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My bowels boiled - This alludes to the strong commotion in the bowels which every humane person feels at the sight of one in misery.
My bowels boiled - Or rather, My bowels boil - for he refers to his present circumstances, and not to the past. It is clear that by this phrase he designs to describe deep affliction. The bowels, in the Scriptures, are represented as the seat of the affections. By this is meant the upper bowels, or the region of the heart and the lungs. The reason is, that deep emotions of the mind are felt there. The heart beats quick; or it is heavy and pained; or it seems to melt within us in the exercise of pity or compassion; compare the notes at Isaiah 16:11. The idea here is, that the seat of sorrow and of grief was affected by his calamities. Nor was the feeling slight. His emotions he compared with agitated, boiling water. It is possible that there is an allusion here to the inflammatory nature of his disease, producing internal heat and pain; but it is more probable that he refers to the mental anguish which he endured.
The days of affliction prevented me - literally, “have anticipated me” - for so the word prevent was formerly used, and so it is uniformly used in the Bible; see the notes at Job 3:12; compare Psalm 59:10; lxxix. 8; Psalm 88:13; Psalm 119:148; 1 Thessalonians 4:15. There is in the Hebrew word (קדם qâdam ) the idea that days of anguish came in an unexpected manner, or that they anticipated the fulfillment of his plans. All his schemes and hopes of life had been anticipated by these overwhelming sorrows.