The Pulpit Commentary on Job 6:4

The Pulpit Commentary · Joseph S. Exell and contributors · Public domain

For the arrows of the Almighty are wlthin me (comp. Psalms 38:2, "For thine arrows stick fast in me"). So Shakespeare speaks of "the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune" for calamities generally.

The metaphor is a very common one (see Deuteronomy 32:23, Deuteronomy 32:42; Psalms 7:13; Psalms 21:12; Psalms 45:5; Lamentations 3:13, Lamentations 3:14). The poison whereof. Poisoned arrows, such as are now employed by the savage tribes of Central Africa, were common in antiquity, though seldom used by civilized nations.

Ovid declares that the Scythians of his time made use of them ('Tristia,' 1, 2). Drinketh up my spirit; rather, my spirit drinketh up. Job's spirit absorbs the poison that festers in his wounds, and therefore loses control over itself.

This is his apology for his vehemence; he is well-nigh distraught. He adds, The terrors of God do set themselves in array against me. Besides actual pains and sufferings, he is assailed by fears. God's terrors, i.

e. all the other evils that he has at his disposal, are drawn up against him, as it were, in battle array, and still further agitate and distract his soul. What further troubles may not God bring upon him?

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