10:11 You clothed 1 me with skin and flesh
and knit me together 2 with bones and sinews.
21:6 For, when I think 3 about this, I am terrified 4
and my body feels a shudder. 5
33:25 then his flesh is restored 6 like a youth’s;
he returns to the days of his youthful vigor. 7
1 tn The skin and flesh form the exterior of the body and so the image of “clothing” is appropriate. Once again the verb is the prefixed conjugation, expressing what God did.
2 tn This verb is found only here (related nouns are common) and in the parallel passage of Ps 139:13. The word סָכַךְ (sakhakh), here a Poel prefixed conjugation (preterite), means “to knit together.” The implied comparison is that the bones and sinews form the tapestry of the person (compare other images of weaving the life).
3 tn The verb is זָכַר (zakhar, “to remember”). Here it has the sense of “to keep in memory; to meditate; to think upon.”
4 tn The main clause is introduced here by the conjunction, following the adverbial clause of time.
5 tn Some commentators take “shudder” to be the subject of the verb, “a shudder seizes my body.” But the word is feminine (and see the usage, especially in Job 9:6 and 18:20). It is the subject in Isa 21:4; Ps 55:6; and Ezek 7:18.
5 tc The word רֻטֲפַשׁ (rutafash) is found nowhere else. One suggestion is that it should be יִרְטַב (yirtav, “to become fresh”), connected to רָטַב (ratav, “to be well watered [or moist]”). It is also possible that it was a combination of רָטַב (ratav, “to be well watered”) and טָפַשׁ (tafash, “to grow fat”). But these are all guesses in the commentaries.
6 tn The word describes the period when the man is healthy and vigorous, ripe for what life brings his way.