My breath is corrupt, my days are extinct, the graves are ready for me.
The verse stands within the debate between Job and his three friends concerning his afflictions. It belongs to the poetic exchanges in which they dispute the cause and purpose of human suffering. The book presents Job as a real person and its narrative as fact, while the friends' claims, though generally true in themselves, are misapplied to his case, so suffering is not proof that God is displeased with the sufferer.
It is Job's reply in which he protests his innocence and desires death, as one facing the end of his life and expecting burial. It expresses extreme suffering and nearness to death, with failing breath, days nearly ended, and an awaiting grave. The Hebrew word ruach means breath, the air that is breathed, and here denotes corrupted or failing breath. This proves that spirit in its simple sense is wind and then breath, because breath is the air which is breathed.
The marginal reading gives spirit for breath, showing that breath can mean the human spirit. Breath is the life God gives through the air, and when it goes forth at death human thoughts perish, so the human spirit is not immortal. The word for grave is kever, meaning a literal grave or burial place, not sheol, which denotes the state of death shared by all the dead. The verse also describes the condition of those given to tobacco, whose breath is made corrupt, whose days are cut short, and for whom the grave is made ready, because no other habit so undermines present health and unfits young men for service.
The verse stands within the debate between Job and his three friends concerning his afflictions. It belongs to the poetic exchanges in which they dispute the cause and purpose of human suffering. The book presents Job as a real person and its narrative as fact, while the friends' claims, though generally true in themselves, are misapplied to his case, so suffering is not proof that God is displeased with the sufferer.
It is Job's reply in which he protests his innocence and desires death, as one facing the end of his life and expecting burial. It expresses extreme suffering and nearness to death, with failing breath, days nearly ended, and an awaiting grave. The Hebrew word ruach means breath, the air that is breathed, and here denotes corrupted or failing breath. This proves that spirit in its simple sense is wind and then breath, because breath is the air which is breathed.
The marginal reading gives spirit for breath, showing that breath can mean the human spirit. Breath is the life God gives through the air, and when it goes forth at death human thoughts perish, so the human spirit is not immortal. The word for grave is kever, meaning a literal grave or burial place, not sheol, which denotes the state of death shared by all the dead. The verse also describes the condition of those given to tobacco, whose breath is made corrupt, whose days are cut short, and for whom the grave is made ready, because no other habit so undermines present health and unfits young men for service.