Text -- Job 30:1-31 (NET)

Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger than I, whose fathers I disdained too much to put with my sheep dogs. 30:2 Moreover, the strength of their hands– what use was it to me? Men whose strength had perished; 30:3 gaunt with want and hunger, they would gnaw the parched land, in former time desolate and waste. 30:4 By the brush they would gather herbs from the salt marshes, and the root of the broom tree was their food. 30:5 They were banished from the community– people shouted at them like they would shout at thieves– 30:6 so that they had to live in the dry stream beds, in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks. 30:7 They brayed like animals among the bushes and were huddled together under the nettles. 30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, they were driven out of the land with whips.

Job’s Indignities

30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song; I have become a byword among them. 30:10 They detest me and maintain their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face. 30:11 Because God has untied my tent cord and afflicted me, people throw off all restraint in my presence. 30:12 On my right the young rabble rise up; they drive me from place to place, and build up siege ramps against me. 30:13 They destroy my path; they succeed in destroying me without anyone assisting them. 30:14 They come in as through a wide breach; amid the crash they come rolling in. 30:15 Terrors are turned loose on me; they drive away my honor like the wind, and like a cloud my deliverance has passed away.

Job’s Despondency

30:16 “And now my soul pours itself out within me; days of suffering take hold of me. 30:17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never cease. 30:18 With great power God grasps my clothing; he binds me like the collar of my tunic. 30:19 He has flung me into the mud, and I have come to resemble dust and ashes. 30:20 I cry out to you, but you do not answer me; I stand up, and you only look at me. 30:21 You have become cruel to me; with the strength of your hand you attack me. 30:22 You pick me up on the wind and make me ride on it; you toss me about in the storm. 30:23 I know that you are bringing me to death, to the meeting place for all the living.

The Contrast With the Past

30:24 “Surely one does not stretch out his hand against a broken man when he cries for help in his distress. 30:25 Have I not wept for the unfortunate? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? 30:26 But when I hoped for good, trouble came; when I expected light, then darkness came. 30:27 My heart is in turmoil unceasingly; the days of my affliction confront me. 30:28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun; in the assembly I stand up and cry for help. 30:29 I have become a brother to jackals and a companion of ostriches. 30:30 My skin has turned dark on me; my body is hot with fever. 30:31 My harp is used for mourning and my flute for the sound of weeping.

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per phrase)

Wesley: Job 30:1

Whom both universal custom, and the light of nature, taught to reverence their elders and betters.

Wesley: Job 30:1

Whose condition was so mean, that in the opinion, of the world, they were unworthy to be my shepherds the companions of my dogs which watch my flocks.

Wesley: Job 30:3

Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, that they shunned company, and for fear or shame fled into, and lived in desolate places.

Wesley: Job 30:4

Bitter herbs, which shews their extreme necessity.

Wesley: Job 30:4

Possibly the word may signify some other plant, for the Hebrews themselves are at a loss for the signification of the names of plants.

Wesley: Job 30:7

Like the wild asses, for hunger or thirst.

Wesley: Job 30:7

Under which they hide themselves, that they might not be discovered when they are sought out for justice.

Wesley: Job 30:10

Not literally, for they kept far from him, but figuratively, they use all manner of reproachful expressions, even to my face. Herein, also we see a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

Wesley: Job 30:11

God.

Wesley: Job 30:11

Hath slackened the string of my bow, and so rendered my bow and arrows useless; he hath deprived me of my strength or defence.

Wesley: Job 30:11

They cast off all former restraints of humanity, or modesty, and do those things before mine eyes, which formerly they trembled lest they should come to my ears.

Wesley: Job 30:12

This was the place of adversaries or accusers in courts of justice.

Wesley: Job 30:12

Heb. young striplings, who formerly hid themselves from my presence, Job 29:8.

Wesley: Job 30:12

Metaphorically, they endeavour to overwhelm me.

Wesley: Job 30:12

Cause - ways, or banks: so it is a metaphor from soldiers, who cast up banks, against the city which they besiege.

Wesley: Job 30:12

To destroy me.

Wesley: Job 30:13

As I am in great misery, so they endeavour to stop all my ways out of it.

Wesley: Job 30:13

Increasing it by their invectives, and censures.

Wesley: Job 30:13

Who are themselves in a forlorn and miserable condition.

Wesley: Job 30:14

In the waste place; in that part of the bank which was broken down.

Wesley: Job 30:14

As the waters, come rolling in at the breach.

Wesley: Job 30:15

If he endeavoured to shake them off, they turned furiously upon him: if he endeavoured to out run them, they pursued his soul, as swiftly and violently as the wind.

Wesley: Job 30:20

I pray importunately and continually.

Wesley: Job 30:21

As if thou hadst changed thy very nature, which is kind, and merciful, and gracious.

Wesley: Job 30:22

Thou exposest me, to all sorts of storms and calamities; so that I am like chaff or stubble lifted up to the wind, and violently tossed hither and thither in the air.

Wesley: Job 30:22

By which, my body is almost consumed, and my heart is melted within me.

Wesley: Job 30:23

The grave is a narrow, dark, cold house, but there we shall rest and be safe. It is our home, for it is our mother's lap, and in it we are gathered to our fathers. It is an house appointed for us, by him that has appointed the bounds of all our habitations. And it is appointed for all living. It is the common receptacle for rich and poor: we must all be brought thither, and that shortly.

Wesley: Job 30:24

The hand of God's wrath will not follow me beyond death; I shall then be safe and easy: Tho' men cry in his destruction: tho' most men cry and are affrighted, while they are dying, while the body is sinking into destruction; yet I desire it, I have nothing to fear therein, since I know that my redeemer liveth.

Wesley: Job 30:25

Have I now judgment without mercy, because I afforded no mercy to others in misery? No; my conscience acquits me from this inhumanity: I did mourn over others in their miseries.

Wesley: Job 30:26

Yet trouble came upon myself, when I expected it not.

Wesley: Job 30:27

Came upon me suddenly, and unexpectedly, when I promised myself peace and prosperity.

Wesley: Job 30:28

Heb. black, not by the sun. My very countenance became black, tho' not by the sun, but by the force of my disease.

Wesley: Job 30:29

By imitation of their cries: persons of like qualities are often called brethren.

Wesley: Job 30:29

Which howl and wail mournfully in the deserts.

JFB: Job 30:1

(Job 30:1-31)

JFB: Job 30:1

Not the three friends (Job 15:10; Job 32:4, Job 32:6-7). A general description: Job 30:1-8, the lowness of the persons who derided him; Job 30:9-15, the derision itself. Formerly old men rose to me (Job 29:8). Now not only my juniors, who are bound to reverence me (Lev 19:32), but even the mean and base-born actually deride me; opposed to, "smiled upon" (Job 29:24). This goes farther than even the "mockery" of Job by relations and friends (Job 12:4; Job 16:10, Job 16:20; Job 17:2, Job 17:6; Job 19:22). Orientals feel keenly any indignity shown by the young. Job speaks as a rich Arabian emir, proud of his descent.

JFB: Job 30:1

Regarded with disgust in the East as unclean (1Sa 17:43; Pro 26:11). They are not allowed to enter a house, but run about wild in the open air, living on offal and chance morsels (Psa 59:14-15). Here again we are reminded of Jesus Christ (Psa 22:16). "Their fathers, my coevals, were so mean and famished that I would not have associated them with (not to say, set them over) my dogs in guarding my flock."

JFB: Job 30:2

If their fathers could be of no profit to me, much less the sons, who are feebler than their sires; and in whose case the hope of attaining old age is utterly gone, so puny are they (Job 5:26) [MAURER]. Even if they had "strength of hands," that could be now of no use to me, as all I want in my present affliction is sympathy.

JFB: Job 30:3

Literally, "hard as a rock"; so translate, rather, "dried up," emaciated with hunger. Job describes the rudest race of Bedouins of the desert [UMBREIT].

JFB: Job 30:3

So the Septuagint. Better, as Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, "gnawers of the wilderness." What they gnaw follows in Job 30:4.

JFB: Job 30:3

Literally, the "yesternight of desolation and waste" (the most utter desolation; Eze 6:14); that is, those deserts frightful as night to man, and even there from time immemorial. I think both ideas are in the words darkness [GESENIUS] and antiquity [UMBREIT]. (Isa 30:33, Margin).

JFB: Job 30:4

Rather, "salt-wort," which grows in deserts and is eaten as a salad by the poor [MAURER].

JFB: Job 30:4

Among the bushes.

JFB: Job 30:4

Rather, a kind of broom, Spartium junceum [LINNÆUS], still called in Arabia, as in the Hebrew of Job, retem, of which the bitter roots are eaten by the poor.

JFB: Job 30:5

That is, "a cry is raised." Expressing the contempt felt for this race by civilized and well-born Arabs. When these wild vagabonds make an incursion on villages, they are driven away, as thieves would be.

JFB: Job 30:6

They are forced "to dwell."

JFB: Job 30:6

Rather, "in the gloomy valleys"; literally, "in the gloom of the valleys," or wadies. To dwell in valleys is, in the East, a mark of wretchedness. The troglodytes, in parts of Arabia, lived in such dwellings as caves.

JFB: Job 30:7

Like the wild ass (Job 6:5 for food). The inarticulate tones of this uncivilized rabble are but little above those of the beast of the field.

JFB: Job 30:7

Rather, sprinkled here and there. Literally, "poured out," graphically picturing their disorderly mode of encampment, lying up and down behind the thorn bushes.

JFB: Job 30:7

Or brambles [UMBREIT].

JFB: Job 30:8

That is, the impious and abandoned (1Sa 25:25).

JFB: Job 30:8

Nameless, low-born rabble.

JFB: Job 30:8

Rather, they were driven or beaten out of the land. The Horites in Mount Seir (Gen 14:6 with which compare Gen 36:20-21; Deu 2:12, Deu 2:22) were probably the aborigines, driven out by the tribe to which Job's ancestors belonged; their name means troglodytæ, or "dwellers in caves." To these Job alludes here (Job 30:1-8, and Gen 24:4-8, which compare together).

JFB: Job 30:9

(Job 17:6). Strikingly similar to the derision Jesus Christ underwent (Lam 3:14; Psa 69:12). Here Job returns to the sentiment in Job 30:1. It is to such I am become a song of "derision."

JFB: Job 30:10

Rather, refrain not to spit in deliberate contempt before my face. To spit at all in presence of another is thought in the East insulting, much more so when done to mark "abhorrence." Compare the further insult to Jesus Christ (Isa 50:6; Mat 26:67).

JFB: Job 30:11

That is, "God"; antithetical to "they"; English Version here follows the marginal reading (Keri).

JFB: Job 30:11

Image from a bow unstrung; opposed to Job 29:20. The text (Chetib), "His cord" or "reins" is better; "yea, each lets loose his reins" [UMBREIT].

JFB: Job 30:12

Rather, a (low) brood. To rise on the right hand is to accuse, as that was the position of the accuser in court (Zec 3:1; Psa 109:6).

JFB: Job 30:12

Jostle me out of the way (Job 24:4).

JFB: Job 30:12

That is, their ways of (that is, with a view to my) destruction. Image, as in Job 19:12, from a besieging army throwing up a way of approach for itself to a city.

JFB: Job 30:13

Image of an assailed fortress continued. They tear up the path by which succor might reach me.

JFB: Job 30:13

(Zec 1:15).

JFB: Job 30:13

Arabic proverb for contemptible persons. Yet even such afflict Job.

JFB: Job 30:14

(So 2Sa 5:20). But it is better to retain the image of Job 30:12-13. "They came [upon me] as through a wide breach," namely, made by the besiegers in the wall of a fortress (Isa 30:13) [MAURER].

JFB: Job 30:14

"Amidst the crash" of falling masonry, or "with a shout like the crash" of, &c.

JFB: Job 30:15

Terrors.

JFB: Job 30:15

Rather, "my dignity" [UMBREIT].

JFB: Job 30:15

Prosperity.

JFB: Job 30:15

(Job 7:9; Isa 44:22).

JFB: Job 30:16-23

Job's outward calamities affect his mind.

JFB: Job 30:16-23

In irrepressible complaints (Psa 42:4; Jos 7:5).

JFB: Job 30:17

In the Hebrew, night is poetically personified, as in Job 3:3 : "night pierceth my bones (so that they fall) from me" (not as English Version, "in me"; see Job 30:30).

JFB: Job 30:17

So the Arabic, "veins," akin to the Hebrew; rather, "gnawers" (see on Job 30:3), namely, my gnawing pains never cease. Effects of elephantiasis.

JFB: Job 30:18

Rather, "of God" (Job 23:6).

JFB: Job 30:18

From a robe of honor to one of mourning, literally (Job 2:8; Joh 3:6) and metaphorically [UMBREIT]. Or rather, as SCHUTTENS, following up Job 30:17, My outer garment is changed into affliction; that is, affliction has become my outer garment; it also bindeth me fast round (my throat) as the collar of the inner coat; that is, it is both my inner and outer garment. Observe the distinction between the inner and outer garments. The latter refers to his afflictions from without (Job 30:1-13); the former his personal afflictions (Job 30:14-23). UMBREIT makes "God" subject to "bindeth," as in Job 30:19.

JFB: Job 30:19

God is poetically said to do that which the mourner had done to himself (Job 2:8). With lying in the ashes he had become, like them, in dirty color.

JFB: Job 30:20

The reverential attitude of a suppliant before a king (1Ki 8:14; Luk 18:11-13).

JFB: Job 30:20

Supplied from the first clause. But the intervening affirmative "stand" makes this ellipsis unlikely. Rather, as in Job 16:9 (not only dost thou refuse aid to me "standing" as a suppliant, but), thou dost regard me with a frown: eye me sternly.

JFB: Job 30:22

As a "leaf" or "stubble" (Job 13:25). The moving pillars of sand, raised by the wind to the clouds, as described by travellers, would happily depict Job's agitated spirit, if it be to them that he alludes.

JFB: Job 30:22

The marginal Hebrew reading (Keri), "my wealth," or else "wisdom," that is, sense and spirit, or "my hope of deliverance." But the text (Chetib) is better: Thou dissolvest me (with fear, Exo 15:15) in the crash (of the whirlwind; see on Job 30:14) [MAURER]. UMBREIT translates as a verb, "Thou terrifiest me."

JFB: Job 30:23

This shows Job 19:25 cannot be restricted to Job's hope of a temporal deliverance.

JFB: Job 30:23

As in Job 28:22, the realm of the dead (Heb 9:27; Gen 3:19).

JFB: Job 30:24

Hand"; "in his calamity," to "in ruin." The negative of the first clause is to be supplied in the second, as in Job 30:25 (Job 28:17).

JFB: Job 30:25

May I not be allowed to complain of my calamity, and beg relief, seeing that I myself sympathized with those "in trouble" (literally, "hard of day"; those who had a hard time of it).

JFB: Job 30:26

I may be allowed to crave help, seeing that, "when I looked for good (on account of my piety and charity), yet evil," &c.

JFB: Job 30:26

(Job 22:28).

JFB: Job 30:27

Regarded as the seat of deep feeling (Isa 16:11).

JFB: Job 30:27

Violently heated and agitated.

JFB: Job 30:27

Old English for "unexpectedly came upon" me, "surprised" me.

JFB: Job 30:28

Rather, I move about blackened, though not by the sun; that is, whereas many are blackened by the sun, I am, by the heat of God's wrath (so "boiled," Job 30:27); the elephantiasis covering me with blackness of skin (Job 30:30), as with the garb of mourning (Jer 14:2). This striking enigmatic form of Hebrew expression occurs, Isa 29:9.

JFB: Job 30:28

As an innocent man crying for justice in an assembled court (Job 30:20).

JFB: Job 30:29

Rather, "jackals," "ostriches," both of which utter dismal screams (Mic 1:8); in which respect, as also in their living amidst solitudes (the emblem of desolation), Job is their brother and companion; that is, resembles them. "Dragon," Hebrew, tannim, usually means the crocodile; so perhaps here, its open jaws lifted towards heaven, and its noise making it seem as if it mourned over its fate [BOCHART].

JFB: Job 30:30

Rather, as in Job 30:17 (see on Job 30:17), "my skin is black (and falls away) from me."

JFB: Job 30:30

(Job 19:20; Psa 102:5).

JFB: Job 30:31

Rather, "pipe" (Job 21:12). "My joy is turned into the voice of weeping" (Lam 5:15). These instruments are properly appropriated to joy (Isa 30:29, Isa 30:32), which makes their use now in sorrow the sadder by contrast.

Clarke: Job 30:1

But now they that are younger than I have me in derision - Compare this with Job 29:8, where he speaks of the respect he had from the youth while in the days of his prosperity. Now he is no longer affluent, and they are no longer respectful

Clarke: Job 30:1

Dogs of my flock - Persons who were not deemed sufficiently respectable to be trusted with the care of those dogs which were the guardians of my flocks. Not confidential enough to be made shepherds, ass-keepers, or camel-drivers; nor even to have the care of the dogs by which the flocks were guarded. This saying is what we call an expression of sovereign contempt.

Clarke: Job 30:2

The strength of their hands profit me - He is speaking here of the fathers of these young men. What was the strength of their hands to me? Their old age also has perished. The sense of which I believe to be this: I have never esteemed their strength even in their most vigorous youth, nor their conduct, nor their counsel even in old age. They were never good for any thing, either young or old. As their youth was without profit, so their old age was without honor. See Calmet. Mr. Good contends that the words are Arabic, and should be translated according to the meaning in that language, and the first clause of the third verse joined to the latter clause of the second, without which no good meaning can be elicited so as to keep properly close to the letter. I shall give the Hebrew text, Mr. Good’ s Arabic, and its translation: -

The Hebrew text is this: -

עלימו אבד כלח

aleymo abad calach

בחסר ובכפן גלמוד

becheser ubechaphan galmud

The Arabic version which he translates thus: -

"With whom crabbed looks are perpetual

From hunger and flinty famine.

This translation is very little distant from the import of the present Hebrew text, if it may be called Hebrew, when the principal words are pure Arabic, and the others constructively so.

Clarke: Job 30:3

Fleeing into the wilderness - Seeking something to sustain life even in the barren desert. This shows the extreme of want, when the desert is supposed to be the only place where any thing to sustain life can possibly be found.

Clarke: Job 30:4

Who cut up mallows by the bushes - מלוח malluach , which we translate mallows, comes from מלח melach , salt; some herb or shrub of a salt nature, sea-purslane, or the salsaria, salsola, or saltwort. Bochart says it is the ἁλιμος of the Greeks, and the halimus of the Romans. Some translate it nettles. The Syriac and Arabic omit the whole verse. The halimus, or atriplex halimus, grows near the sea in different countries, and is found in Spain, America, England, and Barbary. The salsaria, salsola, or saltwort, is an extensive genus of plants, several common to Asia, and not a few indigenous to a dry and sandy soil

Clarke: Job 30:4

And juniper roots for their meat - רתמים rethamim . This is variously translated juniper, broom, furze, gorse, or whin. It is supposed to derive its name from the toughness of its twigs, as רתם ratham signifies to bind; and this answers well enough to the broom. Genista quoque vinculi usum praestat , "The broom serves for bands,"says Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. xxiv., c. 9. But how can it be said that the roots of this shrub were eaten? I do not find any evidence from Asiatic writers that the roots of the juniper tree were an article of food; and some have supposed, because of this want of evidence, that the word לחמם lachmam , for their bread, should be understood thus, to bake their bread, because it is well known that the wood of the juniper gives an intense heat, and the coals of it endure a long time; and therefore we find coals of juniper, גחלי רחמים gachaley rethamim , used Psa 120:4 to express severe and enduring punishment. But that the roots of the juniper were used for food in the northern countries, among the Goths, we have a positive testimony from Olaus Magnus, himself a Goth, and archbishop of Upsal, in lib. vii., c. 4, of his Hist. de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. Speaking of the great number of different trees in their woods, he says: "There is a great plenty of beech trees in all the northern parts, the virtue whereof is this: that, being cut between the bark and the wood, they send forth a juice that is good for drink. The fruit of them in famine serves for bread, and their bark for clothing. Likewise also the berries of the juniper, yea, even the roots of this tree are eaten for bread, as holy Job testifies, though it is difficult to come at them by reason of their prickles: in these prickles, or thorns, live coals will last a whole year. If the inhabitants do not quench them, when winds arise they set the woods on fire, and destroy all the circumjacent fields."In this account both the properties of the juniper tree, referred to by Job and David, are mentioned by the Gothic prelate. They use its berries and roots for food, and its wood for fire.

Clarke: Job 30:5

They were driven forth - They were persons whom no one would employ; they were driven away from the city; and if any of them appeared, the hue and cry was immediately raised up against them. The last clause Mr. Good translates, "They slunk away from them like a thief,"instead of "They cried after them,"etc.

Clarke: Job 30:6

To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys - They were obliged to take shelter in the most dangerous, out-of-the-way, and unfrequented places. This is the meaning.

Clarke: Job 30:7

Among the bushes they brayed - They cried out among the bushes, seeking for food, as the wild ass when he is in want of provender. Two MSS. read ינאקו yinaku , they groaned, instead of ינהקו yinhaku , they brayed

Clarke: Job 30:7

Under the nettles - חרול charul , the briers or brambles, under the brushwood in the thickest parts of the underwood; they huddled together like wild beasts.

Clarke: Job 30:8

Children of fools - Children of nabal; children without a name; persons of no consideration, and descendants of such

Clarke: Job 30:8

Viler than the earth - Rather, driven out of the land; persons not fit for civil society.

Clarke: Job 30:9

Now am I their song - I am the subject of their mirth, and serve as a proverb or by-word. They use me with every species of indignity.

Clarke: Job 30:10

They abhor me - What a state must civil society be in when such indignities were permitted to be offered to the aged and afflicted!

Clarke: Job 30:11

Because he hath loosed my cord - Instead of יתרי yithri , my cord, which is the keri or marginal reading, יתרו yithro , his cord, is the reading of the text in many copies; and this reading directs us to a metaphor taken from an archer, who, observing his butt, sets his arrow on the string, draws it to a proper degree of tension, levels, and then loosing his hold, the arrow flies at the mark. He hath let loose his arrow against me; it has hit me; and I am wounded. The Vulgate understood it in this way: Pharetram enim suam aperuit . So also the Septuagint: Ανοιξας γαρ φαρετραν αυτου ; "He hath opened his quiver.

Clarke: Job 30:11

They have also let loose the bridle - When they perceived that God had afflicted me, they then threw off all restraints; like headstrong horses, swallowed the bit, got the reins on their own neck, and ran off at full speed.

Clarke: Job 30:12

Upon my right hand rise the youth - The word פרחח pirchach , which we translate youth, signifies properly buds, or the buttons of trees. Mr. Good has younglings. Younkers would be better, were it not too colloquial

Clarke: Job 30:12

They push away my feet - They trip up my heels, or they in effect trample me under their feet. They rush upon and overwhelm me. They are violently incensed against me. They roll themselves upon me, התגלגלו hithgalgalu , velut unda impellit undam, as waves of the sea which wash the sand from under the feet, and then swamp the man to the bottom; see Job 30:14.

Clarke: Job 30:13

They mar my path - They destroy the way-marks, so that there is no safety in travelling through the deserts, the guide-posts and way-marks being gone. These may be an allusion here to a besieged city: the besiegers strive by every means and way to distress the besieged; stopping up the fountains, breaking up the road, raising up towers to project arrows and stones into the city, called here raising up against it the ways of destruction, Job 30:12; preventing all succor and support

Clarke: Job 30:13

They have no helper - " There is not an adviser among them."- Mr. Good. There is none to give them better instruction.

Clarke: Job 30:14

They came upon me as a wide breaking in - They storm me on every side

Clarke: Job 30:14

In the desolation they rolled themselves - When they had made the breach, they rolled in upon me as an irresistible torrent. There still appears to be an allusion to a besieged city: the sap, the breach, the storm, the flight, the pursuit, and the slaughter. See the following verse, Job 30:15 (note).

Clarke: Job 30:15

Terrors are turned upon me - Defence is no longer useful; they have beat down my walls

Clarke: Job 30:15

They pursue my soul as the wind - I seek safety in flight, my strong holds being no longer tenable; but they pursue me so swiftly, that it is impossible for me to escape. They follow me like a whirlwind; and as fast as that drives away the clouds before it, so is my prosperity destroyed. The word נדבתי nedibathi , which we translate my soul, signifies properly my nobility, my excellence: they endeavor to destroy both my reputation and my property.

