in the Hebrew text for such a strange exceptionable rendering. Coverdale has, I am fayne to speake fayre to the children of myne own body.

17. Once more, if possible an acuter misery—he is become intolerable to those most dear to him. though I intreated] Perhaps, and I am loathsome to the children of—. The word as known in Heb. means to be gracious to, to pity (Job 19:21), in the simple form (here), and to seek favour to oneself, or beseech, in the reflexive (Job 19:16), but the simple form has nowhere the meaning of “beseech” or entreat. The Arab. has a root of the same spelling, which means to smell badly, to stink,—a sense parallel to the meaning of the first clause, where “strange” means offensive. The last words of the verse “children of mine own body” are difficult; they mean literally, children of my womb. The word usually rendered womb is used occasionally of the father, Psalms 132:11; Micah 6:7. The Prologue narrates the death of Job’s children, and the same assumption is made in the Poem, ch. Job 8:4, Job 29:5, and it is not to be thought that another mode of representation appears here. In Job 19:15-16, however, Job has still maids and servants, though his servants are represented in the Prologue as having perished. As he has other servants he might have other children. These might be children of concubines, as Job lived in the patriarchal age, though no allusion is made to such connexions, and the references to his wife are of such a kind as to suggest that Job lived in a state of strict monogamy. Or the expression “children of my body” might be used somewhat loosely to mean grandchildren—children of his sons. The impression conveyed by the Prologue is that the seven sons were unmarried, though this is left uncertain. Others consider the phrase “children of my womb” to mean, children of my mother—children of the same womb with myself.

My breath is strange to my wife - Schultens renders this, “my breath is loathsome to my wife,” and so also Noyes.

17. Though I entreated, etc. — Now generally translated, I am offensive to the sons, etc. The Hebrew is equivocal in meaning. (See below.) Job’s disease was no less offensive to the sense of sight than to that of smell.