Job's Statement on His Corrupt Breath
Job's declaration "My breath is corrupt" in Job 17:1 emerges from the depths of physical suffering and social isolation. The Geneva Bible renders the verse: "My breath is corrupt: my dayes are cut off, and the graue is readie for me" [2]. This statement belongs to a larger pattern in the book where Job describes his deteriorating condition through vivid bodily imagery, anchoring his theological protest in the concrete reality of disease.
Physical Interpretation
The most straightforward reading takes "corrupt breath" as a symptom of Job's affliction. John Gill explains that the breath became foul "through the force of his disease, which made it have an ill smell," noting that this corruption was "strange and disagreeable to his wife" as referenced in Job 19:17 [6]. The condition may have resulted from the breath "passing through his lungs, or other parts, which were affected with some disorder" [6]. This interpretation connects Job 17:1 directly to Job 19:17, where Job laments, "My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother" [1].
Keil and Delitzsch, representing Lutheran exegesis, affirm this physical reading without elaboration, treating the corrupt breath as part of Job's catalog of bodily afflictions [8]. The commentators note that Job 17:1 opens a new strain of thought following the concluding sentiment of Job 16:22, with the corrupt breath serving as evidence for Job's conviction that death approaches [8].
Alternative Readings
Not all interpreters limit the phrase to physical symptoms. Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown suggest an alternative: "my strength (spirit) is spent," treating the Hebrew term as referring to vital force rather than literal breath [5]. This reading shifts the emphasis from olfactory offense to existential exhaustion, aligning with Job's broader theme of life as fleeting vapor. Earlier in the book, Job had declared, "Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good" (Job 7:7) [3], using breath as a metaphor for life's transience.
John Gill also entertains a metaphorical possibility when discussing Job 19:16, suggesting that "breath" might signify "the words of his mouth, his speech along with his breath, which were very disagreeable to his wife" [7]. This interpretation would make the corrupt breath a figure for Job's persistent theological complaints, which his wife found intolerable. However, Gill himself notes a difficulty with this reading: if Job's natural breath were truly so foul, "his friends would not have been able to have been so long in the same room with him, and carry on so long a conversation with him" [7].
Context of Mortality
Matthew Henry frames Job 17:1 within Job's awareness of approaching death. Job describes himself as "a dying man," having just said in Job 16:22 that "when a few years have come, I shall go that long journey." But Henry notes Job corrects himself: "Why do I talk of years to come?" [4]. The corrupt breath thus functions as immediate evidence that death is not years away but imminent. The verse continues, "my days are extinct, and the grave is ready for me" [2], with Jamieson, Fausset, and Brown observing that "life is compared to an expiring light" and noting the plural "graves" as heightening the force of Job's mortality [5].
The phrase gains additional weight when set against Job's later oath in Job 27:3: "For still all my breath is in me, and the breath of Eloah in my nostrils" [9]. There Job invokes his remaining breath as the basis for his integrity oath, creating a contrast between the corrupt, failing breath of chapter 17 and the God-given breath that still sustains his protest in chapter 27.
Job's corrupt breath thus operates on multiple registers: as medical symptom, as metaphor for life's fragility, and as social marker of his alienation from family and community. The statement anchors his theological argument in undeniable physical reality while gesturing toward the larger question of human mortality that pervades the dialogue.
Sources
- Job “My breath is offensive to my wife. I am loathsome to the children of my own mother. -- Job 19:17”
- Job “Job 17:1 (Geneva1599) — My breath is corrupt: my dayes are cut off, and the graue is readie for me.”
- Job “Oh remember that my life is a breath. My eye shall no more see good. -- Job 7:7”
- Job (Nonconformist/Puritan) “Matthew Henry on Job 17:1: Job's discourse is here somewhat broken and interrupted, and he passes suddenly from one thing to another, as is usual with men in trouble; but we may reduce what is here said to three heads: - I. The deplorable condition which poor Job was now in, which he describes, to aggravate the great unkindness of his friends to him and to justify his own complaints. Let us see what his case was. 1. He was a dying man, Job 17:1. He had said (Job 16:22), "When a few years have come, I shall go that long journey." But here he corrects himself. "Why do I talk of years to come? A”
- Job (Presbyterian) “Jamieson, Fausset & Brown on Job 17 (introduction): JOB'S ANSWER CONTINUED. (Job 17:1-16) breath . . . corrupt--result of elephantiasis. But UMBREIT, "my strength (spirit) is spent." extinct--Life is compared to an expiring light. "The light of my day is extinguished." graves--plural, to heighten the force.”
- Job (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Job 17:1: My breath is corrupt,.... Through the force of his disease, which made it have an ill smell, so that it was strange and disagreeable to his wife, Job 19:17; passing through his lungs, or other parts, which were affected with some disorder, or as frequently is the case of dying persons, and so Job thought himself to be. The word (n) used has the signification of pain, even of the pains of a woman in travail; and so may signify, that Job drew his breath with great pain, as people troubled with an asthma do, or dying persons in the hiccups, or just fetching their last breat”
- Job (Baptist/Reformed) “John Gill on Job 19:16: My breath is strange to my wife,.... Being corrupt and unsavoury, through some internal disorder; see Job 17:1; so that she could not bear to come nigh him, to do any kind deed for him; but if this was his case, and his natural breath was so foul, his friends would not have been able to have been so long in the same room with him, and carry on so long a conversation with him; rather therefore it may signify the words of his mouth, his speech along with his breath, which were very disagreeable to his wife; when upon her soliciting him to curse God and die, he told her sh”
- Job (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on Job 17:1: 1 My breath is corrupt, My days are extinct, The graves are ready for me. 2 Truly mockery surrounds me, And mine eye shall loiter over their disputings. Hirz., Hlgst., and others, wrongly consider the division of the chapter here to be incorrect. The thought in Job 16:22 is really a concluding thought, like Job 10:20., Job 7:21. Then in Job 17:1 another strain is taken up; and as Job 16:22 is related, as a confirmation, to the request expressed in Job 16:19-21, so Job 17:1, Job 17:2 are related to that expressed in Job 17:3. The connection with the conclusion of J”
- Job (Lutheran) “Keil & Delitzsch on Job 27:1: 1 Then Job continued to take up his proverb, and said: 2 As God liveth, who hath deprived me of my right, And the Almighty, who hath sorely saddened my soul - 3 For still all my breath is in me, And the breath of Eloah in my nostrils - 4 My lips do not speak what is false, And my tongue uttereth not deceit! 5 Far be it from me, to grant that you are in the right: Till I die I will not remove my innocence from me. 6 My righteousness I hold fast, and let it not go: My heart reproacheth not any of my days. 7 Mine enemy must appear as an evil-doer, And he who riseth”