Job 13:28

"You also put my feet in the stocks, and mark all my paths. You set a bound to the soles of my feet,"

Key Reflection

In Job 13:28, Job vividly describes his suffering by comparing it to being imprisoned. The practice of putting feet in stocks was a form of restraint and punishment used during the ancient Near East period, often associated with slaves or criminals. By saying that God has "put [his] feet in the stocks," Job suggests that he feels trapped and unable to move freely, highlighting the severity and oppressive nature of his trials. This imagery would have resonated strongly with his original audience, who were familiar with such practices and could empathize deeply with the sense of confinement and injustice Job experienced.

From the Scholars: Barnes' Notes

And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth -Noyes renders this, “And I, like an abandoned thing, shall waste away.” Dr. Good translates it, “Well may he dissolve as corrupttion.” Rosenmuller supposes that Job refers to himself by the wordהוּאhû'- he, and that having spoken of himself in the previous verses, he now changes the mode of speech, and speaks in the third person. In illustration of this, he refers to a passage in Euripides, “Alcestes,” verse 690. The Vulgate renders it in the first person, “Qui quasi putredo consumendus sum.” The design seems to be, to represent himself as an object not worthy such consent surveillance on the part of God.

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