Yet surely,' he seems to say in a couplet of extreme obscurity,
' even in falling, even as I sink for ever, I may throw out

ver. 34 my hand ; even in the hour of ruin, I may raise a cry. For,'

Ter^?^ ■^"^ ^°^ ^ weep, in happier days,_/or him thai was in trouble?
Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
' And is all sympathy gone from God and man ? — sore is my
need of it. In the hour of my confidence, came my ruim

' ' They that gnaw.' The words were perhaps the foundation of a
revolting yet touching tradition, that the worms, bred in Job's leprous
ulcers (a sense accepted by Gregory), made him unapproachable to all
but his wife who lovingly tended him. Delitzsch, in loco.
yo5's final lamentation. 257

When I looked for good, then evil came: Lecture

And when I waited for light, there came darkness! ^-

' My heart' — so we speak of the seat of the emotions — ' my (-]j ^^^
heart is on fire within me. I need no mourning garments, ver. 26.
Grief has parched and darkened me, as no sun's rays could ver. 27, 28.
have power to do. I cry aloud, even when, as now, men are
gathered around me; I cry on this vile heap, even as the ver. 29.
howling jackal and screeching ostrich, whose brother I have
become. For a fever parches my skin, and burns within ver. 30.
my bones. No wonder that I utter this doleful elegy ! '

Therefore is my harp turned to mourning, ver. 31.
And my pipe into the voice of them that weep.