Clarke: Job 30:18

Is my garment changed - There seem to be here plain allusions to the effect of his cruel disease; the whole body being enveloped with a kind of elephantine hide, formed by innumerable incrustations from the ulcerated surface

Clarke: Job 30:18

It bindeth me about - There is now a new kind of covering to my body, formed by the effects of this disease; and it is not a garment which I can cast off; it is as closely attached to me as the collar of my coat. Or, my disease seizes me as a strong armed man; it has throttled me, and cast me in the mud. This is probably an allusion to two persons struggling: the stronger seizes the other by the throat, brings him down, and treads him in the dirt.

Clarke: Job 30:20

I cry unto thee - I am persecuted by man, afflicted with sore disease, and apparently forsaken of God

Clarke: Job 30:20

I stand up - Or, as some translate, "I persevere, and thou lookest upon me."Thou seest my desolate, afflicted state; but thine eye doth not affect thy heart. Thou leavest me unsupported to struggle with my adversities.

Clarke: Job 30:21

Thou art become cruel to me - Thou appearest to treat me with cruelty. I cry for mercy, trust in thy goodness, and am still permitted to remain under my afflictions

Clarke: Job 30:21

Thou opposest thyself - Instead of helping, thou opposest me; thou appearest as my enemy.

Clarke: Job 30:22

Thou liftest me up to the wind - Thou hast so completely stripped me of all my substance, that I am like chaff lifted up by the wind; or as a straw, the sport of every breeze; and at last carried totally away, being dissipated into particles by the continued agitation.

Clarke: Job 30:23

Thou wilt bring me to death - This must be the issue of my present affliction: to God alone it is possible that I should survive it

Clarke: Job 30:23

To the house appointed for all living - Or to the house, מועד moed , the rendezvous, the place of general assembly of human beings: the great devourer in whose jaws all that have lived, now live, and shall live, must necessarily meet

"- O great man-eater

Whose every day is carnival; not sated yet

Unheard of epicure! without a fellow

The veriest gluttons do not always cram

Some intervals of abstinence are sough

To edge the appetite: thou seekest none

Methinks the countless swarms thou hast devour’ d

And thousands that each hour thou gobblest up

This, less than this, might gorge thee to the full

But O! rapacious still, thou gap’ st for more

Like one, whole days defrauded of his meals

On whom lank hunger lays her skinny hand

And whets to keenest eagerness his cravings

As if diseases, massacres, and poisons

Famine, and war, were not thy caterers.

The Grave.

||&&$

Clarke: Job 30:24

He will not stretch out his hand to the grave - After all that has been said relative to the just translation and true meaning of this verse, is it not evident that it is in the mouth of Job a consolatory reflection? As if he said, Though I suffer here, I shall not suffer hereafter. Though he add stroke to stroke, so as to destroy my life, yet his displeasure shall not proceed beyond the grave

Clarke: Job 30:24

Though they cry in his destruction - Mr. Good translates: Surely there, in its ruin, is freedom. In the sepulcher there is freedom from calamity, and rest for the weary.

Clarke: Job 30:25

Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? - Mr. Good translates much nearer the sense of the original, לקשה יום liksheh yom . "Should I not then weep for the ruthless day?"May I not lament that my sufferings are only to terminate with my life? Or, Did I not mourn for those who suffered by times of calamity? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? Did I not relieve the distressed according to my power; and did I not sympathize with the sufferer?

Clarke: Job 30:27

My bowels boiled - This alludes to the strong commotion in the bowels which every humane person feels at the sight of one in misery.

Clarke: Job 30:28

I went mourning without the sun - חמה chammah , which we here translate the sun, comes from a root of the same letters, which signifies to hide, protect, etc., and may be translated, I went mourning without a protector or guardian; or, the word may be derived from חם cham , to be hot, and here it may signify fury, rage, anger; and thus it was understood by the Vulgate: Maerens incedebam, sine furore , I went mourning without anger; or, as Calmet translates, Je marchois tout triste, mais sans me laisser aller a l’ emportement ; "I walked in deep sadness, but did not give way to an angry spirit."The Syriac and Arabic understood it in the same way.

Clarke: Job 30:29

I am a brother to dragons - By my mournful and continual cry I resemble תנים tannim , the jackals or hyenas

Clarke: Job 30:29

And a companion to owls - בנות יענה benoth yaanah , to the daughters of howling: generally understood to be the ostrich; for both the jackal and the female ostrich are remarkable for their mournful cry, and for their attachment to desolate places - Dodd.

Clarke: Job 30:30

My skin is black - By continual exposure to the open air, and parching influence of the sun

Clarke: Job 30:30

My bones are burned with heat - A strong expression, to point out the raging fever that was continually preying upon his vitals.

Clarke: Job 30:31

My harp also is turned to mourning - Instead of the harp, my only music is my own plaintive cries

Clarke: Job 30:31

And my organ - What the עגב uggab was, we know not; it was most probably some sort of pipe or wind instrument. His harp, כנור kinnor , and his pipe, עגב uggab , were equally mute, or only used for mournful ditties

This chapter is full of the most painful and pathetic sorrow; but nevertheless tempered with a calmness and humiliation of spirit, which did not appear in Job’ s lamentations previously to the time in which he had that remarkable revelation mentioned in the nineteenth chapter. Job 19:25 After he was assured that his Redeemer was the living God, he submitted to his dispensations, kissed the rod, and mourned not without hope, though in deep distress, occasioned by his unremitting sufferings. If the groaning of Job was great, his stroke was certainly heavy.

Defender: Job 30:6

Job here is referring to what modern paleoanthropologists call the "cavemen." These were not ape-men, but descendants of those who scattered from Babel and then, for some reason, deteriorated mentally and physically, as well as spiritually. They fled "into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste" (Job 30:3). They were "driven forth from among men" (Job 30:5) by those tribes who competed successfully for the more desirable regions of the earth."

TSK: Job 30:1

they that are : Job 19:13-19, Job 29:8-10; 2Ki 2:23; Isa 3:5

younger than I : Heb. of fewer days than I

whose : Psa 35:15, Psa 35:16, Psa 69:12; Mar 14:65, Mar 15:17-20; Luk 23:14, Luk 23:18, Luk 23:35, Luk 23:39; Act 17:5; Tit 1:12

TSK: Job 30:3

solitary : or, dark as the night, Job 24:13-16

fleeing into : Job 24:5; Heb 11:38

in former time : Heb. yesternight

TSK: Job 30:4

mallows : The Hebrew malluach , in Arabic, malluch , and in Syriac mallucho , is probably the Lalima or Lalimos of the Greeks, and halimus of the Romans, which Dioscorides describes as a kind of bramble, without thorns, the leaves of which are boiled and eaten.

juniper roots : The Hebrew rothem , in Arabic, ratim , and in Spanish, retama , most probably signifies the genista or broom, which is very abundant in the deserts of Arabia.

for their meat : 2Ki 4:38, 2Ki 4:39; Amo 7:14; Luk 15:16

TSK: Job 30:5

driven : Gen 4:12-14; Psa 109:10; Dan 4:25, Dan 4:32, Dan 4:33

TSK: Job 30:6

dwell : Jdg 6:2; 1Sa 22:1, 1Sa 22:2; Isa 2:19; Rev 6:15

caves : Heb. holes

TSK: Job 30:7

brayed : Job 6:5, Job 11:12; Gen 16:12

the nettles : Charul probably denotes some kind of briar or bramble, so Vulgate renders it by spina or sentis , (Pro 24:31. Zep 2:9). Celsius and Scheuchzer are inclined to think it the paliurus , a shrub growing sometimes to a considerable height in desert places. ""One of the inconveniences of the vegetable thickets of Egypt is,""says Denon, ""that it is difficult to remain in them, as nine tenths of the trees and plants are armed with inexorable thorns, which suffer only an unquiet enjoyment of the shadow which is so constantly desirable.""

TSK: Job 30:8

children : 2Ki 8:18, 2Ki 8:27; 2Ch 22:3; Psa 49:10-13; Jer 7:18; Mar 6:24

fools : Pro 1:7, Pro 1:22, Pro 16:22

base men : Heb. men of no name

viler : Job 40:4; Psa 15:4; Isa 32:6

TSK: Job 30:9

am I : Job 17:6; Psa 35:15, Psa 35:16, Psa 44:14, Psa 69:12; Lam 3:14, Lam 3:63

TSK: Job 30:10

abhor me : Job 19:19, Job 42:6; Psa 88:8; Zec 11:8

flee far : Job 19:13, Job 19:14; Psa 88:8; Pro 19:7; Mat 26:56

spare not to spit in my face : Heb. withhold not spittle from my face, Num 12:14; Deu 25:9; Isa 50:6; Mat 26:67, Mat 27:30

TSK: Job 30:11

loosed : Job 12:18, Job 12:21; 2Sa 16:5-8

let loose : Psa 35:21; Mat 26:67, Mat 26:68, Mat 27:39-44; Jam 1:26

TSK: Job 30:12

rise : Job 19:18; Isa 3:5

they raise up : Job 19:12

TSK: Job 30:13

they set forward : Psa 69:26; Zec 1:15

TSK: Job 30:14

as a wide : Job 22:16; Psa 18:4, Psa 69:14, Psa 69:15; Isa 8:7, Isa 8:8

TSK: Job 30:15

Terrors : Job 6:4, Job 7:14, Job 9:27, Job 9:28, Job 10:16; Psa 88:15

soul : Heb. principal one

as a cloud : Isa 44:22; Hos 6:4, Hos 13:3

TSK: Job 30:16

my soul : Psa 22:14, Psa 42:4; Isa 53:12

have taken hold : Psa 40:12

TSK: Job 30:17

My bones : Job 33:19-21; Psa 6:2-6, Psa 38:2-8

in the night season : Job 7:4; Psa 22:2; Isa 38:13

TSK: Job 30:18

By the great : Job 2:7, Job 7:5, Job 19:20; Psa 38:5; Isa 1:5, Isa 1:6

TSK: Job 30:19

cast me : Job 9:31; Psa 69:1, Psa 69:2; Jer 38:6

dust : Job 2:8, Job 42:6; Gen 18:27

TSK: Job 30:20

I cry : Job 19:7, Job 27:9; Psa 22:2, Psa 80:4, Psa 80:5; Lam 3:8, Lam 3:44; Mat 15:23

TSK: Job 30:21

become cruel : Heb. turned to be cruel, Job 7:20, Job 7:21, Job 10:14-17, Job 13:25-28, Job 16:9-14, Job 19:6-9; Psa 77:7-9; Jer 30:14

thy strong hand : Heb. the strength of thy hand, Job 6:9, Job 23:6; Psa 89:13; 1Pe 5:6

TSK: Job 30:22

liftest me : Job 21:18; Psa 1:4; Isa 17:13; Jer 4:11, Jer 4:12; Eze 5:2; Hos 4:19, Hos 13:3

to ride : Psa 18:10, Psa 104:3

substance : or, wisdom

TSK: Job 30:23

the house : Job 14:5, Job 21:33; Gen 3:19; 2Sa 14:14; Ecc 8:8, Ecc 9:5, Ecc 12:5-7; Heb 9:27

TSK: Job 30:24

grave : Heb. heap

they cry : Jdg 5:31; Psa 35:25; Mat 27:39-44

TSK: Job 30:25

Did not I : Psa 35:13, Psa 35:14; Jer 13:17, Jer 18:20; Luk 19:41; Joh 11:35; Rom 12:15

in trouble : Heb. hard of day

was : Job 31:16-21; Psa 12:1; Pro 14:21, Pro 14:31, Pro 17:5, Pro 19:17, Pro 28:8; Isa 58:7, Isa 58:8; Dan 4:27; 2Co 9:9

TSK: Job 30:26

When I looked : Job 3:25, Job 3:26, Job 29:18; Jer 8:15, Jer 14:19, Jer 15:18; Mic 1:12

light : Job 18:6, Job 18:18, Job 23:17; Psa 97:11; Isa 50:10

TSK: Job 30:27

Psa 22:4; Jer 4:19, Jer 31:20; Lam 1:20, Lam 2:11

TSK: Job 30:28

Psa 38:6, Psa 42:9, Psa 43:2; Isa 53:3, Isa 53:4; Lam 3:1-3

TSK: Job 30:29

a brother : Job 17:14; Psa 102:6; Isa 13:21, Isa 13:22, Isa 38:14; Mic 1:8; Mal 1:3

owls : or, ostriches, Benoth yaanah , in Arabic, bintu naamatin , not owls, but ostriches, so called from their doleful and hideous noises. ""I have often,""says Dr. Shaw, ""heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies.""

TSK: Job 30:30

my skin : Psa 119:83; Lam 3:4, Lam 4:8, Lam 5:10

my bones : Psa 102:3

TSK: Job 30:31

Psa 137:1-4; Ecc 3:4; Isa 21:4, Isa 22:12, Isa 24:7-9; Lam 5:15; Dan 6:18

Commentary -- Word/Phrase Notes (per Verse)

Barnes: Job 30:1

But now they that are younger than I - Margin, "of fewer days."It is not probable that Job here refers to his three friends. It is not possible to determine their age with accuracy, but in Job 15:10, they claim that there were with them old and very aged men, much older than the father of Job. Though that place may possibly refer not to themselves but to those who held the same opinions with them, yet none of those who engaged in the discussion, except Ehhu Job 32:6, are represented as young men. They were the contemporaries of Job; men who are ranked as his friends; and men who showed that they had had oppoptunities for long and careful observation. The reference here, therefore, is to the fact that while, in the days of his prosperity, even the aged and the honorable rose up to do him reverence, now he was the object of contempt even by the young and the worthless. The Orientals would feel this much. It was among the chief virtues with them to show respect to the aged, and their sensibilites were especially keen in regard to any indignity shown to them by the young.

Whose fathers I would have disdained - Who are the children of the lowest and most degraded of the community. How deep the calamity to be so fallen as to be the subject of derision by such men!

To have set with the dogs of my flock - To have associated with my dogs in guarding my flock. That is, they were held in less esteem than his dogs. This was the lowest conceivable point of debasement. The Orientals had no language that would express greater contempt of anyone than to call him a dog; compare Deu 23:18; 1Sa 17:43; 1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 3:8; 2Sa 9:8; 2Sa 16:9; 2Ki 8:13; Note Isa 66:3.

Barnes: Job 30:2

Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me - There has been much difference of opinion respecting the meaning of this passage. The general sense is clear. Job means to describe those who were reduced by poverty and want, and who were without respectability or home, and who had no power in any way to affect him. He states that they were so abject and worthless as not to be worth his attention; but even this fact is intended to show how low he was himself reduced, since even the most degraded ranks in life did not show any respect to one who had been honored by princes. The Vulgate renders this, "The strength - virtus - of whose hands is to me as nothing, and they are regarded as unworthy of life."The Septuagint, "And the strength of their hands what is it to me? Upon whom perfection - συντέλεια sunteleia - has perished."Coverdale, "The power and strength of their hands might do me no good, and as for their age, it is spent and passed away without any profit."The literal translation is, "Even the strength of their hands, what is it to me?"The meaning is, that their power was not worth regarding. They were abject, feeble, and reduced by hunger - poor emaciated creatures, who could do him neither good nor evil. Yet this fact did not make him feel less the indignity of being treated by such vagrants with scorn.

In whom old age was perished - Or, rather, in whom vigor, or the power of accomplishing, anything, has ceased. The word כלח kelach , means "completion,"or the act or power of finishing or completing anything. Then it denotes old age - age as "finished"or "completed;"Job 5:26. Here it means the maturity or vigor which would enable a man to complete or accomplish anything, and the idea is, that in these persons this had utterly perished. Reduced by hunger and want, they had no power of effecting anything, and were unworthy of regard. The word used here occurs only in this book in Hebrew Job 5:26; Job 30:2, but is common in Arabic; where it refers to the "wrinkles,"the "wanness,"and the "austere aspect"of the countenance, especially in age. See "Castell’ s Lex."

Barnes: Job 30:3

For want and famine - By hunger and poverty their strength is wholly exhausted, and they are among the miserable outcasts of society. In order to show the depth to which he himself was sunk in public estimation, Job goes into a description of the state of these miserable wretches, and says that he was treated with contempt by the very scum of society, by those who were reduced to the most abject wretchedness, and who wandered in the deserts, subsisting on roots, without clothing, shelter, or home, and who were chased away by the respectable portion of the community as if they were thieves and robbers. The description is one of great power, and presents a sad picture of his own condition.

They were solitary - Margin, or, "dark as the night."Hebrew גלמוד galmûd . This word properly means "hard,"and is applied to a dry, stony, barren soil. In Arabic it means a hard rock. "Umbreit."In Job 3:7, it is applied to a night in which none are born. Here it seems to denote a countenance, dry, hard, emaciated with hunger. Jerome renders it, "steriles."The Septuagint, ἄγονος agonos - "sterile."Prof. Lee, "Hardly beset."The meaning is, that they were greatly reduced - or dried up - by hunger and want. So Umbreit renders it, "gantz ausgedorrt - altogether dried up."

Fleeing into the wilderness - Into the desert or lonely wastes. That is, they "fled"there to obtain, on what the desert produced, a scanty subsistence. Such is the usual explanation of the word rendered "flee"- ערק ‛âraq . But the Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Arabic, render it "gnawinq,"and this is followed by Umbreit, Noyes, Schultens, and Good. According to this the meaning is, that they were "gnawers of the desert;"that is, that they lived by gnawing the roots and shrubs which they found in the desert. This idea is much more expressive, and agrees with the connection. The word occurs in Hebrew only in this verse and in Job 30:17, where it is rendered "My sinews,"but which may more appropriately be rendered "My gnawing pains."In the Syriac and Arabic the word means to "gnaw,"or "corrode,"as the leading signification, and as the sense of the word cannot be determined by its usage in the Hebrew, it is better to depend on the ancient versions, and on its use in the cognate languages. According to this, the idea is, that they picked up a scanty subsistence as they could find it, by gnawing roots and shrubs in the deserts.

In the former time - Margin, "yesternight."The Hebrew word ( אמשׁ 'emesh ) means properly last night; the latter part of the preceding day, and then it is used to denote night or darkness in general. Gesenius supposes that this refers to "the night of desolation,"the pathless desert being strikingly compared by the Orientals with darkness. According to this, the idea is not that they had gone but yesterday into the desert, but that they went into the shades and solitudes of the wilderness, far from the homes of men. The sense then is, "They fled into the night of desolate wastes."

Desolate and waste - In Hebrew the same word occurs in different forms, designed to give emphasis, and to describe the gloom and solitariness of the desert in the most impressive manner. We should express the same idea by saying that they hid themselves in the "shades"of the wilderness.

Barnes: Job 30:4

Who cut up mallows - For the purpose of eating. Mallows are common medicinal plants, famous for their emollient or softening properties, and the size and brilliancy of their flowers. It is not probable, however, that Job referred to what we commonly understand by the word mallows. It has been commonly supposed that he meant a species of plant, called by the Greeks Hallimus, a sunfish plant, or "salt wort,"growing commonly in the deserts and poor land, and eaten as a salad. The Vulgate renders it simply "herbas;" the Septuagint, ἄλιμα alima . The Hebrew word, according to Umbreit, means a common salad of a saltish taste, whose young leaves being cooked, constituted food for the poorer classes. The Hebrew word מלוח mallûach is from מלח mâlach , "salt,"and properly refers to a marine plant or vegetable.

By the bushes - Or among the bushes; that is, that which grew among the bushes of the desert. They wandered about in the desert that they might obtain this very humble fare.

And juniper-roots - The word here rendered "juniper" רתם rethem , occurs only in this place, and in 1Ki 19:4-5; Psa 120:4. In each place it is rendered "juniper."In 1 Kings it is mentioned as the tree under which Elijah sat down when he fled into the wilderness for his life; In Psa 120:4, it is mentioned as a material for making coals. "Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper."It is rendered "juniper"by Jerome, and by the rabbis. The verb ( רתם râqab ) occurs in Mic 1:13, where it is rendered "bind,"and means to bind on, to make fast; and probably the plant here referred to received its name in some way from the notion of "binding"- perhaps because its long, flexible, and slender twigs were used for binding, or for "withes."There is no evidence, however, that the "juniper"is in any case intended. It denotes a species of "broom - spartium junceum"of Linn., which grows abundantly in the deserts of Arabia. It is the "Genista raetam" of Forskal. "Flora"Egypt. Arab. p. 214.

It has small variegated blossoms, and grows in the water-courses of the Wadys. Dr. Robinson (Bibl. Researches, i. 299) says, "The Retem is the largest and most conspicuous shrub of these de sects, growing thickly in the water-courses and valleys. Our Arabs always selected the place of encampment (if possible) in a place where it grew, in order to be sheltered by it at night from the wind; and, during the day, when they often went on in advance of the camels, we found them not unfrequently sitting or sleeping under a bush of Retem, to protect them from the sun. It was in this very desert, a day’ s journey from Beersheba, that the prophet Elijah lay down and slept beneath the same shrub. The roots are very bitter, and are regarded by the Arabs as yielding the best charcoal. The Hebrew name רתם rethem , is the same as the present Arabic name."Burckhardt remarks, that he found several Bedouins in the Wady Genne collecting brushwood, which they burned into charcoal for the Egyptian market, and adds that they preferred for this purpose the thick roots of the shrub Rethem, which grew there in abundance. Travels in Syria, p. 483. It could have been only those who were reduced to the utmost penury and want that could have made use of the roots of this shrub for food, and this is doubtless the idea which Job means to convey. It is said to have been occasionally used for food by the poor. See Gesenius, Lex.; Umbreit in loc ., and Schultens. A description of the condition of the poor, remarkably similar to this, occurs in Lucan, Lib. vii.;

- Cernit miserabile vulgus

In pecudum cecidisse cibos, et carpere dumos

Et morsu spoliare nemus .

Biddulph (in the collection of Voyages from the Library of the Earl of Oxford, p. 807), says he had seen many poor people in Syria gather mallows and clover, and when he had asked them what they designed to do with it, they answered that it was for food. They cooked and ate them. Herodotus, viii. 115, says, that the army of Xerxes, after their defeat, when they had consumed all the grain of the inhabitants in Thessaly, "fed on the natural produce of the earth, stripping wild and cultivated trees alike of their bark and leaves, to such an extremity of famine were they come."

Barnes: Job 30:5

They were driven forth from among men - As vagabonds and outcasts. They were regarded as unfit to live among the civilized and the orderly, and were expelled as nuisances.

( They cried after them as after a thief.) - The inhabitants of the place where they lived drove them out with a loud outcry, as if they were thieves and robbers. A class of persons are here described who were mere vagrants and plunderers, and who were not allowed to dwell in civilized society, and it was one of the highest aggravations of the calamities of Job, that he was now treated with derision by such outcasts.

Barnes: Job 30:6

To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys - The word here rendered "cliffs"( ערוץ ‛ârûts ) denotes rather "horror,"or something "horrid,"and the sense here is, that they dwelt in "the horrer of valleys;"that is, in horrid valleys. The idea is that of deep and frightful glens, where wild beasts ranged, far from the abodes of men, and surrounded by frightful wastes. The word rendered "valleys"( נחל nachal ) means properly a brook, stream, water-course - what is now called a wady; a place where the winter torrents run, but which is usually dry in summer; see the notes at Job 6:15.

In caves of the earth - Margin, as in Hebrew "holes."Septuagint "Whose houses are - πρῶγλαι πετρῶν trōglai petrōn - caverns of the rocks;"that is, who are "Troglodytes."Caves furnished a natural dwelling for the poor and the outcast, and it is well known that it was not uncommon in Egypt, and in the deserts of Arabia, to occupy such caves as a habitation; see Diod. Sic. Lib. iii. xiv. and Strabo, Lib. 16,

And in the rocks - The caverns of the rocks. Dr. Richardson found a large number of such dwellings in the vicinity of Thebes, many of which were large and beautifully formed and sculptured with many curious devices. Mr. Rich, also, saw a large number of such caves not far from Mousal. Residence in Koordistan, vol. ii. p. 94.

Barnes: Job 30:7

Among the bushes - Coverdale, "Upon the dry heath went they about crying."The Hebrew word is the same which occurs in Job 30:4, and means bushes in general. They were heard in the shrubbery that grew in the desert.

They brayed - ינהקו yinâhaqû . The Vulgate renders this, "They were concealed."The Septuagint, "Amidst sweet sounds they cry out."Noyes, "They utter their cries."The Hebrew word properly means to "bray."It occurs only here and in Job 6:5, where it is applied to the ass. The sense here is, that the voices of this vagrant and wretched multitude was heard in the desert like the braying of asses.

Under the nettles - Dr. Good, "Under the briers."Prof. Lee, "Beneath the broom-pea."Noyes, "Under the thorns."The Hebrew word חרול chârûl , occurs only here and in Zep 2:9, and Pro 24:31, in each of which places it is rendered "nettles."It is probably derived from חרל = חרר , to burn, to glow, and is given to nettles from the burning or prickling sensation which they produce. Either the word nettles, thistles, or thorns, would sufficiently answer to its derivation. It does not occur in the Arabic. Castell. Umbreit renders it, "unter Dornen - under thorns."

