I have sewed sackcloth upon my skin and have laid my strength 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.