And a spirit passed before my face the hair of my flesh stood up-

And a spirit before my face doth pass, Stand up doth the hair of my flesh;

And a breath was moving over my face; the hair of my flesh became stiff:

Then a spirit passed before my face, That made the hair of my flesh to stand up.

And when a spirit passed before me, the hair on my body stood up.

Then a spirit passed before my face - He does not intimate whether it was the spirit of a man, or an angel who thus appeared. The belief in such apparitions was common in the early ages, and indeed has prevailed at all times. No one can demonstrate that God could not communicate his will in such a manner as this, or by a messenger deputed from his immediate presence to impart valuable truth to people.
The hair of my flesh stood up - This is an effect which is known often to be produced by fear. Sometimes the hair is made to turn white almost in an instant, as an effect of sudden alarm; but usually the effect is to make it stand on end. Seneca uses language remarkably similar to this in describing the effect of fear, in Hercule Oetoeo:
Vagus per artus errat excussos tremor;
Erectus horret crinis. Impulsis adhuc
Star terror animis. et cor attonitum salit,
Pavidumque trepidis palpitat venis jecur.
So Virgil,
Steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit.
Aeneid ii. 774.
See also Aeneid iii. 48, iv. 289. So also Aeneid xii. 868:
Arrectaeque horrore comae.
A similar description of the effect of fear is given in the Ghost's speech to Hamlet:
"But that I am forbid
To tell the secrets of my prison-house,
I could a tale unfold, whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood.
Make thy two eyes like stars, start from their spheres,
Thy knotty and combined locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end,
Like quills upon the fretful porcupine."
The fact here referred to - that fear or fright; causes the hair to stand on end - is too well established, and too common to admit a doubt. The cause may be, that sudden fear has the effect to drive the blood to the heart, as the seat of vitality, and the extremities are left cold, and the skin thus contracts, and the effect is to raise the hair.

Then a spirit passed before my face,.... Which some interpret of a wind (q), a blustering wind, that blew strong in his face; and so the Targum renders it, a stormy wind, such an one as Elijah perceived when the Lord spoke to him, though he was not in that, 1-Kings 19:11; or such a whirlwind, out of which the Lord spake to Job, Job 38:1; or rather, as Jarchi, an angel, an immaterial spirit, one of Jehovah's ministering spirits, clothed in an human form, and which passed and repassed before Eliphaz, that he might take notice of it:
the hair of my flesh stood up; erect, through surprise and dread; which is sometimes the case, when anything astonishing and terrible is beheld; the blood at such times making its way to the heart, for the preservation of that, leaves the external members of the body cold, and the skin of the flesh, in which the hair is, being contracted by the impetuous influx of the nervous fluid, causes the hair to stand upright, particularly the hair of the head, like the prickles or hedgehogs (r); which has been usual at the sight of an apparition (s).
(q) "ventus", Vatablus, Cocceius, Schmidt, Broughton. (r) "Obstupui, steteruntque comae----". Virgil. Aeneid. l. 2. ver. 774. & l. 3. ver. 48. "arrectaeque horrore comae". Aeneid. 4. ver. 286. & l. 12. ver. 888. (s) Vid. Scheuchzer. Physic. Sacr. p. 665.

A spirit - An angel in visible shape, otherwise he could not have discerned it. Stood up - Through that excessive horror caused by so glorious, unusual, and terrible a presence.