They were gathered together - Vulgate, "They accounted it a delicacy to be in a thorn-hedge."The word used here ( ספח sâphach ) means "to add;"and then to be added or assembled together. The idea is, that they were huddled together quite promiscuously in the wild-growing bushes of the desert. They had no home; no separate habitation. This description is interesting, not only as denoting the depth to which Job had been reduced when he was the object of contempt by such vagrants, but as illustrative of a state of society existing then.

Barnes: Job 30:8

They were children of fools - The word rendered "fools" נבל nâbâl , means,

(1) stupid, foolish; and

(2) abandoned, impious; compare 1Sa 25:3, 1Sa 25:25.

Here it means the worthless, the refuse of society, the abandoned. They had no respectable parentage. Umbreit, "A brood of infamy."Coverdale, "Children of fools and villains."

Children of base men - Margin, as in Hebrew, "men of no name."They were men of no reputation; whose ancestors had in no way been distinguished; possibly meaning, also, that they herded together as beasts without even a name.

They were viler than the earth - Gesenius renders this, "They are frightened out of the land."The Hebrew word ( כאה ) means "to chide, to upbraid,"and then in the niphal "to be chidden away,"or "to be driven off."The sense is, as an impious and low-born race they were driven out of the land.

Barnes: Job 30:9

And now am I their song - See Job 17:6; compare Psa 69:12, "I was the song of the drunkards;"Lam 3:14, "I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day."The sense is, that they made Job and his calamities the subject of low jesting, and treated him with contempt. His name and sufferings would be introduced into their scurrilous songs to give them pith and point, and to show how much they despised him now.

Yea, I am their by-word - See the notes at Job 17:6.

Barnes: Job 30:10

They abhor me - Hebrew, They regard me as abominable.

They flee far from me - Even such an impious and low born race now will have nothing to do with me. They would consider it no honor to be associated with me, but keep as far from me as possible.

And spare not to spit in my face - Margin, "withhold not spittle from."Noyes renders this "Before my face;"and so Luther Wemyss, Umbreit, and Prof. Lee. The Hebrew may mean either to spit in the face, or to spit "in the presence"of anyone. It is quite immaterial which interpretation is adopted, since in the view of Orientals the one was considered about the same as the other. In their notions of courtesy and urbanity, he commits an insult of the same kind who spits in the presence of another which he would if he spit on him. Are they not right? Should it not be so considered every where? Yet how different their views from the more refined notions of the civilized Occidentals! In America, more than in any other land, are offences of this kind frequent and gross. Of nothing do foreigners complain of us more, or with more justice; and much as we boast of our intelligence and refinement, we should gain much if in this respect we would sit down at the feet of a Bedouin Arab, and incorporate his views into our maxims of politeness.

Barnes: Job 30:11

Because he hath loosed my cord - According to this translation, the reference here is to God, and the sense is, that the reason why he was thus derided and contemned by such a worthless race was, that God had unloosened his cord. That is, God had rendered him incapable of vindicating himself, or of inflicting punishment. The figure, according to this interpretation, is taken from a bow, and Job means to say that his bow was relaxed, his vigor was gone, and they now felt that they might insult him with impunity. But instead of the usual reading in the Hebrew text יתרי yithriy - "my nerve,"another reading יתרוּ yithriv - "his nerve,"is found in the qeri (margin). This reading has been adopted in the text by Jahn, and is regarded as genuine by Rosenmuller, Umbreit, and Noyes. According to this, the meaning is, that the worthless rabble that now treated him with so much contempt, had relaxed all restraint, and they who had hitherto been under some curb, now rushed upon him in the most unbridled manner. They had cast off all restraint arising from respect to his rank, standing, moral worth, and the dread of his power, and now treated him with every kind of indignity.

And afflicted me - By the disrespect and contempt which they have evinced.

They have also let loose the bridle before me - That is, they have cast off all restraint - repeating the idea in the first member of the verse.

Barnes: Job 30:12

Upon my right hand rise the youth - The right hand is the place of honor, and therefore it was felt to be a greater insult that they should occupy even that place. The word rendered "youth"( פרחח pirchach ) occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Scriptures. It is probably from פרח pârach , "to sprout, germinate, blossom"; and hence, would mean "a progeny,"and would be probably applied to beasts. It is rendered by Jerome, "calamities;"by the Septuagint, "Upon the right hand of the progeny, or brood ( βλαστοῦ blastou ), they rise,"where Schleusner conjectures that βλαστοι _ blastoi should be read, "On the right hand rise a brood or progeny."Umbreit renders it, "eine Brut ... a brood."So Rosenmuller, Noyes, and Schultens. The idea then is, that this rabble rose up, even on his right hand, as a brood of wild animals - a mere rabble that impeded his way.

They push away my feet - Instead of giving place for me, they jostle and crowd me from my path. Once the aged and the honorable rose and stood in my presence, and the youth retired at my coming, but now this worthless rabble crowds along with me, jostles me in my goings, and shows me no manner of respect; compare Job 29:8.

And they raise up against me the ways of their destruction - They raise up against me destructive ways, or ways that tend to destroy me. The figure is taken from an advancing army, that casts up ramparts and other means of attack designed for the destruction of a besieged city. They were, in like manner, constantly making advances against Job, and pressing on him in a manner that was designed to destroy him.

Barnes: Job 30:13

They mar my path - They break up all my plans. Perhaps here, also, the image is taken from war, and Job may represent himself as on a line of march, and he says that this rabble comes and breaks up his path altogether. They break down the bridges, and tear up the way, so that it is impossible to pass along. His plans of life were embarrassed by them, and they were to him a perpetual annoyance.

They set forward my calamity - Luther renders this part of the verse, "It was so easy for them to injure me, that they needed no help."The literal translation of the Hebrew here would be, "they profit for my ruin;"that is, they bring as it were profit to my ruin; they help it on; they promote it. A similar expression occurs in Zec 1:15, "I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the afliction;"that is, they aided in urging it forward. The idea here is, that they hastened his fall. Instead of assisting him in any way, they contributed all they could to bring him down to the dust.

They have no helper - Very various interpretations have been given of this phrase. It may mean, that they had done this alone, without the aid of others; or that they were persons who were held in abhorrence, and whom no one would assist; or that they were worthless and abandoned persons. Schultens has shown that the phrase, "one who has no helper,"is proverbial among the Arabs, and denotes a worthless person, or one of the lowest class. In proof of this, he quotes the Hamasa, which he thus translates, Videmus vos ignobiles, pauperes, quibus nullus ex reliquis hominibus adjutor . See, also, other similar expressions quoted by him from Arabic writings. The idea here then is, probably, that they were so worthless and abandoned that no one would help them - an expression denoting the utmost degradation.

Barnes: Job 30:14

They came upon me as a wide breaking-in of waters - The Hebrew here is simply, "Like a wide breach they came,"and the reference may be, not to an inundation, as our translators supposed, but to an irruption made by a foe through a breach made in a wall. When such a wall fell, or when a breach was made in it, the besieging army would pour in in a tumultuous manner, and cut down all before them; compare Isa 30:13. This seems to be the idea here. The enemies of Job poured in upon him as if a breach was made in a wall. Formerly they were restrained by his rank and office, as a besieging army was by lofty walls; but now all these restraints were broken down, and they poured in upon him like a tumultuous army.

In the desolation they rolled themselves upon me - Among the ruins they rolled tumultuous along; or they came pitching and tumbling in with the ruins of the wall. The image is taken from the act of sacking a city, where the besieging army, having made a breach in the wall, would seem to come tumbling into the heart of the city with the ruins of the wall. No time would be wasted, but they would follow suddenly and tumultuously upon the breach, and roll tumultuously along. The Chaldee renders this as if it referred to the rolling and tumultuous waves of the sea, and the Hebrew would admit of such a construction, but the above seems better to accord with the image which Job would be likely to use.

Barnes: Job 30:15

Terrors are turned upon me - As if they were all turned upon him, or made to converge toward him. Everything suited to produce terror seemed to have a direction given it toward him. Umbreit, and some others, however, suppose that God is here referred to, and that the meaning is,"God is turned against me terrors drive as a storm against me."The Hebrew will bear either construction; but it is more emphatic and impressive to suppose it means that everything adapted to produce terror seemed to be turned against him.

They pursue my soul as the wind - Margin, my principal one. The word "they"here, refers to the terrors. In the original text, the word תרדף tirâdaph agrees with בלהה ballâhâh , terrors understood, for this word is often used as a collective noun, and with a singular verb, or it may agree with אהת כל - "each one of the terrors persecutes me."There is more difficulty about the word rendered "soul"in the text, and "principal one"in the margin - נדיבה n^e dı̂ybâh . It properly means willingness, voluntariness, spontaneity; then a free-will offering, a voluntary sacrifice; then largeness, abundance. Rosenmuller renders it, "My vigor."Noyes, "My prosperity,"and so Coverdale. Jerome, "My desire,"and the Septuagint, "My hope passes away as the wind."Schultens translates it, "They persecute my generous spirit as the wind."It seems probable that the word refers to a generous, noble nature; to a large and liberal soul, evincing its magnanimity in acts of generosity and hospitality; and the idea seems to be, that his enemies rushed against that generous nature like a tempest. They wholly disregarded it, and a nature most generous and noble was exposed to the fury of the storm.

And my welfare - Hebrew my salvation; or my safety.

As a cloud - As a cloud vanishes and wholly disappears.

Barnes: Job 30:16

And now my soul is poured out upon me - So in Psa 42:4, "I pour out my soul in me."We say that one is dissolved in grief. The language is derived from the fact that the soul in grief seems to lose all firmness or consistence. The Arabs style a fearful person, one who has a watery heart, or whose heart melts away like water. Noyes.

Barnes: Job 30:17

My bones are pierced in me - The bones are often represented in the Scriptures as the seat of acute pain; Psa 6:2; Psa 22:14; Psa 31:10; Psa 38:3; Psa 42:10; Pro 14:30; compare Job 20:11. The meaning here is, that he had had shooting or piercing pains in the night, which disturbed and prevented his rest. It is mentioned as a special aggravation of his sufferings that they were "in the night"- a time when we expect repose.

And my sinews take no rest - See the word here rendered sinews explained in the note at ver. 3. The word literally means gnawers, and hence, the teeth. The Vulgate renders it, qui me comedunt, non dormiunt , "they who devour me do not slumber."The Septuagint, νευρά μον neura mou - my sinews, or arteries. Schleusner. Luther, "They who gnaw me."Coverdale, Sinews. I see no reason to doubt that the teeth or the jaws are meant, and that Job refers to the violent pain in the tooth, among the acutest pains to which the body is subject. The idea is, that every part of the body was diseased and filled with pain.

Barnes: Job 30:18

By the great force of my disease - The words "of my disease"are not in the Hebrew. The usual interpretation of the passage is, that in consequence of the foul and offensive nature of his malady, his garment had become discolored or defiled - changed from being white and clear to filthiness and offensiveness. Some have understood it as referring to the skin, and as denoting that it was so affected with the leprosy, that he could scarcely be recognized. Umbreit supposes it to mean, "Through the omnipotence of God has my white robe of honor been changed into a narrow garment of grief"- trauerkleid . Dr. Good renders it, "From the abundance of the acrimony;"that is, of the fierce or acrimonious humor, "it is changed into a garment for me."Coverdale, "With all their power have they changed my garment, and girded me therewith, as it were with a coat."Prof. Lee, "With much violence doth my clothing bind me."

According to Schultens, it means, "My affliction puts itself on in the form of my clothing;"and the whole passage, that without and within, from the head to the feet, he was entirely diseased. His affliction was his outer garment, and it was his inner garment - his mantle and his tunic. The Hebrew is difficult. The phrase rendered "by the great force,"means, literally, "by the multitude of strength"- and may refer to the strength of disease, or to the strength of God, or to the force with which his garment girded him. The word rendered "is changed"- יתחפשׂ yitchâphaś , is from חפשׂ châphaś , to seek, to search after in the Qal; in the Hithpael, the form used here, to let oneself be sought; to hide oneself; to disguise one’ s self; 1Ki 20:38. According to this, it would mean that his garment was disquised; that is, its appearance was changed by the force of his disease. Gesenius . Jerome renders it, "In their multitude, my garment is consumed; the Septuagint, "With great force he took hold of my garment."Of these various interpretations, it is impossible to determine which is the correct one. The prevailing interpretation seems to be, that by the strength of his disease his garment was changed in its appearance, so as to become offensive, and yet this is a somewhat feeble sense to give to the passage. Perhaps the explanation of Schultens is the best, "By the greatness of power, pain or disease has become my garment; it girds me about like the mouth of my tunic."He has shown, by a great variety of instances, that it is common in Arabic poetry to compare pain, sickness, anxiety, etc., to clothing.

It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat - The collar of my tunic, or under garment. This was made like a shirt, to be gathered around the neck, and the idea is, that his disease fitted close to him, and was gathered close around him.

Barnes: Job 30:19

He hath cast me into the mire - That is, God has done it. In this book the name of God is often understood where the speaker seems to avoid it, in order that it may not be needlessly repeated. On the meaning of the expression here, see the notes at Job 9:31.

And I am become like dust and ashes - Either in appearance, or I am regarded as being as worthless as the mire of the streets. Rosenmuller supposes it means, "I am more like a mass of inanimate matter than a living man."

Barnes: Job 30:20

I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me - This was a complaint which Job often made, that he could not get the ear of God; that his prayer was not regarded, and that he could not get his cause before him; compare Job 13:3, Job 13:19 ff, and Job 27:9.

I stand up - Standing was a common posture of prayer among the ancients; see Heb 11:21; 1Ki 8:14, 1Ki 8:55; Neh 9:2. The meaning is, that when Job stood up to pray, God did not regard his prayer.

Barnes: Job 30:21

Thou art become cruel to me - Margin, turned to be. This language, applied to God, seems to be harsh and irreverent, and it may well be inquired whether the word cruel does not express an idea which Job did not intend. The Hebrew word אכזר 'akzâr , is from an obsolete root כזר - not found in Hebrew. The Arabic root, nearly the same as this, means to break with violence; to rout as an enemy; then to be enraged. In the Syriac, the primary idea is, that of a soldier, and thence it may refer to such acts of violence as a soldier commonly commits. The word occurs in Hebrew in the following places, and is translated in the following manner. It is rendered "cruel"in Deu 32:33; Job 30:21; Pro 5:9; Pro 11:17; Pro 12:10; Pro 17:11; Pro 27:4; Isa 13:9; Jer 6:23; Jer 50:42; Jer 30:14; and fierce in Job 41:10. Jerome renders it, mutatus mihi in crudelem - "thou art changed so as to become cruel to me;"the Septuagint renders it, ἀνελεημόως aneleēmonōs - unmerciful; Luther, Du bist mir verwandelt in einem Grausamen - "thou art changed to me into a cruel one;"and so Umbreit, Noyes, and translators generally. Perhaps the word fierce, severe or harsh, would express the idea; still it must be admitted that Job, in the severity of his sufferings, is often betrayed into language which cannot be a model for us, and which we cannot vindicate.

With thy strong hand - Margin, the strength. So the Hebrew. The hand is the instrument by which we accomplish anything; and hence, anything which God does is traced to his hand.

Thou opposest thyselph against me - - תשׂטמני tiśâṭamēniy . The word שׂטם śâṭam , means to lie in wait for anyone; to lay snares; to set a trap; see Job 16:9, where the same word occurs, and where it is rendered "who hateth me,"but where it would be better rendered he pursues, or persecutes me. The meaning is, that God had become his adversary, or had set himself against him. There was a severity in his dealings with him as if he had become a foe.

Barnes: Job 30:22

Thou liftest me up to the wind - The sense here is, that he was lifted up as stubble is by a tempest, and driven mercilessly along. The figure of riding upon the wind or the whirlwind, is common in Oriental writers, and indeed elsewhere. So Milton says,

"They ride the air in whirlwind."

So Addison, speaking of the angel that executes the commands of the Almighty, says,

"Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm."

Coverdale renders this verse, "In times past thou didst set me up on high, as it were above the wind, but now hast thou given me a very sore fall."Rosenmuller thinks that the image here is not taken from straw or chaff that is driven by the wind, but that the meaning of Job is, that he is lifted up and borne aloft like a cloud. But the image of chaff or straw taken up by the whirlwind and driven about, seems best to accord with the scope of the passage. The idea is, that the tempest of calamity had swept everything away, and had driven him about as a worthless object, until he was wasted away and ruined. It is possible that Job refers in this passage to the sand-storm which occurs sometimes in the deserts of Arabia. The following description of such a storm by Mr. Bruce (vol. 4:pp. 553, 554), will furnish an illustration of the force and sublimity of the passage. It is copied from Taylor’ s Fragments, in Calmet’ s Dictionary, vol. 3:235: "On the fourteenth,"says Bruce, "at seven in the morning, we left Assa Nagga, our course being due north. At one o’ clock we alighted among some acacia trees at Waadiel Halboub, having gone twenty-one miles. We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight, surely one of the most magnificent in the world. In that vast expanse of desert from west and to northwest of us, we saw a number of prodigious pillars of sand at different distances, at times moving with qreat celerity, at others stalking on with a majestic slowness; at intervals we thought they were coming in a very few minutes to overwhelm us, and small quantities of sand did actually more than once reach us. Again they would retreat so as to be almost out of sight - their tops reaching to the very clouds. There the tops often separated from the bodies; and these, once disjoined, dispersed in the air, and did not appear more.

Sometimes they were broken near the middle, as if struck with a large cannon shot. About noon they began to advance with considerable swiftness upon us, the wind being very strong at north. Eleven of them ranged alongside of us about the distance of three miles. The greatest diameter of the largest appeared to me at that distance as if it would measure two feet. They retired from us with a wind at southeast, leaving an im pression upon my mind to which I can give no name, though surely one ingredient in it was fear, with a considerable deal of wonder and astonishment. It was in vain to think of flying; the swiftest horse, or fastest sailing ship, could be of no use to carry us out of this danger, and the full persuasion of this riveted me as if to the spot where I stood, and let the camels gain on me so much in my state of lameness, that it was with some difficulty I could overtake them.

"The whole of our company were much disheartened, except Idris, and imagined that they were advancing into whirlwinds of moving sand, from which they should never be able to extricate themselves; but before four o’ clock in the afternoon these phantoms of the plain had all of them fallen to the ground and disappeared. In the evening we came to Waadi Dimokea, where we passed the night, much disheartened, and our fear more increased, when we found, upon wakening in the morning, that one side was perfectly buried in the sand that the wind had blown above us in the night.

"The sun shining through the pillars, which were thicker, and contained more sand, apparently, than any of the preceding days, seemed to give those nearest us an appearance as if spotted with stars of gold. I do not think at any time they seemed to be nearer than two miles. The most remarkable circumstance was, that the sand seemed to keep in that vast circular space, surrounded by the Nile on our left, in going round by Chaigie toward Dougola, and seldom was observed much to the eastward of a meridian, passing along the Nile through the Magizan, before it takes that turn; whereas the simoom was always on the opposite side of our course, coming upon us from the southeast.

"The same appearance of moving pillars of sand presented themselves to us this day in form and disposition like those we had seen at Waadi Halboub, only they seemed to be more in number, and less in size. They came several times in a direction close upon us, that is, I believe, within less than two miles. They began, immediately after sunrise, like a thick wood, and almost darkened the sun; his rays shining through them for near an hour, gave them an appearance of pillars of fire."

"If my conjecture,"says Taylor, "be admissible, we now see a magnificence in this imagery, not apparent before: we see how Job’ s dignity might be exalted in the air; might rise to great grandeur, importance, and even terror, in the sight of beholders; might ride upon the wind, which bears it about, causing it to advance or to recede; and, after all, when the wind diminishes, might disperse, dissipate, melt this pillar of sand into the undistinguished level of the desert. This comparison seems to be precisely adapted to the mind of an Arab; who must have seen, or have been informed of, similar phenomena in the countries around him."

And dissolvest my substance - Margin, or wisdom. The word rendered "dissolvest,"means to melt, to flow down, and then to cause to melt, to cause to pine away and perish; Isa 64:7. It is applied to a host or army that appears to melt away; 1Sa 14:16. It is also applied to one who seems to melt away with fear and terror; Exo 15:15; Jos 2:9, Jos 2:24. Here the meaning probably is, that God caused Job to melt away, as it were, with terrors and alarms. He was like one caught up in a whirlwind, and driven along with the storm, and who, in such circumstances, would be dissolved with fear. The word rendered "substance"( תשׁיה tûshı̂yâh ) has been very variously interpreted. The word, as it is written in the text, means help, deliverance, purpose, enterprise, counsel, or understanding; see Job 5:12; Job 6:13; Job 11:6. But by some, and among others. Gesenius, Umbreit, and Noyes, it is supposed that it should be read as a verb, תשוה from שוה - to fear. According to this, the meaning is, "thou terrifiest me."This agrees better with the connection; is more abrupt and emphatic, and is probably the true interpretation.

Barnes: Job 30:23

For I know that thou wilt bring me to death - This is the language of despair. Occasionally Job seems to have had an assurance that his calamities would pass by, and that God would show himself to be his friend on earth (compare the notes at Job 19:25), and at other times he utters the language of despair. Such would be commonly the case with a good man afflicted as he was, and agitated with alternate hopes and fears. We are not to set these expressions down as contradictions. All that inspiration is responsible for, is the fair record of his feelings; and that he should have alternate hopes and fears is in entire accordance with what occurs when we are afflicted. Here the view of his sorrows appears to have been so overwhelming, that he says he knew they must terminate in death. The phrase "to death"means to the house of the dead, or to the place where the dead are. Umbreit.

And to the house appointed for all living - The grave; compare Heb 9:27. That house or home is "appointed"for all. It is not a matter of chance that we come there, but it is because the Great Arbiter of life has so ordained. What an affecting consideration it should be, that such a house is designated for all! A house so dark, so gloomy, so solitary, so repulsive! For all that sit on thrones; for all that move in the halls of music and pleasure; for all that roll along in splendid carriages; for all the beautiful, the happy, the vigorous, the manly; for all in the marts of business, in the low scenes of dissipation, and in the sanctuary of God; for every one who is young, and every one who is aged, this is the home! Here they come at last; and here they lie down in the narrow bed! God’ s hand will bring them all there; and there will they lie until his voice summons them to judgment!

Barnes: Job 30:24

Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave - Margin, heap. In our common version this verse conveys no very clear idea, and it is quite evident that our translators despaired of giving it a consistent sense, and attempted merely to translate it literally. The verse has been rendered by every expositor almost in his own way; and though almost no two of them agree, yet it is remarkable that the versions given are all beautiful, and furnish a sense that agrees well with the scope of the passage. The Vulgate renders it, "But not to their consumption wilt thou send forth their hand; and if they fall, thou wilt save them."The Septuagint,"For O that I could lay violent hands on myself, or beseech another, and he would do it for me Luther renders it, "Yet he shall not stretch out the hand to the charnelhouse, and they shall not cry before his destruction."Noyes:

"When he stretcheth out his hand, prayer

availeth nothing,

When he bringeth destruction, vain is the

Cry for help."

Umbreit renders it:

Nur mog’ er nicht an den zerstorten Haufen
Hand anlegen!

Oder mussen jene selbst in ihrem
Tode schreien?

"Only if he would not lay his hand upon the
Heaps of the destroyed!

Or must these also cry out in their death?"

According to this interpretation, Job speaks here in bitter irony. "I would gladly die,"says he, "if God would only suffer me to be quiet when I am dead."He would be willing that the edifice of the body should be taken down, provided the ruins might rest in peace. Rosenmuller gives the same sense as that expressed by Noyes. Amidst this variety of interpretation, it is by no means easy to determine on the true meaning of the passage. The principal difficulty in the exposition lies in the word בעי b^e ‛ı̂y , rendered in the text "in the grave,"and in the margin "heap."If that word is compounded of the preposition ב b^e and עי ‛ı̂y , it means literally, "in ruins, or in rubbish"- for so the word עי ‛ı̂y is used in Mic 1:6; Jer 26:18; Mic 3:12; Psa 79:1; Neh 4:2, Neh 4:10. But Gesenius supposes it to be a single word, from the obsolete root בעה , Chaldee בעא , "to pray, to petition"; and according to this the meaning is, "Yea, prayer is nought when he stretches out his hand; and in his (God’ s) destruction, their cry availeth not."

