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Job_19:20 My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
Ver. 20. My bone cleaveth to my skin] My skin is a bag of bones. I am become a mere skeleton, and may well cry out, O my leanness, my leanness! So bare I am grown, that little appeareth in me but skin and bones, Isa_24:16. My bone cleaveth to my skin as to my flesh (so it may be read), that is, as once it did in my flesh, when I was well lined within. Now, alas! I lie under a miserable marasmus; and should therefore be pitied, as being a just object of your commiseration, Ossa sub incurvis apparent arida lumbis.
And I am escaped with the skin of my teeth] Escaped I am, and come off (as out of a hot skirmish) with my life, and very little else. All I have left me whole is the skin of my teeth; that is, of my gums, into which my teeth are engrafted; the rest of my body is all over a scab. The Vulgate rendereth it, My lips only about my teeth are left me untouched. And Junius gives this gloss, Job had nothing left him but the instrument of speech. These, say some, the devil purposely meddled not with, as hoping that therewith he would curse God. Curse him he might with his heart only; but this would have pleased the devil nothing so well as to hear him do it with his tongue, Hoc fecisse Satanam volunt, ut voluntatem caperet (Merc.). This is the conceit of some of the Jewish doctors. But it is better to ascribe this escape to the good providence of God than to the malice of the devil.