(28) I went mourning without the sun.--Rather, I go mourning without the sun; or, according to some, "blackened, but not by the sun." We give the preference to the other.
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation--i.e., not merely in secret, but in the face of all men.
Verses 28, 29. - I went mourning without the sun; rather, I go about blackened, but not by the sun. Grief and suffering, according to Oriental notions, blackened the face (see Lamentations 4:8; Lamentations 5:10; Psalm 119:83; and below, ver. 30). I stood up, and I cried in the congregation; rather, I stand up in the assemblyand cry for help (see the Revised Version). Job feels this as the most pitiable feature in his ease. He is broken down; he can no longer endure. At first he could sit in silence for seven days (Job 2:13); now he is reduced to uttering complaints and lamentations. He is a brother, not to dragons, but to jackals. His laments are like the long melancholy cries that those animals emit during the silence of the night, so well known to Eastern travellers. He adds further that he is a companion, not to owls, but to ostriches; which, like jackals, have a melancholy cry (see Micah 1:8; and comp. Dr. Hooker's article in Smith's 'Dict. of the Bible,' vol. 2. p. 650).
30:15-31 Job complains a great deal. Harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset Job. When inward temptations join with outward calamities, the soul is hurried as in a tempest, and is filled with confusion. But woe be to those who really have God for an enemy! Compared with the awful state of ungodly men, what are all outward, or even inward temporal afflictions? There is something with which Job comforts himself, yet it is but a little. He foresees that death will be the end of all his troubles. God's wrath might bring him to death; but his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits. If none pity us, yet our God, who corrects, pities us, even as a father pitieth his own children. And let us look more to the things of eternity: then the believer will cease from mourning, and joyfully praise redeeming love.
I went mourning without the sun,.... So overwhelmed with grief, that he refused to have any comfort from, or any advantage by the sun; hence Mr. Broughton renders it, "out of the sun"; he did not choose to walk in the sunshine, but out of it, to indulge his grief and sorrow the more; or he went in black attire, and wrapped and covered himself with it, that he might not see the sun, or receive any relief by it: or "I go black, but not by the sun" (q); his face and his skin were black, but not through the sun looking upon him and discolouring him, as in Sol 1:6; but through the force of his disease, which had changed his complexion, and made him as black as a Kedarene, or those that dwell in the tents of Kedar, Sol 1:5; and he also walked without the sun of righteousness arising on him, with healing in his wings, which was worst of all:
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation: either in the congregation of the saints met together for religious worship, where he cried unto God for help and deliverance, and for the light of his countenance, Job 30:20; or such was the extreme anguish of his soul, that when a multitude of people got about him to see him in his distressed condition, he could not contain himself, but burst out before them in crying and tears, though he knew it was unbecoming a man of his age and character; or he could not content himself to stay within doors and soothe his grief, but must go abroad and in public, and there expressed with strong cries and tears his miserable condition.
(q) "non propter solem", Vatablus; "non a sole", Junius & Tremellius, Drusius, Mercerus; "non ob solem", Piscator.
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation--i.e., not merely in secret, but in the face of all men.
I stood up, and I cried in the congregation: either in the congregation of the saints met together for religious worship, where he cried unto God for help and deliverance, and for the light of his countenance, Job 30:20; or such was the extreme anguish of his soul, that when a multitude of people got about him to see him in his distressed condition, he could not contain himself, but burst out before them in crying and tears, though he knew it was unbecoming a man of his age and character; or he could not content himself to stay within doors and soothe his grief, but must go abroad and in public, and there expressed with strong cries and tears his miserable condition.
(q) "non propter solem", Vatablus; "non a sole", Junius & Tremellius, Drusius, Mercerus; "non ob solem", Piscator.