Job 7:5

7:5 My body ¹  is clothed ²  with worms ³  and dirty scabs; ⁴ 

my skin is broken ⁵  and festering.

Job 17:14

17:14 If I cry ⁶  to corruption, ⁷  ‘You are my father,’

and to the worm, ‘My Mother,’ or ‘My sister,’

Job 21:26

21:26 Together they lie down in the dust,

and worms cover over them both.

Job 25:6

25:6 how much less a mortal man, who is but a maggot ⁸  –

a son of man, who is only a worm!”

Job 24:20

24:20 The womb ⁹  forgets him,

the worm feasts on him,

no longer will he be remembered.

Like a tree, wickedness will be broken down.

[7:5]  ¹ tn Heb “my flesh.”

[7:5]  ² tn The implied comparison is vivid: the dirty scabs cover his entire body like a garment – so he is clothed with them.

[7:5]  ³ sn The word for “worms” (רִמָּה, rimmah, a collective noun), is usually connected with rotten food (Exod 16:24), or the grave (Isa 14:11). Job’s disease is a malignant ulcer of some kind that causes the rotting of the flesh. One may recall that both Antiochus Epiphanes (2 Macc 9:9) and Herod Agrippa (Acts 12:23) were devoured by such worms in their diseases.

[7:5]  ⁴ tn The text has “clods of dust.” The word גִּישׁ (gish, “dirty scabs”) is a hapax legomenon from גּוּשׁ (gush, “clod”). Driver suggests the word has a medical sense, like “pustules” (G. R. Driver, “Problems in the Hebrew text of Job,” VTSup 3 [1955]: 73) or “scabs” (JB, NEB, NAB, NIV). Driver thinks “clods of dust” is wrong; he repoints “dust” to make a new verb “to cover,” cognate to Arabic, and reads “my flesh is clothed with worms, and scab covers my skin.” This refers to the dirty scabs that crusted over the sores all over his body. The LXX links this with the second half of the verse: “And my body has been covered with loathsome worms, and I waste away, scraping off clods of dirt from my eruption.”

[7:5]  ⁵ tn The meaning of רָגַע (raga’) is also debated here. D. J. A. Clines (Job [WBC], 163) does not think the word can mean “cracked” because scabs show evidence of the sores healing. But E. Dhorme (Job, 100) argues that the usage of the word shows the idea of “splitting, separating, making a break,” or the like. Here then it would mean “my skin splits” and as a result festers. This need not be a reference to the scabs, but to new places. Or it could mean that the scabbing never heals, but is always splitting open.

[17:14]  ⁶ tn This is understood because the conditional clauses seem to run to the apodosis in v. 15.

[17:14]  ⁷ tn The word שַׁחַת (shakhat) may be the word “corruption” from a root שָׁחַת (shakhat, “to destroy”) or a word “pit” from שׁוּחַ (shuakh, “to sink down”). The same problem surfaces in Ps 16:10, where it is parallel to “Sheol.” E. F. Sutcliffe, The Old Testament and the Future Life, 76ff., defends the meaning “corruption.” But many commentators here take it to mean “the grave” in harmony with “Sheol.” But in this verse “worms” would suggest “corruption” is better.

[25:6]  ¹¹ tn The text just has “maggot” and in the second half “worm.” Something has to be added to make it a bit clearer. The terms “maggot” and “worm” describe man in his lowest and most ignominious shape.

[24:20]  ¹⁶ tn Here “womb” is synecdoche, representing one’s mother.