Prof. Lee understands the word ( בעי b^e ‛ı̂y ) in the same sense, but gives a somewhat different meaning to the whole passage. According to him the meaning is, "Nevertheless, upon prayer thou wilt not lay thine hand; surely, when he destroyeth, in this alone there is safety."Schultens accords very nearly in the sentiment expressed by Umbreit, and renders it, "Yet not even in the tomb would he relax his hand, if in its destruction an alleviation were there."This sentiment is very strong, and borders on impiety, and should not be adopted if it is possible to avoid it. It looks as if Job felt that God was disposed to pursue his animosity even into the regions of the dead, and that he would have pleasure in carrying on the work of destruction and affliction in the ruins of the grave. After the most careful examination which I have been able to give of this difficult passage, it seems probable to me that the following is the correct sense.

Job means to state a general and important principle - that there was rest in the grave. He said he knew that God would bring him down there, but that would be a state of repose. The hand of God producing pain, would not reach there, nor would the sorrows experienced in this world be felt there, provided there had been a praying life. Notwithstanding all his afflictions, therefore, and his certain conviction that he would die, he had unwavering confidence in God. Agreeably to this, the following paraphrase will convey the true sense. "I know that he will bring me to the grave. Nevertheless ( אך 'ak ), over the ruins ( בעי b^e ‛ı̂y ) - of my body, the ruins in the grave - "he will not stretch out his hand"- to afflict me there or to pursue those who lie there with calamity and judgment; if in his destruction ( בפידו b^e pı̂ydô ) - in the destruction or desolation which God brings upon people - among them ( להן lâhên ) - among those who are thus consigned to the ruins of the grave - there is prayer ( שׁוע shûa‛ ); if there has been supplication offered to him, or a cry for mercy has gone up before him."This paraphrase embraces every word of the original; saves the necessity of attempting to change the text, as has been often done, and gives a meaning which accords with the scope of the passage, and with the uniform belief of Job, that God would ultimately vindicate him, and show that he himself was right in his government.

Barnes: Job 30:25

Did not I weep ... - Job here appeals to his former life, and says that it had been a characteristic of his life to manifest compassion to the afflicted and the poor. His object in doing this is, evidently, to show how remarkable it was that he was so much afflicted. "Did I deserve,"the sense is, "such a hard lot? Has it been brought on me by my own fault, or as a punishment for a life where no compassion was shown to others?"So far from it, he says, that his whole life had been distinguished for tender compassion for those in distress and want.

In trouble - Margin, as in Hebrew, hard of day. So we say, "a man has a hard time of it,"or has a hard lot.

Barnes: Job 30:26

When I looked for good - When I supposed that respect would be shown me; or when I looked forward to an honored old age. I expected to be made happy and prosperous through life, as the result of my uprightness and benevolence; but, instead of that, calamity came and swept all my comforts away. He experienced the instability which most people are called to experience, and the divine dealings with him showed that no reliance could be placed on confident plans of happiness in this life.

Barnes: Job 30:27

My bowels boiled - Or rather, My bowels boil - for he refers to his present circumstances, and not to the past. It is clear that by this phrase he designs to describe deep affliction. The bowels, in the Scriptures, are represented as the seat of the affections. By this is meant the upper bowels, or the region of the heart and the lungs. The reason is, that deep emotions of the mind are felt there. The heart beats quick; or it is heavy and pained; or it seems to melt within us in the exercise of pity or compassion; compare the notes at Isa 16:11. The idea here is, that the seat of sorrow and of grief was affected by his calamities. Nor was the feeling slight. His emotions he compared with agitated, boiling water. It is possible that there is an allusion here to the inflammatory nature of his disease, producing internal heat and pain; but it is more probable that he refers to the mental anguish which he endured.

The days of affliction prevented me - literally, "have anticipated me"- for so the word prevent was formerly used, and so it is uniformly used in the Bible; see the notes at Job 3:12; compare Psa 59:10; lxxix. 8; Psa 88:13; Psa 119:148; 1Th 4:15. There is in the Hebrew word ( קדם qâdam ) the idea that days of anguish came in an unexpected manner, or that they anticipated the fulfillment of his plans. All his schemes and hopes of life had been anticipated by these overwhelming sorrows.

Barnes: Job 30:28

I went mourning - Or rather, "I go,"in the present tense, for he is now referring to his present calamities, and not to what was past. The word rendered "mourning,"however ( קדר qâdar ), means here rather to be dark, dingy, tanned. It literally means to be foul or turbid, like a torrent, Job 6:16; then to go about in filthy garments, as they do who mourn, Job 5:11; Jer 14:2; then to be dusky, or of a dark color, or to become dark. Thus, it is applied to the sun and moon becoming dark in an eclipse, or when covered with clouds, Jer 4:28; Joe 2:10; Joe 3:15; Mic 3:6. Here it refers to the fact that, by the mere force of his disease, his skin had become dark and swarthy, though he had not been exposed to the burning rays of the sun. The wrath of God had burned upon him, and he had become black under it. Jerome, however, renders it moerens , mourning. The Septuagint, "I go groaning ( στένων stenōn ) without restraint, or limit"- ἄνευ φιμοῦ aneu fimou . The Chaldee translates it אוכם , "black."

Without the sun - Without being exposed to the sun; or without the agency of the sun. Though not exposed, he had become as dark as if he had been a day-laborer exposed to a burning sun.

I stood up - Or, I stand up.

And cried in the congregation - I utter my cries in the congregation, or when surrounded by the assembled people. Once I stood up to counsel them, and they hung upon my lips for advice; now I stand up only to weep over my accumulated calamities. This indicates the great change which had come upon him, and the depth of his sorrows. A man will weep readily in private; but he will be slow to do it, if he can avoid it, when surrounded by a multitude.

Barnes: Job 30:29

I am a brother to dragons - That is, my loud complaints and cries resemble the doleful screams of wild animals, or of the most frightful monsters. The word "brother"is often used in this sense, to denote similarity in any respect. The word "dragons"here ( תנין tannı̂yn ), denotes properly a sea-monster, a great fish, a crocodile; or the fancied animal with wings called a dragon; see the notes at Isa 13:22. Gesenius, Umbreit, and Noyes, render this word here jackals - an animal between a dog and a fox, or a wolf and a fox; an animal that abounds in deserts and solitudes, and that makes a doleful cry in the night. So the Syriac renders it an animal resembling a dog; a wild dog. Castell. This idea agrees with the scope of the passage better than the common reference to a sea-monster or a crocodile. "The Deeb, or Jackal,"says Shaw, "is of a darker color than the fox, and about the same bigness. It yelps every night about the gardens and villages, feeding upon roots, fruit, and carrion."Travels, p. 247, Ed. Oxford, 1738. That some wild animal, distinguished for a mournful noise, or howl, is meant, is evident; and the passage better agrees with the description of a jackal than the hissing of a serpent or the noise of the crocodile. Bochart supposes that the allusion is to dragons, because they erect their heads, and their jaws are drawn open, and they seem to be complaining against God on account of their humble and miserable condition. Taylor (Concord.) supposes it means jackals or thoes, and refers to the following places where the word may be so used; Psa 44:19; Isa 13:22; Isa 34:13; Isa 35:7; Isa 43:20; Jer 11:11; Jer 10:22; Jer 49:33; Jer 51:37; Lam 4:3; Mic 1:8; Mal 1:3.

And a companion to owls - Margin, ostriches. The word companion here is used in a sense similar to brother in the other member of the parallelism, to denote resemblance. The Hebrew, here rendered owls, is, literally, daughters of answering, or clamor - יענה בנות b^e nôth ya‛ănâh . The name is given on account of the plaintive and mournful cry which is made. Bochart. Gesenius supposes, however, that it is on account of its greediness and gluttony. The name "daughters of the ostrich."denotes properly the female ostrich. The phrase is, however, put for the ostrich of both sexes in many places; see Gesenius on the word יענה ya‛ănâh ; compare the notes at Isa 13:21. For a full examination of the meaning of the phrase, see Bochart, Hieroz. P. ii. L. 2. cap. xiv. pp. 218-231; see also Job 39:13-17. There can be little doubt that the ostrich is here intended, and Job means to say that his mourning resembled the doleful noise made by the ostrich in the lonely desert. Shaw, in his Travels, says that during the night "they (the ostriches) make very doleful and hideous noises; which would sometimes be like the roaring of a lion; at other times it would bear a nearer resemblance to the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, particularly of the bull and the ox. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies."

Barnes: Job 30:30

My skin is black upon me; - see Job 30:28. It had become black by the force of the disease.

My bones are burnt with heat - The bones, in the Scriptures, are often represented as the seat of pain. The disease of Job seems to have pervaded the whole body. If it was the elephantiasis (see the notes at Job 2:7-8), these effects would be naturally produced.

Barnes: Job 30:31

My harp also is turned to mourning - What formerly gave cheerful sounds, now gives only notes of plaintiveness and lamentation. The harp was probably an instrument originally designed to give sounds of joy. For a description of it, see the notes at Isa 5:12.

And my organ - The form of what is here called the organ, is not certainly known. The word עגב ‛ûgâb is doubtless from עגב ‛âgab , "to breathe, to blow"; and most probably the instrument hero intended was the pipe. For a description of it, see the notes at Isa 5:12. This instrument, also, was played, as would appear, on joyous occasions, but Job now says that it was turned to grief. All that had been joyous with him had fled. His honor was taken away; his friends were gone; they who had treated him with reverence now stood at a distance, or treated him with contempt; his health was departed, and his former appearance, indicating a station of affluence, was changed for the dark complexion produced by disease, and the instruments of joyousness now gave forth only notes of sorrow.

Poole: Job 30:1

They that are younger than I whom both universal custom and the light of nature taught to reverence their elders and betters.

Have me in derision make me the object of their contempt and scoffs: thus my glory is turned into shame.

I would have disdained or rather, I might have disdained , i.e. whose condition was so mean and vile, that in the opinion and according to the custom of the world they were unworthy of such an employment.

To have set with the dogs of my flock to be my shepherds, and the companions of my dogs which watch my flocks. Dogs are every where mentioned with contempt, as filthy, unprofitable, and accursed creatures; as 2Sa 16:9 2Ki 8:13 Phi 3:2 Rev 22:15 .

Poole: Job 30:2

Nor was it strange that I did, or would. or might refuse to take them into any of my meanest services, because they were utterly impotent, and therefore unserviceable.

In whom old age was perished or, lost; either,

1. Because they never attain to it, but are consumed by their lusts or cut off for their wickedness by the just hand of God, or men, in the midst of their days. Or,

2. Because they had so wasted their strength and spirits by their evil courses, that when they came to old age, they were feeble and decrepit, and useless for any labour. Or,

3. Because they had not that prudence and experience which is proper and usual in that age, by which they might have been useful, if not for work, yet to oversee and direct others in their work. But the words may be thus rendered, in whom vigorous age was perished , i.e. who were grown impotent for service. For the word here rendered old age , is used only here and Job 5:26 , where also it may be so rendered, Thou shalt come to thy grave in a vigorous or mature age , having the rigour of youth even in thine old age, and until thy death, as Moses had. And if this word do signify old age , yet it signifies not every, but only a flourishing and vigorous, old age; as the Hebrews note, and the word may seem to imply; whence the LXX. interpreters also render it perfection , to wit, of age, and of thee endowments belonging to age.

Poole: Job 30:3

Want and famine brought upon them either by their own sloth or wickedness, or by God’ s just judgment. Heb. In want and famine , which aggravates their following solitude. Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort and company for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, and contemptibleness, and hatefulness to all persons, that they shunned all company, and for fear or shame fled into and lived in desolate places.

Poole: Job 30:4

Mallows or, purslain , or salt or bitter herbs , as the word seems to import, which shows their extreme necessity.

By the bushes or, by the shrubs, nigh unto which they grew; or, with the barks of trees , as the Vulgar Latin renders it.

Juniper roots: possibly the word may signify some other plant, for the Hebrews themselves are at a loss for the signification of the names of plants.

Poole: Job 30:5

Giving one another warning of their danger from them.

Poole: Job 30:6

As unworthy of human society, and for their beggary and dishonesty suspected and avoided of all men.

Poole: Job 30:7

They brayed like the wild asses, Job 6:5 , for hunger or thirst.

Under the nettles which seem not proper for that use. This Hebrew word is used but twice in Scripture, and it is acknowledged both by Jewish and Christian writers, that the signification of the Hebrew words which express plants, or beasts, or stones, &c. is very uncertain; and therefore this is by others, and may well be, understood of some kind of thorns; and so this is the same thing with the bushes in the former branch of the verse, under which they hid themselves, that they might not be discovered when they were sought out for justice.

Poole: Job 30:8

Children of fools either,

1. The genuine children of foolish parents; their children not only by birth, but by imitation; as they only are esteemed the children of Abraham who do the works of Abraham , Joh 8:39 . Or,

2. Fools, by a common Hebraism, as the sons of men are put for men, and the children of wisdom for wise men, &c.

Children of base men Heb. men without name , i.e. without any degree of credit or reputation; as men of name is put for renowned persons, Gen 6:4 .

Viler than the earth which we tread and spit upon, and are not willing to touch.

Poole: Job 30:9

The matter of their song and derision. They now rejoice in my calamities, because formerly I used my authority to punish such vagrants and miscreants.

Poole: Job 30:10

They flee far from me in contempt of my person, and loathing of my sores.

Spare not to spit in my face not literally, for they kept far from him, as he now said; but figuratively, i.e. they use all manner of contemptuous and reproachful expressions and carriages towards me, not only behind my back, but even to my face.

Poole: Job 30:11

Because he to wit, God, for it follows, he afflicted me , which was God’ s work.

Hath loosed my cord either,

1. He hath slackened the string (as this word sometimes signifies) of my bow, and so rendered my bow and arrows useless, either to offend others, or to defend myself, i.e. he hath deprived me of my strength or defence: so this is opposed to that expression, Job 29:20 . Or,

2. He hath taken away from me that power and authority wherewith, as with a cord, I bound them to the good behaviour, and kept them within their bounds. The like expression is used in the same sense Job 15:18 .

Afflicted me: when they perceived that God, who had been my faithful friend, and constant defender, had forsaken me, and was become mine enemy, they presently took this advantage of showing their malice against me.

They have also let loose the bridle they cast off all former restraints of law, or humanity, or modesty, and gave themselves full liberty to speak or act what they pleased against me. Before me ; they durst now do those things before mine eyes, which formerly they trembled lest they should come to my ears.

Poole: Job 30:12

Upon my right hand This circumstance is noted, either because this was the place of adversaries or accusers in courts of justice, Psa 109:6 Zec 3:1 ; or to show their boldness and contempt of him, that they durst oppose him even on that side where his chief strength lay.

Rise to wit, in way of contempt and opposition, or to accuse and reproach me, as my friends now do; as one who by my great, but secret, wickedness have brought these miseries upon myself.

The youth Heb. young striplings , who formerly hid themselves from my presence, Job 29:8 .

They push away my feet either,

1. Properly, they trip up my heels Or rather,

2. Metaphorically, they endeavour utterly to overwhelm my goings, and to cast me down to the ground.

The ways i.e. causeways, or banks; so it is a metaphor from soldiers, who raise or cast up banks against the city which they besiege. Or, they raise up a level, or smooth the path by continual treading it; they prepare, and contrive, and use several methods to destroy me.

Of their destruction either,

1. Passively; so the sense is, they raise or heap upon me , i.e. impute to me, the ways , i.e. the causes, of their ruin ; they charge me to be the author of their ruin. Or rather,

2. Actively, of that destruction which they design and carry on against me; which best suits with the whole context, wherein Job is constantly represented as the patient, and wicked men as the agents.

Poole: Job 30:13

As I am in great misery, so they endeavour to stop all my ways out of it, and to frustrate all my counsels and courses of obtaining relief or comfort. And although Job had no hopes of a temporal deliverance or restitution, yet he could not but observe and resent the malice of those who did their utmost to hinder it. Or the sense is, They pervert all my ways, putting perverse and false constructions upon them, censuring all my conscientious discharges of my duty to God and men, as nothing but craft and hypocrisy.

They set forward my calamity increasing it by their bitter taunts, and invectives, and censures. Or, they profit by , or are pleased and satisfied with, my calamity . It doth them good at the heart to see me in misery.

They have no helper: this is added as an aggravation of their malice; they impudently persisted in their malicious designs against me, though none encouraged or assisted them therein. Or, even they who had no helper , who were themselves in a forlorn and miserable condition; and yet they could so far forget or overlook their own calamities as to take pleasure in mine.

Poole: Job 30:14

As a wide breaking in of waters as fiercely and violently as a river doth when a great breach is made in the bank which kept it in. Heb. as at a wide breach ; as a besieging army, having made a breach in the walls of the city, do suddenly and forcibly rush into it. In the desolation ; or, for or instead of a desolation , i.e. that they might utterly destroy me, and make me desolate. Or, in the waste place , i. e. in that part of the bank or wall which was wasted or broken down.

They rolled themselves upon me as the waters or soldiers come rolling or tumbling in at the breach.

Poole: Job 30:15

Terrors to wit, from God, who sets himself against me, and in some sort joins his forces with these miscreants.

Are turned upon me are directed against me, to whom they seem not to belong, as being the portion of wicked men.

My soul Heb. my principal or excellent one , i.e. my soul, which is fitly so called, as being the chief part of man; as it is called a man’ s glory, Gen 49:6 , and his only one , Psa 22:20 , and which is the proper seat and object of Divine terrors, as his body was of his outward pains and ulcers.

As the wind i.e. speedily, vehemently, and irresistibly.

My welfare all the happiness and comfort of any life.

As a cloud which is quickly dissolved into rain, or dissipated by the sun, or driven away with the wind.

Poole: Job 30:16

My soul is poured out all the strength and powers of my soul are melted, and fainting, and dying away, through my continued and insupportable sorrows and calamities.

Upon me or, within me , as this Hebrew particle is elsewhere used, as Psa 42:5,6 Isa 26:9 Hos 11:8 .

Poole: Job 30:17

My bones are pierced: Heb. It , to wit, the terror or affliction last mentioned; or, He , i.e. God, hath pierced my bones . This is no slight and superficial, but a most deep wound, that reacheth to my very heart, and bones, and marrow. Nothing in me is so secret but it reacheth it, nothing so hard and solid but it feels the weight and burden of it.

In me Heb. from above me , by an arrow shot from Heaven, whence my calamities come, and that in a singular and eminent manner. Or, by that which is upon me: the sores which are upon my skin, or outward flesh, do pierce and pain me even to the bones. For now he is come from describing the terrors of his mind, to express the torments of his body.

In the night season when others do, and I should, receive some rest and refreshment.

My sinews and the flesh of my body which covereth the sinews, and is mixed with them, and may seem to be synecdochically expressed by the sinews, which are the strength and support of the flesh. So he signifies that neither his bones nor his flesh resteth. Or, and my veins or arteries , which rest or move slowly when the mind and body are well composed; but in Job did move vehemently and restlessly, by reason of his great heat, and pain, and passion.

Poole: Job 30:18

My disease is so strong and prevalent, that it breaks forth every where in my body, in such plenty of purulent and filthy matter, that it infects and discolours my very garments. Others, By the great power of God

my garment is changed In both these translations the words, of disease , and of God , are not in the Hebrew text, but are supplied by the translators. But the words are by some not untruly nor unfitly rendered thus, without any supplement, With great force my garment is changed ; for so this verb is used, 1Ki 22:30 . So the sense is, I cannot shift or put off my garment without great strength and difficulty; the reason whereof is rendered in the following words.

It bindeth me about it cleaveth fast to me, being glued by that filthy matter issuing from my sores.

As the collar of my coat as my collar girdeth in and cleaveth to my neck. He alludes to the fashion of the Eastern outward garments, which were seamless, and all of a piece, and had a straight mouth at the top, which was brought over the head, and contracted and fastened close about the neck.

Poole: Job 30:19

He hath made me contemptible and filthy, and loathsome for my sores, my whole body being a kind of quagmire, in regard of the filth breaking forth in all its parts;

and I am become like dust and ashes like one dead and turned to dust; more like a rotten carcass than a living man.

Poole: Job 30:20

Thou dost not hear me to wit, so as to answer or help me.

I stand up or, I stand , to wit, before thee, i.e. I pray, as this phrase signifies, Jer 15:1 18:20 , this being a gesture of prayer, Mat 6:5 . And so the same thing is here repeated in other words, after the manner. Or, I persist or persevere in praying; I pray importunately and continually, as thou requirest.

Thou regardest me not so the particle not is supplied out of the former clause. Or without the negation, thou knowest or observest me , and all my griefs and cries, and yet dost not pity nor help me, but rather takest pleasure in the contemplation of my calamities, as the following words imply. Or it may be taken interrogatively, Dost thou regard me ? i.e. thou dost not.

Poole: Job 30:21

Become cruel Heb. turned to be cruel ; as if thou hadst changed thy very nature, which is kind, and merciful, and gracious; and such thou hast been formerly in thy carriage to me; but now thou art grown severe, and rigorous, and inexorable.

Thou opposest thyself against me thy power wherewith I hoped and expected that thou wouldst have supported me under my troubles thou usest against me.

Poole: Job 30:22

Thou liftest me up to the wind thou dost not suffer me to rest or lie still for a moment, but disquietest me, and exposest me to all sorts of storms and calamities; so that I am like chaff or stubble lifted up to the wind, and violently tossed hither and thither in the air, without the least stop or hinderance.

To ride upon it i.e. to be carried and hurried about by it. By this restlessness, and the vehemency of these winds, my body is almost consumed and wasted, and my heart is melted within me.

Poole: Job 30:23

I see nothing will satisfy thee but my death, which thou art bringing upon me in a lingering and dismal manner.

To the house appointed for all living to the grave, to which all living men are coming and hastening.

Poole: Job 30:24

There is great variety and difficulty in the sense and connexion of these words. They may be joined either,

1. With the following verse, as describing Job’ s compassion to others in affliction, which by the principles of reason and religion should have procured him some pity from God and men in his affliction. And to that purpose the words are or may be translated thus: But was not my prayers for them (which words may be understood out of the following clause) when he stretched out his hand ? (to wit, against them to destroy them;) in his destruction or oppression (understand it actively, i.e. when God was about to destroy any other man or men) was not (the negation being understood out of the former branch of the verse, as is usual) my cry for them ? the feminine-gender being put for the masculine, as it is elsewhere; or for these things , the feminine being put for the neuter; that is, for those destructive calamities which were upon them. Or,

2. With the foregoing verse. And so these words contain either,

1. A consolation against the evil last mentioned: so the sense is, Though God will undoubtedly bring me to the grave by these torments, yet this comforts me, that surely he will not stretch out his hand (to wit, to afflict or punish me further, as this phrase is used, Exo 3:20 Isa 9:12,13 ) in the grave , though they , i.e. the perishing persons, cry or roar (i.e. be sorely pained and tormented)

in his destruction i.e. whilst God is destroying them. Or this last clause may be read interrogatively, Is there any cry in his destruction ? When a man is cut off or destroyed by death, doth he then cry and complain? No, there is an end of all these miseries. Or rather,

2. A confirmation of what he last said. For the whole context shows that Job is not taking any comfort to himself, but rather aggravating his sufferings. I know, saith he, that I am a dead man, and my condition is desperate, for surely he , i.e. God, will not stretch out his hand (to wit, to save or rescue me, as this phrase is used, Psa 18:17 144:7 , compared with Act 4:30 ) to or in the grave , (i.e. to a dead man, such as I am in effect, having not only one foot, but in a manner both feet, in the grave, as being upon the very brink of the pit,) though they cry (to wit, unto God, i.e. though there be a great and a general cry and lamentation for him among his friends, or others, and an earnest desire of him, if possibly he might be restored to life again) in his destruction, i.e. when he is destroyed or dead; yet all these cries would be in vain.

Poole: Job 30:25

Whence is it that neither God nor man show any compassion to me, but both conspire to afflict me, and increase my torments? Doth God now mete out to me the same measure which I meted out to others? Have I now judgment without mercy, because I afforded no mercy nor pity to others in misery? No, my conscience acquits me from this inhumanity. I did not slightly resent, but bitterly mourn and weep over others in their miseries; and therefore I had reason to expect more compassion than I find.

Was not my soul grieved for the poor even for him who was not capable of requiting my kindness in case of his recovery? which shows that my sympathy was real, and not reigned, as it is in some who pretend great sorrow for the rich in their troubles, hoping thereby to insinuate themselves into their favour and friendship, and thereby to procure some advantage to themselves.

Poole: Job 30:26

Instead of the return of the like pity to me, which I might justly challenge and expect whensoever I should stand in need of it, I meet with a sad disappointment, and my pity is recompensed with others’ cruelty to me.

