This refers to houses that are built of clay. Of these there are several varieties. Some have a framework of wicker hurdles thickly daubed with mud. In others the walls are made of layers of mud placed one over the other, each drying before the next is put on. Others still are made of sun—dried bricks. This style of building is very ancient, and is still common in many parts of the East. A thief might easily break through a wall of this kind, and modern thieves are as ready to do it as were the burglars who lived in the days of Job.
Houses like these are referred to by Eliphaz in Job 4:1919How much less in them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth? (Job 4:19), where he speaks of “houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth”; and also in Ezekiel 12:55Dig thou through the wall in their sight, and carry out thereby. (Ezekiel 12:5), where the prophet is commanded, in a figurative way, to dig “through the wall.” The Saviour also refers to them when he speaks of thieves breaking through to steal (Matt. 6:1919Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: (Matthew 6:19)) and of the house which was broken up by the thief (Matt. 24:4343But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. (Matthew 24:43)). The frailty of the walls of such houses is also probably referred to in Psalm 62:33How long will ye imagine mischief against a man? ye shall be slain all of you: as a bowing wall shall ye be, and as a tottering fence. (Psalm 62:3) and Isaiah 30:1313Therefore this iniquity shall be to you as a breach ready to fall, swelling out in a high wall, whose breaking cometh suddenly at an instant. (Isaiah 30:13).