I am become a reproach among all my enemies, and very much to my neighbours; and a fear to my acquaintance. They that saw me without fled from me.
John Gill
I am forgotten as a dead man out of mind,.... Either by his friends, being out of sight, out of mind; as even the nearest relations and acquaintance are, in process of time, when dead, Ecc 9:5; or by the Lord; which shows the weakness of his faith, the uncomfortable frame he was in, through darkness and desertion; see Psa 88:5; I am like a broken vessel; or a "perishing vessel" (c); or "a vessel of perdition" (d): the Septuagint version renders it "a lost vessel" (e); one entirely useless, wholly lost, and irrecoverably so; like a broken vessel, which can never be put together again, Isa 30:14; a most sad apprehension he had of himself, as if his case was desperate, and he a vessel of wrath; compare with this, Rom 9:22. (c) "sicut vas periens", Montanus, Cocceius, Gejerus. (d) So Ainsworth. (e) V. L. Pagninus, Musculus, Piscator.
Imported from an open dataset — not yet checked against the printed edition.