Poole: Job 30:27

My inward parts boiled without ceasing. The bowels are the seat of passion and of compassion; and therefore this may be understood, either,

1. Of his compassionate and deep sense of others’ miseries; which is oft expressed by bowels, as Isa 16:11 Col 3:12 , and elsewhere, of which he spoke Job 30:25 , to which he subjoins the contrary usage which he met with, Job 30:26 . And then, in this first part of Job 30:27 , he renews the mention of his compassion to others, and in the latter part he adds, by way of antithesis or opposition, that his mercy was requited with cruel afflictions. Or,

2. Of the grievousness of his troubles, which is sometimes expressed by the troubling or boiling of the bowels, or inward parts; as Lam 1:20 .

Prevented me i.e. came upon me suddenly and unexpectedly, when I promised to myself peace and prosperity, as the usual recompence which God promiseth and giveth to such as fear and please him, as I have done.

Poole: Job 30:28

I went or, I walked hither and thither as I could. Or, I converse or appear among others.

Mourning without the sun spending my days in mourning, without any sun-light or comfort; or so oppressed with sadness, that I did not care nor desire to see the light of the sun. Heb. black not by the sun . My very countenance is changed and become black, but not by the sun, which makes many other persons black, Son 1:5,6 ; but by the force of my disease and deep melancholy, which ofttimes makes a man’ s visage black and dismal. See Psa 119:83 Lam 5:10 . And this he repeats in plainer terms, Job 30:30 , as an eminent token of his excessive grief and misery.

I stood up either because my disease and pain made me weary of other postures; or that others might take notice of me, and be moved with pity towards me.

I cried with a loud and direful clamour, through great and sudden anguish.

In the congregation where prudence and modesty taught me to forbear it, if extreme necessity and misery had not forced me to it.

Poole: Job 30:29

A brother to wit, by imitation of their cries: persons of like qualities are oft called brethren, as Gen 49:5 Pro 18:9 .

To dragons which howl and wail mournfully in the deserts, Mic 1:8 , either through hunger or thirst, or when he fights with and is beaten by the elephant. To owls ; whose sad and mournful noises are known. Or, ostriches ; which also is noted to make lamentable outcries.

Poole: Job 30:30

My skin is black upon me either by his dark-coloured scabs, wherewith his body was in a manner wholly overspread; or by grief, as before.

My bones are burned with heat the effect of his fever and sorrow, which dried up all his moisture, and caused great inflammations and burning heats within him.

Poole: Job 30:31

Either,

1. I have now nothing but bitter lamentations instead of my former expressions of joy. Or,

2. Those very things which formerly were occasions and instruments of my delight, do now renew and aggravate my sorrows.

Haydock: Job 30:1

Flock, to watch over them. (Sanchez) (Calmet) ---

I had so little confidence in them, (Haydock) or they were so very mean. (Calmet) ---

They were not as well fed as my dogs. (Nicetas.) ---

Job does not speak this out of contempt, as he was affable to all. But this proverbial expression denotes how vile these people were. (Menochius) ---

Even the most contemptible, and such as were not fit to have the care of dogs, derided him. (Worthington)

Haydock: Job 30:2

And they. Hebrew, "Their old age is perished." They were good for nothing all their lives. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:3

Who. Hebrew, "solitary in," &c. Yet these vagabond (Haydock) people now insult over me. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:4

Grass. "There (in Crete, where no noxious animal, no serpent lives) the herb alimos, being chewed, expels hunger for the day;" admorsa diurnam famem prohibet. (Solin. 17.) ---

The Hebrew malliuch, is rendered halima, by the Septuagint (Haydock) and Bochart would translate, "who gather the halima from the bush." (Calmet) ---

Protestants, "who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat." (Haydock) ---

Yet all agree that the latter is not proper for food. (Calmet) ---

Rethamim may (Haydock) designate any "shrubs or wild herbs," as the Septuagint and Symmachus have explained it. (Calmet) ---

Perhaps the very poor people might use the juniper or broom roots for food, (Menochius) or to burn in order to prepare their victuals. (Haydock) ---

The Arabs and Spaniards still use the word retama for "the birch-tree." (Parkhurst)

Haydock: Job 30:5

Who. Septuagint, "through excessive hunger. Robbers rushed upon me." Protestants, "They were driven forth from among men; (the cried after them as after a thief.") (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:6

Gravel of the torrents. (Menochius) ---

Hebrew, "in the rocks," living like the Troglodites. (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:7

Pleased. Hebrew, "brayed." (Calmet) ---

Briars. Protestants, "nettles." They were driven from the society of men and forced to abscond. (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:8

And not. Hebrew, "viler than the earth." (Protestants)

Haydock: Job 30:9

Bye-word. "Proverb." (Haydock) ---

They speak of me with contempt, chap. xvii. 6.

Haydock: Job 30:10

Face. This most people explain literally; while some, (Calmet) as Job was herein a figure of Christ, (Menochius; Matthew xxvi.; Worthington) think that the expression denotes the utmost contempt; (St. Gregory, &c.) or that the people spit upon the ground (Calmet) for fear of contracting any infection; (Haydock) and because lepers were held in the utmost abhorrence. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:11

For he. Protestants, "Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me," (Haydock) being no longer under any restraint. Sometimes it was customary to put bits into the mouth of a person who was led to execution, Isaias xxxvii. 29. (Calmet) ---

The Hebrew plural, have put, insinuates the plurality of persons in God, (Worthington) though it may be as well referred to the enemies of Job.

Haydock: Job 30:12

Forthwith. Hebrew pirchach seems to be translated (Haydock) by three terms, rising, calamities, and forthwith, as it denotes "a bud" which suddenly appears. (Calmet) ---

Septuagint Greek: Blaston, "On the right hand of the bud they rose up." (Haydock) ---

Hebrew, "Youth stood up on the right," to accuse me; (Psalm cviii. 6.) or, "Scarcely had I begun to flourish, when they rose up," &c. The days of prosperity soon vanished, (Calmet) and young men were ready to insult the distressed, and, as it were, to trip them up. (Menochius) ---

Septuagint, "they stretched out their feet and trampled upon me, that they might destroy me. " (Haydock) ---

They seem to have read (Calmet) regliem, "their feet," though the two last letters are now omitted in Hebrew. (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:13

Help them, or me. (Calmet) Septuagint, "they took off my garment." (Haydock) ---

Job seemed to be besieged, and could not escape. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:14

Down, ( devoluti sunt. ) They have proceeded to aggravate my misfortunes. (Haydock) ---

"They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me. ["] (Protestants)

Haydock: Job 30:15

Nothing. Hebrew, "terror." (Haydock) ---

Desire. Hebrew, "princess," reason. (Calmet) ---

Protestants, "soul." Septuagint, "my hope has flown away like wind." (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:16

Fadeth. Hebrew, "is poured out," (Haydock) ready to take its flight, Psalm xli. 5.

Haydock: Job 30:17

They that. Heberw, "my sinews take no rest." Septuagint, "are dissolved." (Haydock) ---

The worms prey upon me, and I am like one in a raging fever. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:18

Coat. The worms are so numerous, (Menochius) or my enemies pour upon me. (Calmet) ---

Septuagint, "with great power He (God; Protestants, my disease ) has seized me by the garment." Theodotion adds, "He has taken hold of me like the collar of my tunic:" (Haydock) which corresponds with our shirt, and had an opening at the top. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:19

I am. Hebrew, "He hat cast me into the mire;" (Protestants) or, "He regards me as dirt; my portion is on the earth and dust." (Haydock) ---

All look upon me with horror and contempt. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:20

Not is supplied by Protestants in the second part of the verse from the first; (Haydock) as this construction is not unusual in the Hebrew. Septuagint, "they have stood up, and have considered me," (Calmet) to procure my entire ruin. (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:22

Dashed me in pieces, as if I had been raised so high for that purpose. Hebrew, "thou hast dissolved my substance," wisdom, &c. The signification of tushiova (Haydock) is very indeterminate, chap. v. 12. (Calmet) ---

"Thou hast cast me far away from salvation." (Septuagint and Theodotion) (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:23

Liveth. Death is a relief to a just man in tribulation. (Worthington)

Haydock: Job 30:24

Consumption. Thou dealest mercifully with other people: but all the effects of thy anger fall upon me, even here. Septuagint, "O that I might lay hands on myself, or desire another to do this for me!" Hebrew has nothing similar; but is very obscure: "He will not, however, stretch forth his had to the grave; and when they are wounded, they are healed." (Calmet) ---

Protestants, "grave, though they cry in his destruction." (Haydock) ---

The grave is more desirable than such a life. There the dead are freed from the miseries of this world. (Calmet)

Haydock: Job 30:28

Mourning. Hebrew, "blackened without the sun." (Haydock) ---

Bile has disfigured my countenance, through excessive sorrow, ver. 30. The dark olive complexions of the Jews and Arabs would be more susceptible of these effects. (Calmet) ---

Indignation. I have not given way to passion, though I allowed full scope to my groans. (Septuagint) (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:29

Brother of dragons, &c. Imitating these creatures in their lamentable noise. (Challoner) -- I was like those beasts which retire in order to lament. (Worthington) ---

The dragons his dreadfully, when crushed by the elephant; (St. Jerome) and the young ostriches, being abandoned, make great lamentations. (Menochius) (Delrio, t. ii. adag. 18.) ---

This comparison occurs, Micheas i. 8. Natural history does not, however, represent these animals as very plaintive. The former term may denote sea monsters, or crocodiles; thannim: (Septuagint, syrens) and "the daughters of the yahana, " signify "swans," (Isaias xiii. 21.) though commonly rendered ostriches, as they are by the Septuagint, &c. (Calmet) ---

Protestants have, "owls." But we may adhere to the Vulgate. (Haydock)

Haydock: Job 30:31

Weep. I have exchanged my sons of joy for mourning. (Menochius)

Gill: Job 30:1

But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,.... Meaning not his three friends, who were men in years, and were not, at least all of them, younger than he, see Job 15:10; nor were they of such a mean extraction, and such low-lived creatures, and of such characters as here described; with such Job would never have held a correspondence in the time of his prosperity; both they and their fathers, in all appearance, were both great and good; but these were a set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who, as soon as Job's troubles came upon him, derided him, mocked and jeered at him, both by words and gestures; and which they might do even before his three friends came to him, and during their seven days' silence with him, and while this debate was carrying on between them, encouraged unto it by their behaviour towards him; to be derided by any is disagreeable to flesh and blood, though it is the common lot of good men, especially in poor and afflicted circumstances, and to be bore patiently; but to be so used by junior and inferior persons is an aggravation of it; as Job was, even by young children, as was also the prophet Elisha, 2Ki 2:23; see Job 19:18;

whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock; either to have compared them with the dogs that kept his flock from the wolves, having some good qualities in them which they had not; for what more loving or faithful to their masters, or more vigilant and watchful of their affairs? or to set them at meat with the dogs of his flock; they were unworthy of it, though they would have been glad of the food his dogs ate of, they living better than they, whose meat were mallows and juniper roots, Job 30:4; and would have jumped at it; as the prodigal in want and famine, as those men were, would fain have filled his belly with husks that swine did eat; but as no man gave them to him, so Job disdained to give the meat of his dogs to such as those; or to set them "over" ^m the dogs of his flock, to be the keepers of them, to be at the head of his dogs, and to have the command of them; see the phrase in 2Sa 3:8; or else to join them with his dogs, to keep his flock with them; they were such worthless faithless wretches, that they were not to be trusted with the care of his flock along with his dogs. It was usual in ancient times, as well as in ours, for dogs to be made use of in keeping flocks of sheep from beasts of prey, as appears from Orpheus ⁿ, Homer ^o, Theocritus ^p, and other writers: and if the fathers of those that derided Job were such mean, base, worthless creatures, what must their sons be, inferior to them in age and honour, if any degree of honour belonged to them?

Gill: Job 30:2

Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me,.... For though they were strong, lusty, hale men, able to do business, yet their strength was to sit still and fold their hands in their bosoms, so that their strength was of no profit or avail to themselves or others; they were so slothful and lazy, that Job could not employ them in any business of his to any advantage to himself; and this may be one reason, among others, why he disdained to set them with the dogs of his flock to keep it; for the fathers seem to be intended all along to Job 30:8; though it matters not much to which of them the words are applied, since they were like father like son:

in whom old age was perished? who did not arrive to old age, but were soon consumed by their lusts, or cut off for their sins; and so the strength and labour of their hands, had they been employed, would have been of little worth; because the time of their continuance in service would have been short, especially being idle and slothful: some understand it of a lively and vigorous old age, such as was in Moses; but this being not in them, they were unfit for business, see Job 5:26; or they had not the endowments of old age, the experience, wisdom, and prudence of ancient persons, to contrive, conduct, and manage affairs, or direct in the management of them, which would make up for lack of strength and labour. Ben Gersom, Bar Tzemach, and others, interpret the word of time, or the time of life, that was perished or lost in them; their whole course of life, being spent in sloth and idleness, was all lost time.

Gill: Job 30:3

For want and famine they were solitary,.... The Targum interprets it, without children; but then this cannot be understood of the fathers; rather through famine and want they were reduced to the utmost extremity, and were as destitute of food as a rock, or hard flint, from whence nothing is to be had, as the word signifies, see Job 3:7;

fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste: to search and try what they could get there for their sustenance and relief, fleeing through fear of being taken up for some crimes committed, or through shame, on account of their miserable condition, not caring to be seen by men, and therefore fled into the wilderness to get what they could there: but since men in want and famine usually make to cities, and places of resort, where provision may be expected; this may be interpreted not of their flying into the wilderness, though of their being there, perhaps banished thither, see Job 30:5; but of their "gnawing" ^q, or biting the dry and barren wilderness, and what they could find there; where having short commons, and hunger bitten, they bit close; which, though extremely desolate, they were glad to feed upon what they could light on there; such miserable beggarly creatures were they: and with this agrees what follows.

Gill: Job 30:4

Who cut up mallows by the bushes,.... Which with the Troglodytes were of a vast size ^r; or rather "upon the bush" ^s or "tree"; and therefore cannot mean what we call mallows, which are herbs on the ground, and grow not on trees or bushes; and, besides, are not for food, but rather for medicine: though Plutarch ^t says they, were the food of the meaner sort of people; so Horace ^u speaks of them as such; and the word in the original is near in sound to a mallow; but it signifies something salt, wherefore Mr. Broughton renders it "salt herbs"; so Grotius, such as might grow by the seaside, or in salt marshes; and in Edom, or Idumea, where Job lived, was a valley of salt, see 2Ki 14:7. Jarchi says it is the same with what the Syrians in their language call "kakuli", which with them is a kind of pulse; but what the Turks at this day call "kakuli" is a kind of salt herb, like to "alcali", which is the food of camels ^x the Septuagint render the word by "alima"; and, by several modern learned men, what is intended is thought to be the "halimus" of Dioscorides, Galen, and Avicenna; which is like unto a bramble, and grows in hedges and maritime places; the tops of which, when young and tender, are eaten, and the leaves boiled for food, and are eaten by poor people, being what soon filled the belly, and satisfied; and seem to be the same the Moors call "mallochia", and cry about the streets, as food for the poor to buy ^y: however it appears upon the whole to be the tops or leaves of some sort of shrub, which Idumean people used to gather and live upon. The following story is reported in the Talmud ^z concerning King Jannai, who

"went to Cochalith in the wilderness, and there subdued sixty fortified towns; and, upon his return, he greatly rejoiced, and called all the wise men of Israel, and said unto them, our fathers ate "malluchim" (the word used in this text of Job) at the time they were employed in building the sanctuary; so we will eat "malluchim" on remembrance of our fathers; and they set "malluchim" on tables of gold, and they ate;''

which the gloss interprets herbs; the name of which, in the Syriac language, is "kakuli"; the Targum is, who plucks up thorns instead of eatable herbs. Some ^a render the word "nettles", see Job 30:7;

juniper roots for their meat, or "bread" ^b; with the roots of which the poor were fed in time of want, as Schindler ^v observes: that bread may be, and has been made out of roots, is certain, as with the West Indians, out of the roots of "ages" and "jucca" ^c; and in particular juniper roots in the northern countries have been used for bread ^d; and there were a people in Ethiopia above Egypt, who lived upon roots of reeds prepared, and were called "rhisophagi" ^e, "root eaters": some render the words, "or juniper roots to heat", or "warm with" ^f, as the word is used in Isa 47:14; and coals of juniper have in them a very great and vehement heat, see Psa 120:3; but if any part of the juniper tree was taken for this purpose, to warm with when cold, one should think the branches, or the body of the tree, should be cut down, rather than the roots dug up: another sense is given by some ^g, that meat or bread is to be understood of the livelihood these persons got by digging up juniper roots, and selling them: there are others that think, that not the roots of juniper, but of "broom" ^h, are meant, whose rape, or navew, or excrescence from the roots of it, seem to be more fit food. All this agrees with the Troglodytes, whom Pliny ⁱ represents as thieves and robbers, and, when pressed with famine, dig up herbs and roots: cutters of roots are reckoned among the worst of men by Manetho ^k.

Gill: Job 30:5

They were driven from among men,.... From towns and cities, and all civil society, as unfit to be among them; not for any good, it may be observed, but for crimes that they had done, like our felons, and transported persons:

they cried after them as after a thief; as they were driven and run along, the people called after them, saying, there goes a thief; which they said by way of abhorrence of them, and for the shame of them, and that all might be warned and cautioned against them; and, generally speaking, such as are idle and slothful, and thereby become miserable, are pilferers and thieves.

Gill: Job 30:6

To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys,.... Or "brooks" ^l, in such hollow places as were made by floods and streams of waters:

in caves of the earth, and in the rocks; where they betook themselves for fear of men, and through shame, being naked and miserable not fit to be seen: Job has respect to the Horites and Troglodytes, his neighbours, who dwelt in such places chiefly.

Gill: Job 30:7

Among the bushes they brayed,.... Like wild asses; so Sephorno, to which wicked men are fitly compared, Job 11:12; or they "cried", or "groaned" ^m, and "moaned" among the bushes, where they lay lurking; either they groaned through cold, or want of food; for the wild ass brays not but when in want, Job 6:5;

under the nettles they were gathered together; or "under thistles" ⁿ, as some, or "under thorns", as ^o others; under thorn hedges, where they lay either for shelter, or to hide themselves, or to seize upon a prey that might pass by; and so were such sort of persons as in the parable in Luk 14:23; it not being usual for nettles to grow so high as to cover persons, at least they are not a proper shelter, and much less an eligible one; though some render the words, they were "pricked" ^p, blistered and wounded, a word derived from this being used for the scab of leprosy, Lev 13:6; and so pustules and blisters are raised by the sting of nettles: the Targum is,

"under thorns they were associated together;''

under thorn hedges, as before observed; and if the juniper tree is meant in Job 30:4, they might be said to be gathered under thorns when under that; since, as Pliny ^q says, it has thorns instead of leaves; and the shadow of it, according to the poet ^r, is very noxious and disagreeable.

Gill: Job 30:8

They were children of fools,.... Their parents were fools, or they themselves were such; foolish children, or foolish men, were they that derided Job; and their derision of him was a proof of it: the meaning is not that they were idiots, or quite destitute of reason and natural knowledge, but that they were men of slender capacities; they were "Nabal like", which is the word here used of them; and, indeed, it may easily be concluded, they could not have much knowledge of men and things, from their pedigree, education, and manner of living before described; though rather this may signify their being wicked men, or children of such, which is the sense of the word "fool" frequently in the Psalms of David, and in the Proverbs of Solomon; and men may be fools in this sense, as having no understanding of divine and spiritual things, who yet have wit enough to do evil, though to do good they have no knowledge:

yea, children of base men, or "men without a name" ^s; a kind without fame, Mr. Broughton renders it; an infamous generation of men, famous for nothing; had no name for blood, birth, and breeding; for families, for power and authority among men, having no title of honour or of office; nor for wealth, wisdom, nor strength, for which some have a name; but these men had no name but an ill one, for their folly and wickedness; had no good name, were of no credit and reputation with men; and perhaps, strictly and literally speaking, were without a name, being a spurious and bastardly breed; or living solitary in woods and deserts, in cliffs and caves; they belonged not to any tribe or nation, and so bore no name:

they are viler than the earth; on which they trod, and who are unworthy to tread upon it; and out of which their vile bodies were made, and yet were viler than that which is the basest of the elements, being most distant from heaven, the throne of God ^t; they were not so valuable as some parts of the earth, the gold and silver, but were as vile as the dross of the earth, and viler than that; they were crushed and bruised, and "broken" more than the earth, as the word ^u signifies; they were as small and as contemptible as the dust of the earth and the mire of the streets, and more so; or than the men of the earth, as Aben Ezra observes, than the meanest and worst, and vilest of men: Mr. Broughton renders it, "banished from the earth"; smitten, stricken, and driven out of the land where they had dwelt, Job 30:5; whipped out of it, as some translate the word ^w, as vagabonds; as a lazy, idle, pilfering set of people, not fit to be in human society; and by such base, mean, lowly people, were Christ and his apostles ill treated; see Mat 23:33.

Gill: Job 30:9

And now am I their song,.... The subject of their song, of whom they sung ballads about the streets, in public places, and at their festivals and merriments, as Christ the antitype of Job was the song of the drunkard, Psa 69:12; see Lam 3:14; or the meaning may be, they rejoiced in his afflictions and calamities, and made themselves merry with them, which was cruel and inhuman, as David's enemies did in his, and those abject, mean, base people, like those that derided Job: and so the Edomites rejoiced over the children of Judah, in the day of their destruction, and as the inhabitants of Popish countries will rejoice over the witnesses when slain, and make merry, Psa 35:15;

yea, I am their byword: all their talk was about him continually, and at every turn would use his name proverbially for an hypocrite, or a wicked man; and thus Christ, of whom Job was a type, became a proverb in the mouth of the Jews, Psa 69:11; and as the Jews themselves now are with others, Jer 24:9.

Gill: Job 30:10

They abhor me,.... As it is no wonder they should, since his inward and most intimate friends did, Job 19:19; they abhorred him, not for any evil in him; Job was ready enough to abhor that himself, and himself for it, as he did when sensible of it, Job 42:6; but for the good that was in him, spoken or done by him; which carried in it a reproof to them they could not bear; see Amo 5:10; they abhorred him also because of his present meanness and poverty, and because of his afflictions and distresses; and particularly the diseases of his body; so Christ was abhorred by the Scribes, Pharisees and elders of the people, the three shepherds his soul loathed, and their soul abhorred him for his meanness and for his ministry: and even by the whole nation of the Jews, by the body of the people, particularly when they preferred Barabbas, a thief and a murderer, to him, Mar 15:7; see Zec 11:8;

they flee from me; as from some hideous monster, or infectious person, as if he had the plague on him, or some nauseous disease, the stench of which they could not bear; so Christ his antitype was used by: his people; when they saw him in his afflictions they hid their faces from him, did not care to look at him, or come nigh him, Isa 53:3;

and spare not to spit in my face; not in his presence only, as some think, which is too low a sense, but literally and properly in his face, when they vouchsafed to come near him; in this opprobrious way they used him, than which nothing was a greater indignity and affront; and we need not scruple to interpret it in this sense of Job, since our Lord, whose type he was in this and other things, was so treated, Isa 50:6.

Gill: Job 30:11

Because he hath loosed my cord,.... Not his silver cord, for then he must have died immediately, Ecc 12:6; though it may be understood of the loosening of his nerves through the force of his disease, and the afflictions he endured from God and man, see Job 30:17; or rather of the shattered state and condition of his family and substance; which, while he enjoyed, he had respect and reverence from men; but now all being loosed, scattered, and destroyed, he was treated with derision and scorn; or, better still, of his power and authority as a civil magistrate, by which, as with a cord, he bound many to subjection and obedience to him, and which commanded reverence of him; but this being now loosed and removed from him, persons of the baser sort behaved in an insolent manner towards him; there is a "Keri", or a marginal reading of this clause, which we follow; but the "Cetib", or written text, is "his cord"; and so Mr. Broughton renders it, "he hath loosed his string"; which he explains of the string or rein of his government, that holdeth base men from striving with the mighty, and which comes to the same sense; for the power and authority Job had as a governor were of God, and which he had now loosened; the allusion may be to the string of a bow, which being loosed, it cannot cast out the arrow; and respect may be had to what Job had said, Job 29:20, "my bow was renewed in my hand"; it then abode in strength, and its strength was renewed; but now he had lost his power and strength, at least it was greatly weakened, that he could not defend himself, nor punish the wicked:

and afflicted me; that is, God, who is also understood in the preceding clause, though not expressed. Job's afflictions were many, and there were second causes of them, who were the movers, instruments, and means of them, as Satan, the Sabeans and Chaldeans, yet they were of God, as the appointer, orderer, and sender of them; and so Job understood them, and always as here ascribed them to him; wherefore there was a just cause for them, and an end to be answered by them, and it became Job patiently to bear them, and to wait the issue of them: now, on this account, the above persons were emboldened and encouraged to use Job in the ill manner they did:

they have also let loose the bridle before me; the restraints that were upon them when Job was in his prosperity, and had the reins of government in his hand; these they now cast off, and showed no manner of reverence of him, nor respect for him; and the bridle that was upon their mouths, which kept them from speaking evil of him while he was in power, now they slipped it from them, and gave themselves an unbounded liberty in deriding, reproaching, and reviling him; see Psa 39:1; and this they did before him, in his presence and to his face, who before were mute and silent.

