The fool foldeth his hands together,.... In order to get more sleep, or as unwilling to work; so the Targum adds,"he folds his hands in summer, and will not labour;''see Pr 6:10. Some persons, to escape the envy which diligence and industry bring on men, will not work at all, or do any right work, and think to sleep in a whole skin; this is great folly and madness indeed:and eateth his own flesh; such a man is starved and famished for want of food, so that his flesh is wasted away; or he is so hungry bitten, that he is ready to eat his own flesh; or he hereby brings to ruin his family, his wife, and children, which are his own flesh, Isa 58:7.
The Targum is,"in winter he eats all he has, even the covering of the skin of his flesh.''Some understand this of the envious man, who is a fool, traduces the diligent and industrious, and will not work himself; and not only whose idleness brings want and poverty on him as an armed man, but whose envy eats up his spirit, and is rottenness in his bones, Pr 6:11.