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Arrows; so he fitly calls his afflictions, because, like arrows, they came upon him swiftly and suddenly, one after another, and that from on high, and they wounded him deeply and deadly.
Of the Almighty; so he calls them, either generally, because all afflictions come from him; or particularly, because God’s hand was in a singular manner eminent and visible in his miseries, Job 1; or yet more especially, because they were immediately shot by God into his spirit, as it follows.
Are within me; besides those evils which are past, Job 1, there are other miseries that are constant and fixed in me, the sharp pains of my body, and dismal horrors of my mind.
The poison whereof; implying that these arrows were more keen and pernicious than ordinary, as being dipped in God’s wrath, as the barbarous nations then and since used to dip their arrows in poison, that they might not only pierce, but burn up and consume the vital parts.
Drinketh up my spirit, i.e. exhausteth and consumeth, either,
1. My vital spirits, together with my blood, the seat of them, and my heart, the spring of them, as poison useth to do. But I doubt the Hebrew word ruach is never used in that sense. Or,
2. My soul, which is commonly the spirit, my mind and conscience. So he tells them, that besides the miseries which they saw, he felt others, and far greater, though invisible, torments in his soul, which if they could see, they would have more pity for him. And in this sense this place is and may very well be otherwise rendered, whose poison my spirit
drinketh up, i.e. my soul sucks in the venom of those calamities, by apprehending and applying to itself the wrath of God manifested and conveyed by them.
The terrors of God; either,
1. Great terrors; or,
2. God’s terrible judgments; or rather,
3. These terrors which God immediately works in my soul, either from the sense of his wrath accompanying my outward troubles, or from the sad expectation of longer and greater torments.
Set themselves in array; they are like a numerous and well-ordered army, under the conduct of an irresistible general, who designs and directs them to invade me on every side.