Gill: Job 30:12

Upon my right hand rise the youth,.... "Springeth", as Mr. Broughton translates the word; such as were just sprung into being, as it were; the word ⁿ seems to have the signification of young birds that are not fledged; have not got their feathers on them, but are just got out of the shell, as it were; and such were these young men: some render the word the "flower" ^o; as if the flower of men, the chief and principal of them, were meant, such as were Job's three friends, who are here distinguished from the mean and baser sort before spoken of; but the word even in this sense signifies young men, who are like buds and flowers just sprung out, or who are beardless boys, or whose beards are just springing out; so the young priests are in the Misnah ^p called "the flowers of the priesthood": now such as these rose up, not in reverence to Job, as the aged before did, but in an hostile way, to oppose, resist, reproach, and deride him; they rose up on his right hand, took the right hand of him, as if they were his superiors and betters; or they stood at his right hand, took the right hand to accuse him, as Satan did at Joshua's; see Psa 109:6;

they push away my feet; they brought heavy charges and violent accusations against him, in order to cast him down, and trample upon him; nor would they suffer him to stand and answer for himself; he could have no justice done him, and so there was no standing for him. If this was to be understood literally, of their pushing at him to throw him down to the ground, or of an attempt trip up his heels, so that his feet were almost gone, and his steps had well nigh slipped, it was very rude and indecent treatment of him indeed:

and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction; as, in besieging a town, mounts, forts, and batteries are raised to destroy it, so those persons made use of all ways and means to destroy Job; or they trod upon him, and made him as a path or causeway to walk upon, in order utterly to destroy him. Mr. Broughton renders the words, "they cast upon me the causes of their woe", imputed all their calamities and miseries to him, reproached him on that account, and now were resolved to revenge themselves on him.

Gill: Job 30:13

They mar my path,.... Hindered him in the exercise of religious duties; would not suffer him to attend the ways and worship of God, or to walk in the paths of holiness and righteousness; or they reproached his holy walk and conversation, and treated it with contempt, and triumphed over religion and godliness:

they set forward my calamity; added affliction to affliction, increased his troubles by their reproaches and calumnies, and were pleased with it, as if it was profitable as well as pleasurable to them, see Zec 1:15;

they have no helper; either no person of note to join them, and, to abet, assist, and encourage them; or they needed none, being forward enough of themselves to give him all the distress and disturbance they could, and he being so weak and unable to resist them; nor there is "no helper against them" ^q; none to take Job's part against them, and deliver him out of their hands, see Ecc 4:1.

Gill: Job 30:14

They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters,.... As when a wide breach is made in the banks of a river, or of the sea, the waters rush through in great abundance, with great rapidity and swiftness; and with a force irresistible; and in like manner did Job's enemies rush in upon him in great numbers, overwhelming him in an instant, and he not able to oppose them; or as, when a wide breach is made in the wall of a city besieged, the besiegers pour themselves in, and bear down all before them: and thus Job in a like violent manner was run upon, and bore down by the persons before described:

in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me; as when a breach is made in a bank of a river, or of the sea, the waters roll themselves, one wave and flood over another; or, as when a breach is made in a wall, "in the broken place they tumble"; as Mr. Broughton renders it; the soldiers tumble one over another in haste, to get possession and seize the plunder: in such like manner did Job's enemies roll themselves on him, in order to crush and destroy him; and it may be rendered, "because of the desolation" ^r, because of bringing calamity on him in order to make him desolate; they came pouring in upon him with all their numbers, force, and strength, to bear him down, and crush him to the earth, as grass may be rolled upon, and beaten down by heavy bodies.

Gill: Job 30:15

Terrors are turned upon me,.... Not the terrors of a guilty conscience, for Job had a clear one, and held fast his integrity; nor the terrors of a cursing and condemning law, for he knew he was justified by his living Redeemer, and his sins forgiven for his sake; nor the terrors of death, for that he had made familiar to him, and greatly desired it; nor the terrors of a future judgment, for there was nothing he was more solicitous for than to appear before the judgment seat of God, and take his trial there; but the afflictions that were upon him from the hand of God that was turned on him, who now hid his face from him, and withheld the influences of his grace and layout, and appeared as an enemy, and as a cruel one to him; the reason of all which he knew not, and this threw him into consternation of mind, and filled him with terror. Some ^s read the words

"my glory is turned into terrors;''

instead of being in the honour and glory, prosperity and happiness, he had been in, he was now possessed of terrors and distresses of various kinds: others render the words, "he is turned against me, as terrors", or "into terrors", or "with them" ^t; God cannot be turned or changed in his nature, in his will, counsel, purposes, and decrees, nor in his love and affection to his people; but he may turn in the outward dispensations of his providence according to his unchangeable will, as from evil to good, Jon 3:9; so from doing good to evil, Isa 63:10; this is complained of by the church, Lam 3:3; and deprecated by Jeremiah, Jer 17:17; or there is "a turn, terrors are upon me"; there was a very visible turn in Job's affairs in many respects, in his health, substance, and family, and particularly in this; while he was in his office as a civil magistrate, and in all the glory of it, he was a terror to evil doers; and young men, when he appeared, hid themselves for fear of him; but now those impudently rise up against him, and are terrors to him: or there is an "overthrow" ^u, an overturning of things, as of his civil and temporal affairs, so of his spiritual ones; instead of that peace, serenity, and tranquillity of mind he had enjoyed; now nothing but terror and distress of mind on account of his afflictions and troubles:

they pursue my soul as the wind; terrors one after another; they pursued him closely, with great swiftness, and with a force irresistible, like the wind; they pursued his soul, his life, and threatened the taking away of it: the word for soul is not the usual word for it; it signifies "my principal one", as in the margin, as the soul is the principal part of man, the immortal breath of God, the inhabitant in the tenement of the body, the jewel in the cabinet, immaterial and immortal, and of more worth than the whole world; or "my princely one", being of a princely original, is from God, the Father of spirits, of a noble extract: Mr. Broughton renders it my "nobility", having princely rule and government in the body; that using the members of the body as its instruments; and especially it may be said to have such rule, when grace is implanted in it, as a ruling governing principle; and the Targum is, my principality or government: it may be rendered, "my free" ^w, liberal, ingenuous, and munificent one: Job had such a generous and beneficent soul; but now all means of exercising generosity and liberality were cut off from him; and particularly he had find a free ingenuous one, as he was actuated by the free spirit of God, Psa 51:12, where this word is used; but now terrors pursuing him, a spirit of bondage unto fear was brought upon him: some ^x consider it as an apostrophe to God, "thou pursues, my soul, O God", &c. but rather the meaning is, a distress or affliction pursued it, or everyone of the above terrors:

and my welfare passeth away as a cloud; or "my salvation" ^y; not spiritual and eternal salvation, that was firm and stable, being fixed by the unalterable decree of God, secured in the covenant of grace, and engaged for to be wrought out by his living. Redeemer, and of which he had an application by the Spirit of God, and was possessed of the blessings of it; and though the joys and comforts of it, and views of interest in it, may go off for a while, yet Job seems to have had a strong faith of interest in it, and a lively and well grounded hope of its being his, Job 13:15; but his temporal salvation, health, and happiness, were gone suddenly, swiftly, utterly, entirely, totally, as a cloud dissolved into rain, or dissipated by the rays of the sun, or driven away with the wind, so as to be seen no more; nor had he any hope of its being restored to him: some understand this, as Sephorno, of the salvation with which he had saved others; but it was no more in the power of his hands, and the remembrance of it was gone from those who shared in it; see Hos 6:4.

Gill: Job 30:16

And now my soul is poured out upon me,.... Either in prayer to God for help and deliverance; or rather he was dissolved as it were in floods of tears, because of his distress and anguish; or his spirits were sunk, his strength and courage failed, and his heart melted, and was poured out like water; yea, his soul was pouring out unto death, and he was, as he apprehended, near unto it; his body was so weakened and broken by diseases, that it was like a vessel full of holes, out of which the liquor runs away apace; so his life and soul were going away from him, his vital spirits were almost exhausted:

the days of affliction have taken hold upon me; afflictions seize on good men as well as others, and on them more than others; and there are certain times and seasons for them, appointed and ordered by the Lord; and there is a limited time, they are not to continue always, only for some days, for a time, and but a little time, and then they will have an end; but till that time comes, there can be no deliverance from them; being sent they come, coming they seized on Job, they laid hold on him, they "caught" him, as Mr. Broughton renders it, and held him fast, and would not let him go; nor could he get clear of them till God delivered him, who only can and does deliver out of them in his own time and way.

Gill: Job 30:17

My bones are pierced in me in the night season,.... Such was the force of his disease, that it pierced and penetrated even into his bones, and the marrow of them; and such the pain that he endured in the muscles and tendons about them, and especially in the joints of them, that it was as if all his bones were piercing and breaking to pieces; he was in a like condition the sick man is described in Job 33:19; and as David and Hezekiah were, Psa 6:2; and what aggravated his case was, that this was "in the night season", when he should have got some sleep and rest, but could not for his pain: some render the words by supplying them thus; God, or the disease, or the pain, pierced my bones in the night season; or "the night pierced my bones from me"; so Mr. Broughton; but rather they may be rendered, and the sense be,

"in the night season everyone of my bones pierce "the flesh" that is upon me:''

his flesh was almost wasted and consumed, through the boil and ulcers on him, and he was reduced to a mere skeleton; and when he laid himself down on his bed, these pierced through his skin, and stuck out, and gave him exquisite pain:

and my sinews take no rest; being contracted; or his nerves, as the word in the Arabic language signifies, as is observed by Aben Ezra, Jarchi, Donesh, and others; which were loosened, and the animal spirits were sunk, and he so low and dispirited, that he could get no rest: or the pulsatile veins and arteries, as Ben Gersom and Elias Levita ^a, in which the pulse beats, and which beats with less strength when persons are asleep than when awake; but such was the force of Job's disease, that it beat even in the night, when on his bed, so strongly, that he could take no rest for it; the pulse beats, as physicians say ^b, sixty times in a minute, and double the number in a burning fever, and which might be Job's case. Some take the word in the sense of fleeing or gnawing ^c, as it is used Job 30:3; and interpret it either of his enemies, who pursued after him, and had no rest in their beds, but went out in the night to inquire and hear what they could learn concerning him and his illness, whether it was become greater ^d; or who devoured him by their calumnies and detractions, and could not sleep unless they did mischief to him; see Pro 4:16; or of the worms with which his body was covered, and which were continually gnawing, never rested, nor suffered him to take any rest; the Targum is, they that gnash at me rest not.

Gill: Job 30:18

By the great force of my disease is my garment changed,.... Either the colour of it, through the purulent matter from his ulcers running down upon it, or penetrating through it; or by reason of it he was obliged to shift himself, and to have a change of raiment very frequently; or the supplement, "of my disease", may be left out, and the sense be, with great force, through main strength, and with much difficulty, his garment was changed, was got off from him, sticking so close to him, and another put on:

it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat; his disease encompassed him about on all sides as the collar or edge of his coat encompassed his neck, and cleaved as close, and was as tight unto him as that, and threatened him perhaps with a suffocation or strangling; see Job 7:15; the allusion is to garments used in the eastern countries, which were only open at top and bottom; at the top there was a hole to put the head through when put on, and a binding about it, and a button to it, or some such thing, which kept it tight about the neck; see Exo 28:32.

Gill: Job 30:19

He hath cast me into the mire,.... As Jeremiah was literally; here it is to be understood in a figurative sense; not of the mire of sin, into which God casts none, men fall into it of themselves, but of the mire of affliction and calamity; see Psa 40:2; and which Job here ascribes to God; and whereby he was in as mean, abject, and contemptible a condition, as if he had been thrown into a kennel, and rolled in it; and he speaks of it as an act of God, done with contempt of him, and indignation at him, as he apprehended it. Some Jewish writers ^e interpret it, "he taught me in the mire", or "it taught me"; his disease, his ulcers taught him to sit down in the mire, or in the midst of ashes, Job 2:8; but though this reading might admit of a good sense, as that Job was taught, as every good man is, many useful lessons in and by afflictions; yet it seems to be a sense foreign from the words:

and I am become like dust and ashes; a phrase by which Abraham expresses his vileness, meanness, and unworthiness in the sight of God, Gen 18:27; Job, through the force of his disease, looked like a corpse, or one half dead, and was crumbling and dropping into the dust of death and the grave, and looked livid and ash coloured; and even in a literal sense was covered with dust and ashes, when he sat among them, Job 2:8; though here it chiefly respects the miserable, forlorn, and contemptible condition in which he was.

Gill: Job 30:20

I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me,.... Which added greatly to his affliction, that though he cried to the Lord for help and deliverance, yet he turned a deaf ear to him; and though he heard him, as undoubtedly he did, he did not answer him immediately; at least not in the way in which he desired and expected he would: crying is expressive of prayer, and supposes distress, and denotes vehemence of spirit:

I stand up; in prayer, standing being a prayer gesture, as many observe from Jer 15:1; See Gill on Mat 6:5; or he persisted in it, he continued praying, was incessant in it, and yet could obtain no answer; or this signifies silence, as some ^f interpret it; he cried, and then ceased, waiting for an answer; but whether he prayed, or whether he was silent, it was the same thing:

and thou regardest me not; the word "not" is not in this clause, but is repeated from the preceding, as it is by Ben Gersom and others; but some read it without it, and give the sense either thus, thou considerest me whether it is fit to receive my prayer or not, so Sephorno; or to renew my strokes, to add new afflictions to me, as Jarchi and Bar Tzemach; or thou lookest upon me as one pleased with the sight of me in such a miserable condition, so far from helping me; wherefore it follows.

Gill: Job 30:21

Thou art become cruel to me,.... Or "turned", or "changed" ^g, to be cruel to me. Job suggests that God had been kind and gracious to him, both in a way of providence, and in showing special love and favour to him, in a very distinguishing manner; but now he intimates his affections were changed and altered, and these were alienated from him, and his love was turned into an hatred of him; this is one of the unbecoming expressions which dropped from his lips concerning God; for the love of God to his people is never changed; it remains invariable and unalterable, in all dispensations, in every state and condition into which they come; there may be some of God's dispensations towards them, which may have the appearance of severity in them; and he may make use of instruments to chastise them, which may use them cruelly; but even then his heart yearns towards them, and, being full of compassion, delivers out of their hands, and saves them, Jer 30:14;

with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me; God has a strong hand and arm, and none like him, and sometimes he puts forth the strength of it, and exerts his mighty power in afflicting his people, and his hand presses them sore, and they can scarcely stand up under it; and then it becomes them to humble themselves under the mighty hand of God, and patiently bear it; and sometimes they take him to be their adversary, an enemy unto them, and filled with hatred of them, indignation against them, setting himself with all his might and main to ruin and destroy them; and this is a sad case indeed, to have such apprehensions of God, though unjust ones; for, as if God be for us, who shall be against us? so if he be against us, it signifies little who is for us; for there is no contending with him, Job 9:3.

Gill: Job 30:22

Thou liftest me up to the wind,.... Of affliction and adversity, to be carried up with it, and tossed about by it, as chaff or stubble, or a dry leaf, being no more able to stand up against it than such things are to oppose the wind; though some interpret this of God's lifting him up in his state of prosperity, in which he was very visible and conspicuous to all, and enjoyed much light and comfort; but then he raised him to such an estate, with a view to cast him down, and that his fall and ruin might be the greater; and so this is observed as a proof of his being become cruel to him:

thou causest me to ride upon it; seemingly in great pomp and state, but in great uncertainty and danger, being at best in a slippery place, in very fickle circumstances, as the event showed; or rather the sense is, that he was swiftly carried into destruction, as if he rode on the wings of the wind to it, and was hurried thither at once, as soon as he was taken up with the tempest of adversity:

and dissolvest my substance; his outward substance, his wealth and riches, his family, and the health of his body, all which as it were melted away, or were carried away as with a flood; and so as the metaphor of a tempestuous wind is used in the former clause, here that of an overflowing flood, which removed from him what seemed to be the most solid and substantial: the word is sometimes used for wisdom, and even sound wisdom, Pro 2:7; wherefore some have interpreted it of his being at his wits' end, of losing his reason and understanding, and which were at least disturbed and confounded by his afflictions; but his discourses and speeches show the contrary, and he himself denies that wisdom was driven from him, Job 6:13.

Gill: Job 30:23

For I know that thou wilt bring me to death,.... Quickly and by the present affliction upon him; he was assured, as he thought, that this was the view and design of God in this providence, under which he was to bring him to death and the grave; that he would never take off his hand till he had brought him to the dust of death, to that lifeless dust from whence he had his original; otherwise, that he would he brought thither, sooner or later, was no great masterpiece of knowledge; every man knows this will be the case with him as with all; death is become necessary by sin, which brought it into the world, and the sentence of it on all men in it, and by the decree and appointment of God, by which it is fixed and settled that all should die; and this is confirmed by all experience in all ages, a very few excepted, only two persons, Enoch and Elijah, Gen 5:24, sometimes the death of persons is made known to them by divine revelation, as to Aaron and Moses, Num 20:12; and sometimes it may be gathered to be nigh from the symptoms of it on the body; from growing diseases, and the infirmities of old age; but Job concluded it from the manner of God's dealing with him, as he thought in wrath and indignation, determining to make an utter end of him:

and to the house appointed for all living; the grave, which is the house for the body when dead to be brought unto and lodged in; as the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens", 2Co 5:1, is for the soul in its separate state, until the resurrection morn; which house or grave is man's "long home", Ecc 12:5; and this is prepared and appointed for all men living, since all must die; and all that die have a house or grave, though that is sometimes a watery, and not an earthy one; however the dust of everybody has a receptacle provided for it, where it is reserved until the time of the resurrection, and then it is brought forth, Rev 20:13; and this is by divine appointment; the word used signifies both an appointed time and place, and is often used of the Jewish solemnities, which were fixed with respect to both; and also of the people or congregation that attended them; the grave is the general rendezvous of mankind, and both the time when and the place where the dead are gathered and brought unto it are fixed by the determinate will and counsel of God.

Gill: Job 30:24

Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave,.... Or, "verily" ^h, truly he will not, &c. I am well assured he never will, meaning either he never would stretch out his hand to shut up the grave; or rather keep it shut, and prevent Job from going down into it; or to open it, and fetch him out of it when in it: God is indeed able to do either of these, and has done it; sometimes, when persons are brought as it were to the gates of death and the grave, he says to them, Return; yea, when they are brought to the dust of death, he prevents them going into the grave, by restoring them to life before carried thither, as the Shunammite's son, 2Ki 4:32; Jairus's daughter, Mar 5:41; and the widow's son of Nain, even when he was carrying to his grave, Luk 7:12; some have been laid in the grave, and God has stretched out his hand, and raised them up again; as the man that was laid in Elisha's grave, 2Ki 13:21, and Lazarus after he had lain in the grave some days, Joh 11:39; but such things are not usually done; in common, when a man dies, and is laid in the grave, he rises not again, till the heavens be no more; and this Job was persuaded would be his case:

though they cry in his destruction; that is, though the friends and relations of the sick person, or the poor that he has been kind and bountiful unto, should cry unto God, while he is destroying him by the diseases upon him, and which threaten him with destruction, that he would spare his useful and valuable life; yet he is inexorable, and will not hear, but go on with what he intends to do, and takes him off by death, and lays him in the grave, "the pit of destruction", Psa 55:23, so called because it wastes and consumes bodies laid in it; and when once laid there, all cries for a restoration to life again are vain and fruitless. Some take these words as expressed in a way of solace, as if Job comforted himself with this thought under his present afflictions, that, when once he was brought to death and the grave, there would be an end of all his sorrow; the hand of the Lord, that was now stretched out on him in a terrible way, would be no longer stretched out on him; he would then cease to afflict him, and he should be where the weary are at rest; and so the last clause is read with an interrogation, "is there any cry", or "do any cry, in his destruction?" ⁱ; no, when death has done its office, and the body is laid in the grave, there is no more pain nor sorrow, nor crying; all tears are wiped away, and there is no more sense of afflictions and sufferings; they are all at an end. Mr. Broughton renders these words as to the sense the same, and as in connection with the following ones, "and prayed I not when plague was sent? when hurt came to any, thereupon cried I not?" and so do some others ^k.

Gill: Job 30:25

Did not I weep for him that was in trouble?.... In outward trouble, whether personal in his own body, or in his family, or in his worldly affairs, or from wicked men, the men of the world; or in inward trouble, in soul trouble, on account of indwelling sin, the breakings forth of it, the lowness of grace, as to exercise, the hidings of God's face, and the temptations of Satan: or "for him that is hard of day" ^l; with whom times are hard, the days are evil, with respect either to things temporal or spiritual; now Job had a sympathizing heart with such persons; he wept with them that wept; his bowels yearned towards them; he felt their sufferings and their sorrows, which is a Godlike frame of soul; for God, in all the afflictions of his people, is afflicted; a disposition of mind like that of the living Redeemer, who cannot but be touched with the feeling of the infirmities of saints, having been in all points tempted as they; and is a fruit of the Spirit of God, and very becoming the relation the saints stand in to one another, being members of the same body, and of each other; and therefore, when one member suffers, all the rest should sympathize with it, and, being brethren, should be loving, pitiful, and courteous to each other; and should consider that they also are in the body, and liable to the same distresses, whether outward or inward:

was not my soul grieved for the poor? in general, and especially for the Lord's poor, for such in all ages have been chosen and called by him; for these Job was grieved at heart, when he saw their distress through poverty; and he not only expressed his concern for them by tears and words, but by distributing liberally to their necessities, Job 31:17; and by which he showed his grief was real, hearty, and sincere, as here expressed; his soul was grieved, and he was sorry at his very heart for them: some render the words, "was not my soul like a pool of water?" ^m not only his head and his eyes, as Jeremiah's on another account, but his soul melted, and flowed like water with grief for them; and others, as Mr. Broughton, "did not my soul burn for the poor?" with sorrow for them, and an ardent desire to relieve them; see 2Co 9:12; now this was the frame of Job's mind in the time of his prosperity, very different from that in Amo 6:4; and was certain and well known; he could appeal to all that knew him for the truth of it, it being what, none could deny that had any knowledge of him; yea, he could appeal to an omniscient God, he was now speaking to, for the truth of it; nay, it is delivered in the form of an oath, "if I did not weep", &c. ⁿ, as in Job 31:16.

Gill: Job 30:26

When I looked for good,.... As he thought he might reasonably expect it, since he had shown such a sympathizing spirit to persons in trouble, and such pity and mercy to the poor: in the time of his prosperity, he looked for a continuance of the good things he enjoyed, and expected to have had them for many years to come, and to have died in the possession of them, Job 29:18; and even in his adversity, though he had received evil things at the hand of God, which he took patiently; yet at first he did not think they would always continue, but that there would be a turn of affairs, and he should again receive good at his hands; and he had been looking for it, as good men have reason to expect it; since God is good and does good, and especially to his own people, and has laid up goodness for them that fear him, and such an one Job was; and has promised good things unto them, both temporal and spiritual; for godliness and godly men have the promise of this life, and of that which is to come: but Job was disappointed in his expectation; for, says he,

then evil came unto me, the evil of affliction, one upon the back of another, even when in the height of his prosperity; and since repeated evil, new afflictions, came upon him by the appointment, order, and direction of God:

and when I waited for light; for the light of outward prosperity, such as he had formerly enjoyed; and for the light of God's countenance, which he most earnestly sought after, and longed for, and was in a waiting posture for it, as good men have reason to be; since light is sown for them in the purposes and decrees of God, in his counsel and covenant, in his Gospel, and the promises of it; and therefore should wait for the springing of it up, as the husbandman does for the springing up of the corn sown in the earth, and lying under the clods; and seeing that to the upright there arises light in darkness; and though God hides his face from them, for a moment, he will have mercy on them, and therefore should wait his time to be gracious to them; but Job had waited long, and, as he thought, to no purpose: for

there came darkness; the darkness of adversity, still thicker and darker, and no appearance of spiritual light and favour, or any discoveries of the love of God to him, or enjoyment of his presence; see Jer 8:15.

