“And he, as a rotten thing, consumeth, as a garment that is moth eaten.”
"He wastes away like a rotten thing, like a garment that is moth-eaten." The verse concludes chapter 13 with an image of decay. Job—or humanity more broadly—deteriorates under the weight of divine judgment. The comparison to moth-eaten cloth suggests that the decay is internal, inevitable, progressive. Time itself becomes the instrument through which God accomplishes destruction. Chapter 13 ends with Job suspended between defiant assertion of his righteousness and vivid awareness of his dissolution.
Church Fathers on Job 13:28
Who am as a rotten thing to be consumed, and as a garment that is moth eaten. For as a garment is eaten by the moth sprung out of itself, so man containeth rottenness in himself, whereby he consumeth, and that which he is, is that whereby he consumeth that he should not be. Which may be taken in another sense also, if it be said in the voice of man when tempted; And I as a rotten thing am to consume, as a garment that is moth eaten. For man ‘as a rotten thing consumeth,’ in…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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