And with the unceasing conflict of his limbs;

20 And his life causeth him to loathe bread,

And his soul dainty meat.

21 His flesh consumeth away to uncomeliness,

And his deranged limbs are scarcely to be seen.

22 Then his soul draweth near to the grave,

And his life to the destroyers.

Another and severer lesson which God teaches man is by painful sickness: he is chastened with pain (בּ of the means) on his bed, he and the vigorous number of his limbs, i.e., he with this hitherto vigorous (Raschi), or: while the multitude of his limbs is still vigorous (Ew). Thus is the Keri ורב to be understood, for the interpretation: and the multitude of his limbs with unceasing pain (Arnh. after Aben-Ezra), is unnatural. But the Chethib is far more commendable: and with a constant tumult of his limbs (Hirz. and others). Job 33:19 might also be taken as a substantival clause: and the tumult of his limbs is unceasing (Umbr., Welte); but that taking over of בּ from במכאוב is simpler and more pleasing. ריב (opposite of שׁלום, e.g., Psalm 38:4) is an excellent description of disease which consists in a disturbance of the equilibrium of the powers, in the dissolution of their harmony, in the excitement of one against another (Psychol. S. 287). אתן for איתן belongs to the many defective forms of writing of this section. In Job 33:20 we again meet a Hebraeo-Arabic hapaxlegomenon. זהם from זהם. In Arab. zahuma signifies to stink, like the Aram. זהם (whence זוּהם, dirt and stench), zahama to thrust back, restrain, after which Abu Suleiman Dad Alfsi, in his Arabic Lexicon of the Hebrew, interprets: "his soul thrusts back (תזהם נפסה) food and every means of life,"

(Note: Vid., Pinsker's Likkute Kadmoniot, p. קמג.)

beside which the suff. of וזהמתּוּ is taken as an anticipation of the following object (vid., on Job 29:3): his life feels disgust at it, at bread, and his soul at dainty meat. The Piel has then only the intensive signification of Kal (synon. תּעב, Psalm 107:18), according to which it is translated by Hahn with many before him. But if the poet had wished to be so understood, he would have made use of a less ambiguous arrangement of the words, וזהמתו לחם חיתו. We take זהם with Ew. 122, b, as causative of Kal, in which signification the Piel, it is true, occurs but rarely, yet it does sometimes, instead of Hiph.; but without translating, with Hirz., חיה by hunger and נפשׁ by appetite, which gives a confused thought. Schlottm. appropriately remarks: "It is very clearly expressed, as the proper vital power, the proper ψυχή, when it is inwardly consumed by disease, gives one a loathing for that which it otherwise likes as being a necessary condition of its own existence." Thus it is: health produces an appetite, sickness causes nausea; the soul that is in an uninjured normal state longs for food, that which is severely weakened by sickness turns the desire for dainties into loathing and aversion.