Gill: Job 30:27

My bowels boiled, and rested not,.... All contained within him, his heart, lungs, and liver, in a literal sense, through a violent fever burning within him; or figuratively, being under great distress and trouble, by reason of his afflictions, outward and inward, see Jer 4:19;

the days of affliction prevented me; came sooner upon him than he thought; he did not expect the evil days to come, and the years draw nigh in which he should have no pleasure, until he was more advanced in years, and the time of his dissolution was at hand; they came at once, and unawares, upon him, when he looked not for them: some render the word "met me" ^o, unexpectedly; or rather, they "rushed upon me" ^p, in an hostile way; came in troops, and invaded and surrounded him, see Job 19:12.

Gill: Job 30:28

I went mourning without the sun,.... So overwhelmed with grief, that he refused to have any comfort from, or any advantage by the sun; hence Mr. Broughton renders it, "out of the sun"; he did not choose to walk in the sunshine, but out of it, to indulge his grief and sorrow the more; or he went in black attire, and wrapped and covered himself with it, that he might not see the sun, or receive any relief by it: or "I go black, but not by the sun" ^q; his face and his skin were black, but not through the sun looking upon him and discolouring him, as in Son 1:6; but through the force of his disease, which had changed his complexion, and made him as black as a Kedarene, or those that dwell in the tents of Kedar, Son 1:5; and he also walked without the sun of righteousness arising on him, with healing in his wings, which was worst of all:

I stood up, and I cried in the congregation: either in the congregation of the saints met together for religious worship, where he cried unto God for help and deliverance, and for the light of his countenance, Job 30:20; or such was the extreme anguish of his soul, that when a multitude of people got about him to see him in his distressed condition, he could not contain himself, but burst out before them in crying and tears, though he knew it was unbecoming a man of his age and character; or he could not content himself to stay within doors and soothe his grief, but must go abroad and in public, and there expressed with strong cries and tears his miserable condition.

Gill: Job 30:29

I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls. Or ostriches, as the Targum, Septuagint, Vulgate Latin, Syriac, and Arabic versions; either he was obliged to dwell with such persons as were comparable to these creatures for their devouring words, hissing noise, and venomous speeches, or for want of compassion, and for their cruelty, as David is said to be among lions, Psa 57:4; or also, he was like unto them, being solitary and alone, all his friends and acquaintance standing at a distance from him, as these creatures love lonesome and desolate places; or because of the wailing and howling noise they make, to which his mournful notes bore some resemblance; see Gill on Mic 1:8; or because, when these creatures cry and howl, and make a noise, no mercy is shown to them, none pities or regards them; and so it was with him; though he stood and cried in ever so public a manner, none had any compassion on him.

Gill: Job 30:30

My skin is black upon me,.... Either through deep melancholy, as may be observed in persons of such a disposition, through grief and trouble; or rather through the force of his disease, the burning ulcers and black scabs with which he was covered, as the Jews were through famine, in their captivity, Lam 4:8;

and my bones are burnt with heat; with the heat of a burning fever; which not only made his inwards boil, but reached to his bones, and dried up the marrow of them. Galen says ^r that bones may become so dry as to be crumbled into sand: the Syriac version is

"my bones are burnt as his who is in a hot wind;''

such as were common in the eastern countries, which killed men at once, and they became as black as a coal ^s.

Gill: Job 30:31

My harp also is turned to mourning,.... Which he used, as David, either in religious worship, expressing praise to God thereby, or for his recreation in an innocent way; but now it was laid aside, and, instead of it, nothing was heard from him, or in his house, but the voice of mourning:

and my organ into the voice of them that weep; another instrument of music, which had its name from the pleasantness of its sound, and was of early use, being first invented by Jubal, Gen 4:21; but not that we now so call, which is of late invention: those instruments which Job might have and use, both in a civil and in a religious way, were now, through afflictions, become useless to him, and neglected by him; or these expressions in general may signify, that, instead of mirth and joy he was wont to have, there were nothing now to be heard but lamentation and woe; see Lam 5:15.

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 30:1

¹ tn Heb “smaller than I for days.”

² tn Heb “who I disdained their fathers to set…,” meaning “whose fathers I disdained to set.” The relative clause modifies the young fellows who mock; it explains that Job did not think highly enough of them to put them with the dogs. The next verse will explain why.

³ sn Job is mocked by young fellows who come from low extraction. They mocked their elders and their betters. The scorn is strong here – dogs were despised as scavengers.

NET Notes: Job 30:2

¹ tn The reference is to the fathers of the scorners, who are here regarded as weak and worthless.

² tn The word כֶּלַח (kelakh) only occurs in Job 5:26; but the Arabic cognate gives this meaning “strength.” Others suggest כָּלַח (kalakh, “old age”), ֹכּל־חַיִל (kol-khayil, “all vigor”), כֹּל־לֵחַ (kol-leakh, “all freshness”), and the like. But there is no reason for such emendation.

NET Notes: Job 30:3

¹ tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.

² tn The form is the plural participle with the definite article – “who gnaw.” The article, joined to the participle, joins on a new statement concerning a preceding noun (see GKC 404 §126.b).

³ tn The MT has “yesterday desolate and waste.” The word “yesterday” (אֶמֶשׁ, ’emesh) is strange here. Among the proposals for אֶמֶשׁ (’emesh), Duhm suggested יְמַשְּׁשׁוּ (yÿmashÿshu, “they grope”), which would require darkness; Pope renders “by night,” instead of “yesterday,” which evades the difficulty; and Fohrer suggested with more reason אֶרֶץ (’erets), “a desolate and waste land.” R. Gordis (Job, 331) suggests יָמִישׁוּ / יָמֻשׁוּ (yamishu/yamushu), “they wander off.”

NET Notes: Job 30:4

¹ tn Or “the leaves of bushes” (ESV), a possibility dating back to Saadia and discussed by G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:209) in their philological notes.

² tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

³ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

NET Notes: Job 30:5

¹ tn The word גֵּו (gev) is an Aramaic term meaning “midst,” indicating “midst [of society].” But there is also a Phoenician word that means “community” (DISO 48).

² tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.

³ tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.

NET Notes: Job 30:6

¹ tn This use of the infinitive construct expresses that they were compelled to do something (see GKC 348-49 §114.h, k).

² tn The adjectives followed by a partitive genitive take on the emphasis of a superlative: “in the most horrible of valleys” (see GKC 431 §133.h).

NET Notes: Job 30:7

¹ tn The verb נָהַק (nahaq) means “to bray.” It has cognates in Arabic, Aramaic, and Ugaritic, so there is no need for emendation here. It is the sign of an animal’s hunger. In the translation the words “like animals” are supplied to clarify the metaphor for the modern reader.

² tn The Pual of the verb סָפַח (safakh, “to join”) also brings out the passivity of these people – “they were huddled together” (E. Dhorme, Job, 434).

NET Notes: Job 30:8

¹ tn The “sons of the senseless” (נָבָל, naval) means they were mentally and morally base and defective; and “sons of no-name” means without honor and respect, worthless (because not named).

² tn Heb “they were whipped from the land” (cf. ESV) or “they were cast out from the land” (HALOT 697 s.v. נכא). J. E. Hartley (Job [NICOT], 397) follows Gordis suggests that the meaning is “brought lower than the ground.”

NET Notes: Job 30:9

¹ tn The idea is that Job has become proverbial, people think of misfortune and sin when they think of him. The statement uses the ordinary word for “word” (מִלָּה, millah), but in this context it means more: “proverb; byword.”

NET Notes: Job 30:10

¹ tn Heb “they are far from me.”

NET Notes: Job 30:11

¹ tn The verb פָּתַח (patakh) means “to untie [or undo]” a rope or bonds. In this verse יִתְרוֹ (yitro, the Kethib, LXX, and Vulgate) would mean “his rope” (see יֶתֶר [yeter] in Judg 16:7-9). The Qere would be יִתְרִי (yitri, “my rope [or cord]”), meaning “me.” The word could mean “rope,” “cord,” or “bowstring.” If the reading “my cord” is accepted, the cord would be something like “my tent cord” (as in Job 29:20), more than K&D 12:147 “cord of life.” This has been followed in the present translation. If it were “my bowstring,” it would give the sense of disablement. If “his cord” is taken, it would signify that the restraint that God had in afflicting Job was loosened – nothing was held back.

² sn People throw off all restraint in my presence means that when people saw how God afflicted Job, robbing him of his influence and power, then they turned on him with unrestrained insolence (H. H. Rowley, Job [NCBC], 193).

NET Notes: Job 30:12

¹ tn This Hebrew word occurs only here. The word פִּרְחַח (pirkhakh, “young rabble”) is a quadriliteral, from פָּרַח (parakh, “to bud”) The derivative אֶפְרֹחַ (’efroakh) in the Bible refers to a young bird. In Arabic farhun means both “young bird” and “base man.” Perhaps “young rabble” is the best meaning here (see R. Gordis, Job, 333).

² tn Heb “they cast off my feet” or “they send my feet away.” Many delete the line as troubling and superfluous. E. Dhorme (Job, 438) forces the lines to say “they draw my feet into a net.”

³ tn Heb “paths of their destruction” or “their destructive paths.”

⁴ sn See Job 19:12.

NET Notes: Job 30:13

¹ tn This verb נָתְסוּ (natÿsu) is found nowhere else. It is probably a variant of the verb in Job 19:10. R. Gordis (Job, 333-34) notes the Arabic noun natsun (“thorns”), suggesting a denominative idea “they have placed thorns in my path.” Most take it to mean they ruin the way of escape.

² tc The MT has “they further my misfortune.” The line is difficult, with slight textual problems. The verb יֹעִילוּ (yo’ilu) means “to profit,” and so “to succeed” or “to set forward.” Good sense can be made from the MT as it stands, and many suggested changes are suspect.

³ tn The sense of “restraining” for “helping” was proposed by Dillmann and supported by G. R. Driver (see AJSL 52 [1935/36]: 163).

NET Notes: Job 30:14

¹ tn The MT has “under the crash,” with the idea that they rush in while the stones are falling around them (which is continuing the figure of the military attack). G. R. Driver took the expression to mean in a temporal sense “at the moment of the crash” (AJSL 52 [1935/36]: 163-64). Guillaume, drawing from Arabic, has “where the gap is made.”

² tn The verb, the Hitpalpel of גָּלַל (galal), means “they roll themselves.” This could mean “they roll themselves under the ruins” (Dhorme), “they roll on like a storm” (Gordis), or “they roll on” as in waves of enemy attackers (see H. H. Rowley). This particular verb form is found only here (but see Amos 5:24).

NET Notes: Job 30:15

¹ tn The passive singular verb (Hophal) is used with a plural subject (see GKC 388 §121.b).

² tc This translation assumes that “terrors” (in the plural) is the subject. Others emend the text in accordance with the LXX, which has, “my hope is gone like the wind.”

NET Notes: Job 30:16

¹ tn This line can either mean that Job is wasting away (i.e., his life is being poured out), or it can mean that he is grieving. The second half of the verse gives the subordinate clause of condition for this.

NET Notes: Job 30:17

¹ tn The subject of the verb “pierces” can be the night (personified), or it could be God (understood), leaving “night” to be an adverbial accusative of time – “at night he pierces.”

² tc The MT concludes this half-verse with “upon me.” That phrase is not in the LXX, and so many commentators delete it as making the line too long.

³ tn Heb “my gnawers,” which is open to several interpretations. The NASB and NIV take it as “gnawing pains”; cf. NRSV “the pain that gnaws me.” Some suggest worms in the sores (7:5). The LXX has “my nerves,” a view accepted by many commentators.

NET Notes: Job 30:18

¹ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

² tc This whole verse is difficult. The first problem is that this verb in the MT means “is disguised [or disfigured],” indicating that Job’s clothes hang loose on him. But many take the view that the verb is a phonetic variant of חָבַשׁ (khavash, “to bind; to seize”) and that the Hitpael form is a conflation of the third and second person because of the interchange between them in the passage (R. Gordis, Job, 335). The commentaries list a number of conjectural emendations, but the image in the verse is probably that God seizes Job by the garment and throws him down.

³ tn The phrase “like the collar” is difficult, primarily because their tunics did not have collars. A translation of “neck” would suit better. Some change the preposition to בּ (bet), getting a translation “by the neck of my tunic.”

NET Notes: Job 30:20

¹ sn The implication from the sentence is that this is a cry to God for help. The sudden change from third person (v. 19) to second person (v. 20) is indicative of the intense emotion of the sufferer.

² sn The verb is simple, but the interpretation difficult. In this verse it probably means he stands up in prayer (Jer 15:1), but it could mean that he makes his case to God. Others suggest a more figurative sense, like the English expression “stand pat,” meaning “remain silent” (see Job 29:8).

³ tn If the idea of prayer is meant, then a pejorative sense to the verb is required. Some supply a negative and translate “you do not pay heed to me.” This is supported by one Hebrew ms and the Vulgate. The Syriac has the whole colon read with God as the subject, “you stand and look at me.”

NET Notes: Job 30:21

¹ tn The idiom uses the Niphal verb “you are turned” with “to cruelty.” See Job 41:20b, as well as Isa 63:10.

² tc The LXX reads this verb as “you scourged/whipped me.” But there is no reason to adopt this change.

NET Notes: Job 30:22

¹ sn Here Job changes the metaphor again, to the driving storm. God has sent his storms, and Job is blown away.

² tn The verb means “to melt.” The imagery would suggest softening the ground with the showers (see Ps 65:10 [11]). The translation “toss…about” comes from the Arabic cognate that is used for the surging of the sea.

³ tc The Qere is תּוּשִׁיָּה (tushiyyah, “counsel”), which makes no sense here. The Kethib is a variant orthography for תְּשֻׁאָה (tÿshu’ah, “storm”).

NET Notes: Job 30:23

¹ tn The imperfect verb would be a progressive imperfect, it is future, but it is also already underway.

NET Notes: Job 30:24

¹ tc Here is another very difficult verse, as is attested by the differences among commentaries and translations. The MT has “surely not against a ruinous heap will he [God] put forth his [God’s] hand.” But A. B. Davidson takes Job as the subject, reading “does not one stretch out his hand in his fall?” The RSV suggests a man walking in the ruins and using his hand for support. Dillmann changed it to “drowning man” to say “does not a drowning man stretch out his hand?” Beer has “have I not given a helping hand to the poor?” Dhorme has, “I did not strike the poor man with my hand.” Kissane follows this but retains the verb form, “one does not strike the poor man with his hand.”

² tc The second colon is also difficult; it reads, “if in his destruction to them he cries.” E. Dhorme (Job, 425-26) explains how he thinks “to them” came about, and he restores “to me.” This is the major difficulty in the line, and Dhorme’s suggestion is the simplest resolution.

NET Notes: Job 30:25

¹ tn Heb “for the hard of day.”

NET Notes: Job 30:27

¹ tn Heb “my loins,” “my bowels” (archaic), “my innermost being.” The latter option is reflected in the translation; some translations take the inner turmoil to be literal (NIV: “The churning inside me never stops”).

² tn Heb “boils.”

³ tn The last clause reads “and they [it] are not quiet” or “do not cease.” The clause then serves adverbially for the sentence – “unceasingly.”

NET Notes: Job 30:28

¹ tn The construction uses the word קֹדֵר (qoder) followed by the Piel perfect of הָלַךְ (halakh, “I go about”). The adjective “blackened” refers to Job’s skin that has been marred by the disease. Adjectives are often used before verbs to describe some bodily condition (see GKC 374-75 §118.n).

NET Notes: Job 30:29

¹ sn The point of this figure is that Job’s cries of lament are like the howls and screeches of these animals, not that he lives with them. In Job 39:13 the female ostrich is called “the wailer.”

NET Notes: Job 30:30

¹ tn The MT has “become dark from upon me,” prompting some editions to supply the verb “falls from me” (RSV, NRSV), or “peels” (NIV).

² tn The word “my bones” may be taken as a metonymy of subject, the bony framework indicating the whole body.

³ tn The word חֹרֶב (khorev) also means “heat.” The heat in this line is not that of the sun, but obviously a fever.

NET Notes: Job 30:31

¹ tn The verb הָיָה (hayah, “to be”) followed by the preposition ל (lamed) means “to serve the purpose of” (see Gen 1:14ff., 17:7, etc.).

Geneva Bible: Job 30:1

But now [they that are] younger than I ^{( a )} have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the ^{( b )} dogs of my flock.

^{( a )} That is, my estate is changed and while before the ancient men were glad to revere me, the young men now contemn me.

^{( b )} Meaning to be my shepherds or to keep my dogs.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:2

Yea, whereto [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age was ^{( c )} perished?

^{( c )} That is, their fathers died of hunger before they came to age.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:5

They were ^{( d )} driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them as [after] a thief;)

^{( d )} Job shows that those who mocked him in his affliction were like their fathers, wicked and lewd fellows, such as he here describes.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:9

And now am I their ^{( e )} song, yea, I am their byword.

^{( e )} They make songs of me, and mock my misery.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:11

Because he hath loosed my ^{( f )} cord, and afflicted me, ^{( g )} they have also let loose the bridle before me.

^{( f )} God has taken from me the force, credit, and authority with which I kept them in subjection.

^{( g )} He said that the young men when they saw him, hid themselves as in (Job 29:8), and now in his misery they were impudent and licentious.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:12

Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ^{( h )} ways of their destruction.

^{( h )} That is, they sought by all means how they might destroy me.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:13

They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no ^{( i )} helper.

^{( i )} They need no one to help them.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:14

They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters]: in the ^{( k )} desolation they rolled themselves [upon me].

^{( k )} By my calamity they took an opportunity against me.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:16

And now my soul is ^{( l )} poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

^{( l )} My life fails me, and I am as half dead.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:17

^{( m )} My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

^{( m )} Meaning sorrow.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:19

^{( n )} He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.

^{( n )} That is, God has brought me into contempt.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:21

Thou art become ^{( o )} cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.

^{( o )} He does not speak this way to accuse God, but to declare the vehemency of his affliction, by which he was carried beside himself.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:22

Thou liftest me up to the ^{( p )} wind; thou causest me to ride [upon it], and dissolvest my substance.

^{( p )} He compares his afflictions to a tempest or whirlwind.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:24

Howbeit he will not stretch out [his] hand ^{( q )} to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.

^{( q )} No one can deliver me from there, though they lament my death.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:26

When I looked for good, then ^{( r )} evil came [unto me]: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.

^{( r )} Instead of comforting they mocked me.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:28

I went mourning ^{( s )} without the sun: I stood up, ^{( t )} [and] I cried in the congregation.

^{( s )} Not delighting in any worldly thing, no not so much as in the use of the sun.

^{( t )} Lamenting them that were in affliction and moving others to pity them.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:29

I am a brother to ^{( u )} dragons, and a companion to owls.

^{( u )} I am like the wild beasts that desire solitary places.

Geneva Bible: Job 30:30

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with ^{( x )} heat.

^{( x )} With the heat of affliction.

Commentary -- Verse Range Notes

TSK Synopsis: Job 30:1-31

1 Job's honour is turned into extreme contempt;

15 and his prosperity into calamity.

MHCC: Job 30:1-14

Job contrasts his present condition with his former honour and authority. What little cause have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! We should not be cast down if we are despised, reviled, and hated by wicked men. We should look to Jesus, who endured the contradiction of sinners.

MHCC: Job 30:15-31

Job complains a great deal. Harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset Job. When inward temptations join with outward calamities, the soul is hurried as in a tempest, and is filled with confusion. But woe be to those who really have God for an enemy! Compared with the awful state of ungodly men, what are all outward, or even inward temporal afflictions? There is something with which Job comforts himself, yet it is but a little. He foresees that death will be the end of all his troubles. God's wrath might bring him to death; but his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits. If none pity us, yet our God, who corrects, pities us, even as a father pitieth his own children. And let us look more to the things of eternity: then the believer will cease from mourning, and joyfully praise redeeming love.

Matthew Henry: Job 30:1-14

Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint of the great disgrace he had fallen into, from the height of honour and reputation, which was exceedingly grievous and cutting to such an ingenuous spirit as Job's was. Two things he insists upon as greatly aggravating his affliction: -

I. The meanness of the persons that affronted him. As it added much to his honour, in the day of his prosperity, that princes and nobles showed him respect and paid a deference to him, so it added no less to his disgrace in his adversity that he was spurned by the footmen, and trampled upon by those that were not only every way his inferiors, but were the meanest and most contemptible of all mankind. None can be represented as more base than those are here represented who insulted Job, upon all accounts. 1. They were young, younger than he (Job 30:1), the youth (Job 30:12), who ought to have behaved themselves respectfully towards him for his age and gravity. Even the children, in their play, played upon him, as the children of Bethel upon the prophet, Go up, thou bald-head. Children soon learn to be scornful when they see their parents so. 2. They were of a mean extraction. Their fathers were so very despicable that such a man as Job would have disdained to take them into the lowest service about his house, as that of tending the sheep and attending the shepherds with the dogs of his flock, Job 30:1. They were so shabby that they were not fit to be seen among his servants, so silly that they were not fit to be employed, and so false that they were not fit to be trusted in the meanest post. Job here speaks of what he might have done, not of what he did: he was not of such a spirit as to set any of the children of men with the dogs of his flock; he knew the dignity of human nature better than to do so. 3. They and their families were the unprofitable burdens of the earth, and good for nothing. Job himself, with all his prudence and patience, could make nothing of them, Job 30:2. The young were not fit for labour, they were so lazy, and went about their work so awkwardly: Whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? The old were not to be advised with in the smallest matters, for in them was old age indeed, but their old age was perished, they were twice children. 4. They were extremely poor, Job 30:3. They were ready to starve, for they would not dig, and to beg they were ashamed. Had they been brought to necessity by the providence of God, their neighbours would have sought them out as proper objects of charity and would have relieved them; but, being brought into straits by their own slothfulness and wastefulness, nobody was forward to relieve them. Hence they were forced to flee into the deserts both for shelter and sustenance, and were put to sorry shifts indeed, when they cut up mallows by the bushes, and were glad to eat them, for want of food that was fit for them, Job 30:4. See what hunger will bring men to: one half of the world does not know how the other half lives; yet those that have abundance ought to think sometimes of those whose fare is very coarse and who are brought to a short allowance of that too. But we must own the righteousness of God, and not think it strange, if slothfulness clothe men with rags and the idle soul be made to suffer hunger. This beggarly world is full of the devil's poor. 5. They were very scandalous wicked people, not only the burdens, but the plagues, of the places where they lived, arrant scoundrels, the scum of the country: They were driven forth from among men, Job 30:5. They were such lying, thieving, lurking, mischievous people, that the best service the magistrates could do was to rid the country of them, while the very mob cried after them as after a thief. Away with such fellows from the earth; it is not fit they should live. They were lazy and would not work, and therefore they were exclaimed against as thieves, and justly; for those that do not earn their own bread by honest labour do, in effect, steal the bread out of other people's mouths. An idle fellow is a public nuisance; but it is better to drive such into a workhouse than, as here, into a wilderness, which will punish them indeed, but never reform them. They were forced to dwell in caves of the earth, and they brayed like asses among the bushes, Job 30:6, Job 30:7. See what is the lot of those that have the cry of the country, the cry of their own conscience, against them; they cannot but be in a continual terror and confusion. They groan among the trees (so Broughton) and smart among the nettles; they are stung and scratched there, where they hoped to be sheltered and protected. See what miseries wicked people bring themselves to in this world; yet this is nothing to what is in reserve for them in the other world. 8. They had nothing at all in them to recommend them to any man's esteem. They were a vile kind; yea, a kind without fame, people that nobody could give a good word to nor had a good wish for; they were banished from the earth as being viler than the earth. One would not think it possible that ever the human nature should sink so low, and degenerate so far, as it did in these people. When we thank God that we are men we have reason to thank him that we are not such men. But such as these were abusive to Job, (1.) In revenge, because when he was in prosperity and power, like a good magistrate, he put in execution the laws which were in force against vagabonds, and rogues, and sturdy beggars, which these base people now remembered against him. (2.) In triumph over him, because they thought he had now become like one of them. Isa 14:10, Isa 14:11. The abjects, men of mean spirits, insult over the miserable, Psa 35:15.

II. The greatness of the affronts that were given him. It cannot be imagined how abusive they were.

1. They made ballads on him, with which they made themselves and their companions merry (Job 30:9): I am their song and their byword. Those have a very base spirit that turn the calamities of their honest neighbours into a jest, and can sport themselves with their griefs.

2. They shunned him as a loathsome spectacle, abhorred him, fled far from him, (Job 30:10), as an ugly monster or as one infected. Those that were themselves driven out from among men would have had him driven out. For,

3. They expressed the greatest scorn and indignation against him. They spat in his face, or were ready to do so; they tripped up his heels, pushed away his feet (Job 30:12), kicked him, either in wrath, because they hated him, or in sport, to make themselves merry with him, as they did with their companions at foot-ball. The best of saints have sometimes received the worst of injuries and indignities from a spiteful, scornful, wicked world, and must not think it strange; our Master himself was thus abused.

