Albert Barnes Commentary Job 4:19

"How much more them that dwell in houses of clay, Whose foundation is in the dust, Who are crushed before the moth!" — Job 4:19 (ASV)

How much less - (אף 'aph). This particle has the general sense of addition, accession, especially of something more important: "Indeed, more, besides, even" (Gesenius). The meaning here is, "How much more true is this of man!" He puts no confidence in his angels; he charges them with frailty; how much more strikingly true must this be of man! It is not merely, as our common translation would seem to imply, that He put much less confidence in man than in angels; it is that all He had said must be more strikingly true of man, who dwelt in so frail and humble a habitation.

In them that dwell in houses of clay - In man. The phrase "houses of clay" refers to the body made of dust. The sense is that man, from the fact that he dwells in such a tabernacle, is far inferior to the pure spirits that surround the throne of God and much more liable to sin. The body is represented as a temporary tent, tabernacle, or dwelling for the soul. That dwelling is soon to be taken down, and its tenant, the soul, to be removed to other abodes.

So Paul (2 Corinthians 5:1) speaks of the body as ἡ ἐπίγειος ἡμῶν οἰκία τοῦ σκήνους hē epigeios hēmōn oikia tou skēnous - our earthly house of this tabernacle. So Plato speaks of it as γηΐ́νον σκῆνος gēinon skēnos - an earthly tent; and Aristophanes (Av. 587), among other contemptuous expressions applied to people, calls them πλάσματα πηλοῦ plasmata pēlou, "vessels of clay."

The idea in the verse before us is beautiful, and as affecting as it is beautiful. A house of clay (חמר chômer) was poorly suited to bear the extremes of heat and cold, of storm and sunshine, of rain, and frost, and snow, and would soon crumble and decay. It must be a frail and temporary dwelling.

It could not endure the changes of the seasons and the lapse of years like a dwelling of granite or marble. So it is with our bodies. They can bear little. They are frail, infirm, and feeble. They are easily prostrated and soon fall back to their native dust. How can those who dwell in such edifices be in any way compared with the Infinite and Eternal God?

Whose foundation is in the dust - A house, to be firm and secure, should be founded on a rock . The figure of comparing man to a house is continued here; and as a house that is built on the sand or the dust may be easily washed away and could not be trusted, so it is with man. He is like such a dwelling, and no more confidence can be placed in him than in such a house.

Which are crushed - They are broken in pieces, trampled on, destroyed (דכא dâkâ'), by the most insignificant objects.

Before the moth - (See Isaiah 50:9, note; Isaiah 51:8, note). The word moth (עשׁ ‛âsh), Greek σής sēs — Vulgate, tinea — denotes properly an insect that flies by night, and particularly one that attaches itself to woolen cloth and consumes it. It is possible, however, that the word here denotes the moth-worm. This "moth-worm is one state of the creature which first is enclosed in an egg, and then issues in the form of a worm; after a time, it quits the form of a worm to assume that of the complete state of the insect, or the moth" (Calmet).

The comparison here, therefore, is not that of a moth flying against a house to overturn it, nor of the moth consuming man as it does a garment, but it is that of a feeble worm that preys on man and destroys him. The idea is that the feeblest of all objects may crush him. The following remarks from Niebuhr (Reisebeschreibung von Arabien, S. 133) will serve to illustrate this passage and show that so feeble a thing as a worm may destroy human life: "There is in Yemen, in India, and on the coasts of the South Sea, a common sickness caused by the Guinea, or nerve-worm, known to European physicians by the name of vena Medinensis. It is supposed in Yemen that this worm is ingested from the bad water which the inhabitants of those countries must use.

Many of the Arabians on this account take the precaution to strain the water which they drink. If anyone has by accident swallowed an egg of this worm, no trace of it is seen until it appears on the skin; and the first indication of it there is the irritation that is caused. On our physician, a few days before his death, five of these worms appeared, although we had been more than five months absent from Arabia. On the island of Charedsch, I saw a French officer, whose name was Le Page, who after a long and arduous journey on foot from Pondicherry to Surat, through the heart of India, found the traces of such a worm in him, which he tried to extract from his body.

He believed that he had swallowed it when drinking the waters of Mahratta. The worm is not dangerous if it can be drawn from the body without being broken. The Orientals are accustomed, as soon as the worm appears through the skin, to wind it up on a piece of straw or dry wood. It is finer than a thread and is from two to three feet in length. The winding up of the worm frequently occupies a week, and no further inconvenience is experienced than the care that is necessary not to break it.

If, however, it is broken, it draws itself back into the body and then becomes dangerous. Lameness, gangrene, or the loss of life itself is the result." (See the notes at Isaiah referred to above). The comparison of man with a worm, or an insect, on account of his feebleness and shortness of life, is common in the sacred writings, and in the Classics. The following passage from Pindar, quoted by Schultens, hints at the same idea:

Ἐπάμεροι, τί δέ τις; τί δ' οῦ τις;
Σκιᾶς ὄναρ ἄνθρωποι.
Epameroi, ti de tis; ti d' ou tis;
Skias onar anthrōpoi.

"Things of a day! What is anyone? What is he not? Men are the dream of a shadow!" - The idea in the passage before us is that people are exceedingly frail, and that in such creatures no confidence can be placed. How should such a creature, therefore, presume to arraign the wisdom and equity of the divine dealings? How can he be more just or wise than God?