I have sewn sackcloth over my skin; I have buried my horn in the dust.
Job's complaint is here as bitter as any where in all his discourses, and he is at a stand whether to smother it or to give it vent. Sometimes the one and sometimes the other is a relief to the afflicted, according as the temper or the circumstances are; but Job found help by neither, Job 16:6. 1.
Commenting on Job 16:6-16
My face is foul with weeping,.... On account of the loss of his substance, and especially of his children; at the unkindness of his friends, and over his own corruptions, which he felt working in him, and breaking forth in unbecoming language; and because of the hidings of the face of God from him: the word used in the Arabic language (i) has the, signification...
sewed--denoting the tight fit of the mourning garment; it was a sack with armholes closely sewed to the body. horn--image from horned cattle, which when excited tear the earth with their horns. The horn was the emblem of power (Kg1 22:11). Here, it is in the dust--which as applied to Job denotes his humiliation from former greatness.