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 Arabic Lexicon of the Hebrew, interprets: “his soul thrusts back (תזהם נפסה) food and every means of life,” beside which the suff. of וזהמתּוּ is taken as an anticipation of the following object (vid., on Job 29:3): his life feels disgust at it, at bread, and his soul at dainty meat. The Piel has then only the intensive signification of Kal (synon. תּעב, Psa 107:18), according to which it is translated by Hahn with many before him. But if the poet had wished to be so understood, he would have made use of a less ambiguous arrangement of the words, וזהמתו לחם חיתו. We take זהם with Ew. §122, b, as causative of Kal, in which signification the Piel, it is true, occurs but rarely, yet it does sometimes, instead of Hiph.; but without translating, with Hirz., חיה by hunger and נפשׁ by appetite, which gives a confused thought. Schlottm. appropriately remarks: “It is very clearly expressed, as the proper vital power, the proper ψυχή, when it is inwardly consumed by disease, gives one a loathing for that which it otherwise likes as being a necessary condition of its own existence.” Thus it is: health produces an appetite, sickness causes nausea; the soul that is in an uninjured normal state longs for food, that which is severely weakened by sickness turns the desire for dainties into loathing and aversion.

Verse 21
The contracted future form יכל, again, like ישׂם, Job 33:11, is poetic instead of the full form: his flesh vanishes מראי, from sight, i.s. so that it is seen no longer; or from comeliness, i.e., so that it becomes unsightly; the latter (comp. 1Sa 16:12 with Isa 53:2, ולא־מראה) might be preferred. In Job 33:21 the Keri corrects the text to ושׁפּוּ, et contrita sunt, whereas the Chethib is to be read וּשׁפי, et contritio. The verb שׁפה, which has been explained by Saadia from the Talmudic, signifies conterere, comminuere; Abulwalîd (in Ges.