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There is something incongruous about 'raiment' being likened to 'clay'.
The
metrical version found in The Companion Bible reads:
'Though silver, like the dust, he heapeth up,
And garments, made in number like the sand'.
We have already drawn the reader's attention to the fact that chomer is
sometimes translated homer, 'a measure' (Isa. 5:10), and so in this passage
of Job clay as clay is not in view, but, as Carey comments:
'As chomer signifies also a mound, the idea may be intended here, and
will correspond well, with the heaping up in the previous clause. Our
Lord evidently alludes to the Eastern practice of hoarding up enormous
stores of raiment (Matt. 6:19). It was, amongst other things, the
sight of a goodly Babylonish garment that ensnared Achan (Josh. 7:21)'.
'He hath cast me into the mire'. The truer translation would be 'He
hath cast me down to the mire', i.e. He has reduced me to the level of the
mire of the streets.
'It is turned (haphak) as clay to the seal; and they stand as a
garment'. There are but three other passages where this verb 'to turn'
occurs in this particular form, namely in Genesis 3:24, Job 37:12 and Judges
7:13, and its consistent meaning is 'to go on turning itself', 'to go round
and round'. The British Museum contains a splendid collection of cylindrical
seals, which when rolled over wax or clay causes the figures engraved on it
to stand out in relief, and this, said God, is what happens as the earth
rolls into sunlight, mountain and valley stand out in bold relief. These
preliminary notes have but cleared the way for the more specific references
to Israel and to the final phase of Gentile dominion. The first passage to
which we would draw attention is in the book of Lamentations:
'The precious sons of Zion, comparable to fine gold, how are they
esteemed as earthen pitchers, the work of the hands of the potter!'
(Lam. 4:2).
The book of Lamentations is perhaps one of the most neglected portions
of the Old Testament and at first sight contains little to attract the
reader. Yet upon the construction of this book there has been lavished
sufficient care to ensure that each chapter shall be written in the form of
an acrostic. Chapter 1 has twenty -two verses, and each line begins with a
letter of the Hebrew alphabet in correct order. This is true also of
chapters 2 and 4. Chapter 5, while containing the same number of verses,
namely twenty -two, and commencing with the same acrostic features, breaks
down apparently before the flow of the prophet's grief. Chapter 3 contains
sixty -six verses, and the acrostic is in a series of triads, verses 1, 2 and
3 commencing with aleph, 4,5 and 6 with beth, and so on. The book consists
of five elegies on the destruction of Jerusalem, which in their turn have
prophetic foreshadowings.
The opening verse sets the key to the book: 'How doth the city sit
solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was
great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, how is she become
tributary!' (Lam. 1:1). Here we have deterioration set forth in a series of
figures. Solitary instead of full, widow that was once happily married, a
princess that now pays tribute. The opening of chapter 2 follows much the