Job 10:11
in Job 10You clothed me with skin and flesh, and knit me together with bones and sinews.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, And knit me together with bones and sinews.
KJV
Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews.
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This verse in Job 10
Commentary
10 notes on this verseHere [Job] foreshadows the incarnation of the divine Word through the assumption of human nature. These words, in fact, appear to be addressed to the Father, as if they were said by the person [the Son] of the Lord.
This site's exposition
Your hands shaped me and altogether formed me
on Job 10:8-12
"Your hands shaped me" opens an argument from workmanship to care. "Your care has preserved my spirit" turns toward tenderness, the Hebrew carrying the sense of watchful, sustaining care. A potter who shaped the vessel so closely has no reason to smash it, and Job puts that question to God.
This site's exposition
knit me together with bones and sinews
In Matthew Henry's picture, skin and flesh clothe the body, and bones and sinews are its armour. Barnes reads the verse as the child formed in the womb. Every part of Job came from the hands of God.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
The seed from which life emerges he calls "milked milk," for as milk curdles and becomes cheese, so the seed becomes "nature" when it curdles. This is a condition before the embryo. For the seed that sinks into the channels of the vagina becomes "nature" …
The Medieval Church2 voices
Next he treats the making of man with reference to the work of propagation by which man is generated from man. Note here that he attributes every work of nature to God, not so as to exclude the operation of nature, but in the way …
Hast Thou not poured me out like milk, and curdled me like cheese? Thou hast clothed me with skin, and flesh, and hast fenced me with bones and sinews. For man when fashioned was moulded like clay, but being propagated he is 'poured out like milk' in the seed, and is 'curdled like cheese' in the flesh, and he is 'clothed with skin and flesh,' and is rendered firm by bones and sinews.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
Clothed - Covered my inward and more noble parts; which are first formed. So he proceeds in describing man's formation gradually. Bones - The stay and strength of the body; and some of them, as the skull and ribs, enclose and defend its vital parts.
Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh,.... The bones with flesh, which is the under garment, and the flesh with skin, which is the upper; which is artificially composed of intricate little arteries, veins, nerves, and glands, through which the blood continually circulates, and through innumerable pores, and transpires, of which pores 125,000 may be covered with a small grain of sand (l), amazing!
2 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening1 voice
Though we come into the world naked, yet the body is itself both clothed and armed. The skin and flesh are its clothing; the bones and sinews are its armour, not offensive, but defensive.
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
A commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
Thou hast clothed me with skin and flesh - This refers, undoubtedly, to the formation of man in his foetal existence, and is designed to denote that the whole organization of the human frame was to be traced to God. Grotius remarks that this is the order in which the infant is formed - that the skin appears first, then the flesh, then the harder parts of the frame. On this subject, the reader may consult Dunglison’s Physiology, vol. ii. p. 340ff. And hast fenced me - Margin, Hedged. Literally, Hast covered me. The sense is plain.
How the passage was read
What the Jewish commentators add
On the verses either side of this one
Did you not pour me like milk Concerning the drop from which I was born.
1 more on this passage, in their own words ▾
and Your providence The providence of Your watch, for You appointed watchers for me.
This section is reception history: how the passage was read and kept in the Jewish tradition. Where a reading parts from an essential of the Christian faith, the section says so at that point.
Texts and citation data: Sefaria; each excerpt follows its version’s licence. 4 further sources are cited on this chapter that carry no English text this site may quote or only restate the verse.
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| ע֣וֹר | or | skin | H5785 → | 99 times |
| וּ֭בָשָׂר | uvasor | and flesh | H1320 → | 270 times |
| תַּלְבִּישֵׁ֑נִי | talbisheni | did you clothe? me | H3847 → | 110 times |
| וּֽבַעֲצָמ֥וֹת | uvaatzamot | and with bones | H6106 → | 126 times |
| וְ֝גִידִ֗ים | vegidim | and sinews | H1517 → | |
| תְּסֹכְכֵֽנִי׃ | tesokhekheni | did you weave together? me | H5526 → | 24 times |
ע֣וֹרskin
orH5785 →99 times
וּ֭בָשָׂרand flesh
uvasorH1320 →270 times
תַּלְבִּישֵׁ֑נִיdid you clothe? me
talbisheniH3847 →110 times
וּֽבַעֲצָמ֥וֹתand with bones
uvaatzamotH6106 →126 times
וְ֝גִידִ֗יםand sinews
vegidimH1517 →
תְּסֹכְכֵֽנִי׃did you weave together? me
tesokhekheniH5526 →24 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
5 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Ephesians 4:16From Him the whole body, fitted and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love through the work of each individual part.
it leads to
- Colossians 2:19
He has lost connection to the head, from whom the whole body, supported and knit together by its joints and ligaments, grows as God causes it to grow.
- John 15:5
I am the vine and you are the branches. The one who remains in Me, and I in him, will bear much fruit. For apart from Me you can do nothing.
- Colossians 2:2
that they may be encouraged in heart, knit together in love, and filled with the full riches of complete understanding, so that they may know the mystery of God, namely Christ,
- 1 Corinthians 13:13
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love; but the greatest of these is love.
- Ephesians 4:12
to equip the saints for works of ministry and to build up the body of Christ,
- Colossians 2:19
About Job
This page draws on 10 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Didymus the Blind, COMMENTARY ON JOB 10:10-12; Ephrem the Syrian, COMMENTARY ON JOB 10:11-12; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book IX; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.