4. They were very malicious against him, and not only made a jest of him, but made a prey of him - not only affronted him, but set themselves to do him all the real mischief they could devise: They raise up against me the ways of their destruction; or (as some read it), They cast upon me the cause of their woe; that is, "They lay the blame of their being driven out upon me;"and it is common for criminals to hate the judges and laws by which they are punished. But under this pretence, (1.) They accused him falsely, and misrepresented his former conversation, which is here called marring his path. They reflected upon him as a tyrant and an oppressor because he had done justice upon them; and perhaps Job's friends grounded their uncharitable censures of him (Job 22:6, etc.) upon the unjust and unreasonable clamours of these sorry people; and it was an instance of their great weakness and inconsideration, for who can be innocent if the accusations of such persons may be heeded? (2.) They not only triumphed in his calamity, but set it forward, and did all they could to add to his miseries and make them more grievous to him. It is a great sin to forward the calamity of any, especially of good people. In this they have no helper, nobody to set them on or to countenance them in it, nobody to bear them out or to protect them, but they do it of their own accord; they are fools in other things, but wise enough to do mischief, and need no help in inventing that. Some read it thus, They hold my heaviness a profit, though they be never the better. Wicked people, though they get nothing by the calamities of others, yet rejoice in them.

5. Those that did him all this mischief were numerous, unanimous, and violent (Job 30:14): They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, when the dam is broken; or, "They came as soldiers into a broad breach which they have made in the wall of a besieged city, pouring in upon me with the utmost fury;"and in this they took a pride and a pleasure: They rolled themselves in the desolation as a man rolls himself in a soft and easy bed, and they rolled themselves upon him with all the weight of their malice.

III. All this contempt put upon him was caused by the troubles he was in (Job 30:11): " Because he has loosed my cord, has taken away the honour and power with which I was girded (Job 12:18), has scattered what I had got together and untwisted all my affairs - because he has afflicted me, therefore they have let loose the bridle before me, "that is, "have given themselves a liberty to say and do what they please against me."Those that by Providence are stripped of their honour may expect to be loaded with contempt by inconsiderate ill-natured people. "Because he hath loosed his cord"(the original has that reading also), that is, "because he has taken off his bridle of restraint from off their malice, they cast away the bridle from me,"that is, "they make no account of my authority, nor stand in any awe of me."It is owing to the hold God has of the consciences even of bad men, and the restraints he lays upon them, that we are not continually thus insulted and abused; and, if at any time we meet with such ill treatment, we must acknowledge the hand of God in taking off those restraints, as David did when Shimei cursed him: So let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. Now in all this, 1. We may see the uncertainty of worldly honour, and particularly of popular applause, how suddenly a man may fail from the height of dignity into the depth of disgrace. What little cause therefore have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! Those that today cry Hosannah may tomorrow cry Crucify. But there is an honour which comes from God, which if we secure, we shall find it not thus changeable and loseable. 2. We may see that it has often been the lot of very wise and good men to be trampled upon and abused. And, 3. That those who look only at the things that are seen despise those whom the world frowns upon, though they are ever so much the favourites of Heaven. Nothing is more grievous in poverty than that it renders men contemptible. Turba Remi sequitur fortunam, ut semper odit damnatos - The Roman populace, faithful to the turns of fortune, still persecute the fallen. 4. We may see in Job a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men and despised of the people (Psa 22:6; Isa 53:3), and who hid not his face from shame and spitting, but bore the indignity better than Job did.

Matthew Henry: Job 30:15-31

In this second part of Job's complaint, which is very bitter, and has a great many sorrowful accents in it, we may observe a great deal that he complains of and some little that he comforts himself with.

I. Here is much that he complains of.

1. In general, it was a day of great affliction and sorrow. (1.) Affliction seized him, and surprised him. It seized him (Job 30:16): The days of affliction have taken hold upon me, have caught me (so some); they have arrested me, as the bailiff arrests the debtor, claps him on the back, and secures him. When trouble comes with commission it will take fast hold, and not lose its hold. It surprised him (Job 30:27): " The days of affliction prevented me, "that is, "they came upon me without giving me any previous warning. I did not expect them, nor make any provision for such an evil day."Observe, He reckons his affliction by days, which will soon be numbered and finished, and are nothing to the ages of eternity, 2Co 4:17. (2.) He was in great sorrow by reason of it. His bowels boiled with grief, and rested not, Job 30:27. The sense of his calamities was continually preying upon his spirits without any intermission. He went mourning from day to day, always sighing, always weeping; and such cloud was constantly upon his mind that he went, in effect, without the sun, Job 30:28. He had nothing that he could take any comfort in. He abandoned himself to perpetual sorrow, as one that, like Jacob, resolved to go to the grave mourning. He walked out of the sun (so some) in dark shady places, as melancholy people use to do. If he went into the congregation, to join with them in solemn worship, instead of standing up calmly to desire their prayers, he stood up and cried aloud, through pain of body, or anguish of mind, like one half distracted. If he appeared in public, to receive visits, when the fit came upon him he could not contain himself, nor preserve due decorum, but stood up and shrieked aloud. Thus he was a brother to dragons and owls (Job 30:29), both in choosing solitude and retirement, as they do (Isa 34:13), and in making a fearful hideous noise as they do; his inconsiderate complaints were fitly compared to their inarticulate ones.

2. The terror and trouble that seized his soul were the sorest part of his calamity, Job 30:15, Job 30:16. (1.) If he looked forward, he saw every thing frightful before him: if he endeavoured to shake off his terrors, they turned furiously upon him: if he endeavoured to escape from them, they pursued his soul as swiftly and violently as the wind. He complained, at first, of the terrors of God setting themselves in array against him, Job 6:4. And still, which way soever he looked, they turned upon him; which way soever he fled, they pursued him. My soul (Heb., my principal one, my princess ); the soul is the principal part of the man; it is our glory; it is every way more excellent than the body, and therefore that which pursues the soul, and threatens that, should be most dreaded. (2.) If he looked back, he saw all the good he had formerly enjoyed removed from him, and nothing left him but the bitter remembrance of it: My welfare and prosperity pass away, as suddenly, swiftly, and irrecoverably, as a cloud. (3.) If he looked within, he found his spirit quite sunk and unable to bear his infirmity, not only wounded, but poured out upon him, Job 30:16. He was not only weak as water, but, in his own apprehension, lost as water spilt upon the ground. Compare Psa 22:14, My heart is melted like wax.

3. His bodily diseases were very grievous; for, (1.) He was full of pain, piercing pain, pain that went to the bone, to all his bones, Job 30:17. It was a sword in his bones, which pierced him in the night season, when he should have been refreshed with sleep. His nerves were affected with strong convulsions; his sinews took no rest. By reason of his pain, he could take no rest, but sleep departed from his eyes. His bones were burnt with heat, Job 30:30. He was in a constant fever, which dried up the radical moisture and even consumed the marrow in his bones. See how frail our bodies are, which carry in themselves the seeds of our own disease and death. (2.) He was full of sores. Some that are pained in their bones, yet sleep in a whole skin, but, Satan's commission against Job extending both to his bone and to his flesh, he spared neither. His skin was black upon him, Job 30:30. The blood settled, and the sores suppurated and by degrees scabbed over, which made his skin look black. Even his garment had its colour changed with the continual running of his boils, and the soft clothing he used to wear had now grown so stiff that all his garments were like his collar, Job 30:18. It would be noisome to describe what a condition poor Job was in for want of clean linen and good attendance, and what filthy rags all his clothes were. Some think that, among other diseases, Job was ill of a quinsy or swelling in his throat, and that it was this which bound him about like a stiff collar. Thus was he cast into the mire (Job 30:19), compared to mire (so some); his body looked more like a heap of dirt than any thing else. Let none be proud of their clothing nor proud of their cleanness; they know not but some disease or other may change their garments, and even throw them into the mire, and make them noisome both to themselves and others. Instead of sweet smell, there shall be a stench, Isa 3:24. We are but dust and ashes at the best, and our bodies are vile bodies; but we are apt to forget it, till God, by some sore disease, makes us sensibly to feel and own what we are. " I have become already like that dust and ashes into which I must shortly be resolved: wherever I go I carry my grave about with me."

4. That which afflicted him most of all was that God seemed to be his enemy and to fight against him. It was he that cast him into the mire (Job 30:19), and seemed to trample on him when he had him there. This cut him to the heart more than any thing else, (1.) That God did not appear for him. He addressed himself to him, but gained no grant - appealed to him, but gained no sentence; he was very importunate in his applications, but in vain (Job 30:20): " I cry unto thee, as one in earnest, I stand up, and cry, as one waiting for an answer, but thou hearest not, thou regardest not, for any thing I can perceive."If our most fervent prayers bring not in speedy and sensible returns, we must not think it strange. Though the seed of Jacob did never seek in vain, yet they have often thought that they did and that God has not only been deaf, but angry, at the prayers of his people, Psa 80:4. (2.) That God did appear against him. That which he here says of God is one of the worst words that ever Job spoke (Job 30:21): Thou hast become cruel to me. Far be it from the God of mercy and grace that he should be cruel to any (his compassions fail not), but especially that he should be so to his own children. Job was unjust and ungrateful when he said so of him: but harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset him. Here, [1.] He thought God fought against him and stirred up his whole strength to ruin him: With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself, or art an adversary against me. He had better thoughts of God (Job 23:6) when he concluded he would not plead against him with his great power. God has an absolute sovereignty and an irresistible strength, but he never uses either the one or the other for the crushing or oppressing of any. [2.] He thought he insulted over him (Job 30:22): Thou lifted me up to the wind, as a feather or the chaff which the wind plays with; so unequal a match did Job think himself for Omnipotence, and so unable was he to help himself when he was made to ride, not in triumph, but in terror, upon the wings of the wind, and the judgments of God did even dissolve his substance, as a cloud is dissolved and dispersed by the wind. Man's substance, take him in his best estate, is nothing before the power of God; it is soon dissolved.

5. He expected no other now than that God, by these troubles, would shortly make an end of him: "If I be made to ride upon the wind, I can count upon no other than to break my neck shortly;"and he speaks as if God had no other design upon him than that in all his dealings with him: " I know that thou wilt bring me, with so much the more terror, to death, though I might have been brought thither without all this ado, for it is the house appointed for all living, "Job 30:23. The grave is a house, a narrow, dark, cold, ill-furnished house, but it will be our residence, where we shall rest and be safe. It is our long home, our own home; for it is our mother's lap, and in it we are gathered to our fathers. It is a house appointed for us by him that has appointed us the bounds of all our habitations. It is appointed for all the living. It is the common receptacle, where rich and poor meet; it is appointed for the general rendezvous. We must all be brought thither shortly. It is God that brings us to it, for the keys of death and the grave are in his hand, and we may all know that, sooner or later, he will bring us thither. It would be well for us if we would duly consider it. The living know that they shall die; let us, each of us, know it with application.

6. There were two things that aggravated his trouble, and made it the less tolerable: - (1.) That it was a very great disappointment to his expectation (Job 30:26): " When I looked for good, for more good, or at least for the continuance of what I had, then evil came "- such uncertain things are all our worldly enjoyments, and such a folly is it to feed ourselves with great expectations from them. Those that wait for light from the sparks of their creature comforts will be wretchedly disappointed and will make their bed in the darkness. (2.) That is was a very great change in his condition (Job 30:31): " My harp is not only laid by, and hung upon the willow-trees, but it is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of those that weep. "Job, in his prosperity, had taken the timbrel and harp, and rejoiced at the sound of the organ, Job 21:12. Notwithstanding his gravity and grace, he had found time to be cheerful; but now his tune was altered. Let those therefore that rejoice be as though they rejoiced not, for they know not how soon their laughter will be turned into mourning and their joy into heaviness. Thus we see how much Job complains of; but,

II. Here is something in the midst of all with which he comforts himself, and it is but a little. 1. He foresees, with comfort, that death will be the period of all his calamities (Job 30:24): Though God now, with a strong hand, opposed himself against him, "yet,"says he, " he will not stretch out his hand to the grave. "The hand of God's wrath would bring him to death, but would not follow him beyond death; his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits, his body safe and easy in the dust. Though men cry in his destruction (though, when they are dying, there is a great deal of agony and out-cry, many a sigh, and groan, and complaint), yet in the grave they feel nothing, they fear nothing, but all is quiet there. "Though in hell, which is called destruction, they cry, yet not in the grave; and, being delivered from the second death, the first to me will be an effectual relief."Therefore he wished he might be hidden in the grave, Job 14:13. 2. He reflects with comfort upon the concern he always had for the calamities of others when he was himself at ease (Job 30:25): Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Some think he herein complains of God, thinking it very hard that he who had shown mercy to others should not himself find mercy. I would rather take it as a quieting consideration to himself; his conscience witnessed for him that he had always sympathized with persons in misery and done what he could to help them, and therefore he had reason to expect that, at length, both God and his friends would pity him. Those who mourn with them that mourn will bear their own sorrows the better when it comes to their turn to drink of the bitter cup. Did not my soul burn for the poor? so some read it, comparing it with that of St. Paul, 2Co 11:29, Who is offended, and I burn not? As those who have been unmerciful and hard-hearted to others may expect to hear of it from their own consciences, when they are themselves in trouble, so those who have considered the poor and succoured them shall have the remembrance thereof to make their bed easy in their sickness, Psa 41:1, Psa 41:3.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:1-4

1 And now they who are younger than I have me in derision,

Those whose fathers I disdained To set with the dogs of my flock.

2 Yea, the strength of their hands, what should it profit me?

They have lost vigour and strength.

3 They are benumbed from want and hunger,

They who gnaw the steppe,

The darkness of the wilderness and waste;

4 They who pluck mallows in the thicket,

And the root of the broom is their bread.

With ועתּה , which also elsewhere expresses the turning-point from the premises to the conclusion, from accusation to the threat of punishment, and such like, Job here begins to bewail the sad turn which his former prosperity has taken. The first line of the verse, which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach, is intentionally so disproportionately long, to form a deep and long breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun. Formerly, as he has related in the first part of the monologue, an object of reverential fear to the respectable youth of the city (Job 29:8), he is now an object of derision ( שׂחק על , to laugh at, distinct from שׂחק אל , Job 29:24, to laugh to, smile upon) to the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men. They are just the same עניּי ארץ , whose sorrowful lot he reckons among the mysteries of divine providence, so difficulty of solution ( Job 24:4-8). The less he belongs to the merciless ones, who take advantage of the calamities of the poor for their own selfish ends, instead of relieving their distress as far as is in their power, the more unjustifiable is the rude treatment which he now experiences from them, when they who meanly hated him before because he was rich, now rejoice at the destruction of his prosperity. Younger than he in days ( לימים as Job 32:4, with ל of closer definition, instead of which the simple acc. was inadmissible here, comp. on Job 11:9) laugh at him, sons of those fathers who were so useless and abandoned that he scorned ( מאס ל , comp. מאס מן , 1Sa 15:26) to entrust to them even a service so menial as that of the shepherd dogs. Schult., Rosenm., and Schlottm. take שׁית עם for שׁית על , praeficere , but that ought to be just simply שׁית על ; שׁית עם signifies to range beside, i.e., to place alike, to associate; moreover, the oversight of the shepherd dogs is no such menial post, while Job intends to say that he did not once consider them fit to render such a subordinate service as is that of the dogs which help the shepherds.

And even the strength of their (these youths') hands ( גּם is referable to the suff . of ידיהם : even; not: now entirely, completely, as Hahn translates), of what use should it be to him: ( למּה not cur , but ad quid, quorsum , as Gen 25:32; Gen 27:46.) They are enervated, good-for-nothing fellows: כּלח is lost to them ( עלימו trebly emphatic: it is placed in a prominent position, has a pathetic suff., and is על for ל , 1Sa 9:3). The signif. senectus, which suits Job 5:26, is here inapplicable, since it is not the aged that are spoken of, but the young; for that "old age is lost to them"would be a forced expression for the thought - which, moreover, does not accord with the connection - that they die off early. One does not here expect the idea of senectus or senectus vegeta , but vigor, as the Syriac ( ‛ushino ) and Arabic also translate it. May not כּלח perhaps be related to כּח , as שׁלאנן to שׁאנן , the latter being a mixed form from שׁאנן and שׁלו , the former from כּח and לח , fresh juicy vigour, or as we say: pith and marrow ( Saft and Kraft )? At all events, if this is somewhat the idea of the word, it may be derived from כּלח = כּלה (lxx συντέλεια ), or some other way (vid., on Job 5:26): it signifies full strength or maturity.

(Note: From the root Arab. kl (on its primary notion, vid., my review of Bernstein's edition of Kirsch's Syr. Chrestomathie, Ergänzungsblatt der A.L.Z. 1843, Nr. 16 and 17) other derivatives, as Arab. kl' , klb , klt , klṯ , klj , kld , klz , etc., develop in general the significations to bring, take, or hold together, enclose, and the like; but Arab. lkḥ in particular the signification to draw together, distort violently, viz., the muscles of the face in grinning and showing the teeth, or even sardonic laughing, and drawing the lips apart. The general signification of drawing together, Arab. šdd , resolves itself, however, from that special reference to the muscles of the face, and is manifest in the IV form Arab. kâlaḥa , to show one's self strict and firm (against any one); also more sensuously: to remain firm in one's place; of the moon, which remains as though motionless in one of its twenty-eight halting-places. Hence Arab. dahrun kâliḥun , a hard season, zmân šdı̂d and kulâḥun , kalâḥi (the latter as a kind of n. propr. invariably ending in i , and always without the article), a hard year, i.e., a year of failure of the crops, and of scarcity and want. If it is possible to apply this to כּלח without the hazardous comparison of Arab. qḥl , qlḥm , etc. so supra , p. 300], the primary signification might perhaps be that of hardness, unbroken strength; Job 5:26, "Thou wilt go to the grave with unbroken strength,"i.e., full of days indeed, but without having thyself experienced the infirmities and burdens of the aetas decrepita , as also a shock brought in "in its season"is at the highest point of ripeness; Job 30:2 : "What (should) the strength of their hands profit me? as for them, their vigour is departed."- Fl.)

With Job 30:3 begins a new clause. It is גּלמוּד , not גּלמוּדים , because the book of Job does not inflect this Hebraeo-Arabic word, which is peculiar to it (besides only Isa 49:21, גּלמוּדה ). It is also in Arab. more a substantive (stone, a mass) than an adj. (hard as stone, massive, e.g., Hist. Tamerlani in Schultens: Arab. 'l -ṣchr 'l -jlmûd , the hardest rock); and, similar to the Greek χέρσος (vid., Passow), it denotes the condition or attribute of rigidity, i.e., sterility, Job 3:7; or stiff as death, Job 15:34; or, as here, extreme weakness and incapability of working. The subj.: such are they , is wanting; it is ranged line upon line in the manner of a mere sketch, participles with the demonstrative article follow the elliptical substantival clause. The part . הערקים is explained by lxx, Targ., Saad. (Arab. fârrı̂n ), and most of the old expositors, after ערק , Arab. ‛araqa , fut. ya‛riq , fuge re, abire , which, however, gives a tame and - since the desert is to be thought of as the proper habitation of these people, be they the Seir remnant of the displaced Horites, or the Hauran "races of the clefts"- even an inappropriate sense. On the contrary, ‛rq in Arab. (also Pael ‛arreq in Syriac) signifies to gnaw; and this Arabic signification of a word exclusively peculiar to the book of Job (here and Job 30:17) is perfectly suitable. We do not, however, with Jerome, translate: qui rodebant in solitudine (which is doubly false), but qui rodunt solitudinem , they gnaw the sunburnt parched ground of the steppe, stretched out there more like beasts than men (what Gecatilia also means by his Arab. lâzmû , adhaerent ), and derive from it their scanty food. אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה is added as an explanatory, or rather further descriptive, permutative to ציּה . The same alliterative union of substantives of the same root occurs in Job 38:27; Zep 1:15, and a similar one in Nah 2:11 ( בוקה ומבוקה ), Eze 6:14; Eze 33:29 ( שׁמה ומשׁמה ); on this expression of the superlative by heaping up similar words, comp. Ew. §313, c . The verb שׁאה has the primary notion of wild confused din (e.g., Isa 17:12.), which does not pass over to the idea of desolation and destruction by means of the intermediate notion of ruins that come together with a crash, but by the transfer of what is confusing to the ear to confusing impressions and conditions of all kinds; the desert is accordingly called also תּהוּ , Deu 32:10, from תּהה = שׁאה (vid., Genesis , S. 93).

The noun אמשׁ nuon signifies elsewhere adverbially, in the past night, to grow night-like, and in general yesterday, according to which it is translated: the yesterday of waste and desolation; or, retaining the adverbial form: waste and desolation are of yesterday = long since. It is undeniable that מאתמוּל and אתמוּל , Isa 30:33; Mic 2:8, are used in the sense pridem (not only to-day, but even yesterday); but our poet uses תּמול , Job 8:9, in the opposite sense, non pridem (not long since, but only of yesterday); and it is more natural to ask whether אמשׁ then has not here the substantival signification from which it has become an adverb, in the signification nightly or yesterday. Since it originally signifies yesterday evening or night, then yesterday, it must have the primary signification darkness, as the Arab. ams is also traceable to the primary notion of the sinking of the sun towards the horizon; so that, consequently, although the usage of Arabic does not allow this sense,

(Note: Arab. ams is manifestly connected with Arab. ms' , msy , first by means of the IV form Arab. 'msy ; it has, however, like this, nothing to do with "darkness."Arab. mas'â' is, according to the original sources of information, properly the whole afternoon until sunset; and this time is so called, because in it the sun Arab. tamsû or tamsı̂ , touches, i.e., sinks towards the horizon (from the root Arab. ms with the primary notion stringere, terere, tergere, trahere, prehendere, capere ). Just so they say Arab. 'l -šmsu tadluk , properly the sun rubs; Arab. taṣı̂f , connects itself; Arab. tušaffir , goes to the brink (Arab. šufr , šafı̂r ), all in the same signification. Used as a substantive, Arab. amsu followed by the genitive is la veille de ..., the evening before ... , and then generally, the day before ... , the opposite of Arab. gadu with the same construction, le lendemain de - . It is absolutely impossible that it should refer to a far distant past. On the contrary, it is always used like our "yesterday,"in a general sense, for a comparatively near past, or a past time thought of as near, as Arab. gd is used of a comparatively near future, or a future time thought of as near. Zamachschari in the Kesschâf on Sur . xvii. 25: It is a duty of children to take care of their aged parents, "because they are so aged, and to-day ( el -jauma ) require those who even yesterday ( bi -l -emsi ) were the most dependent on them of all God's creatures."It never means absolutely evening or night . What Gesenius, Thes., cites as a proof for it from Vita Timuri, ii. 428 - a supposed Arab. amsı̂y , vespertinus - is falsely read and explained (as in general Manger's translation of those verses abounds in mistakes); - both line 1 and line 9, Arab. 'msy , IV form of ms' , is rhetorically and poetically (as "sister of Arab. kân ") of like signification with the general Arab. kân or ṣâ r . An Arab would not be able to understand that אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה otherwise than: "on the eve of destruction and ruin,"i.e., at the breaking in of destruction and ruin which is just at hand or has actually followed rapidly upon something else. - Fl.)

it can be translated (comp. צלמות , Jer 2:6), "the evening darkness (gloominess) of the waste and wilderness"( אמשׁ as regens , Ew. §286, a ). The Targ. also translated similarly, but take אמשׁ as a special attribute: חשׁוכא היך רוּמשׁא , "darkness like the late evening."Olshausen's conjecture of ארץ makes it easier, but puts a word that affirms nothing in the place of an expressive one.

Job 30:4 tells what the scanty nourishment is which the chill, desolate, and gloomy desert, with its steppes and gorges, furnishes them. מלּוּח (also Talmudic, Syriac, and Arabic) is the orach, and indeed the tall shrubby orach, the so-called sea-purslain, the buds and young leaves of which are gathered and eaten by the poor. That it is not merely a coast plant, but grows also in the desert, is manifest from the narrative b . Kidduschin, 66 a : "King Jannai approached כוחלית in the desert, and conquered sixty towns there Ges. translates wrongly, captis LX talentis ; and on his return with great joy, he called all the orphans of Israel to him, and said: Our fathers ate מלוחים in their time when they were engaged with the building of the temple (according to Raschi: the second temple; according to Aruch: the tabernacle in the wilderness); we will also eat מלוחים in remembrance of our fathers! And מלוחים were served up on golden tables, and they ate."The lxx translates, ἅλιμα (not: ἄλιμα ); as in Athenaeus, poor Pythagoreans are once called ἅλιμα τρώγοντες καὶ κακὰ τοιαῦτα συλλέγοντες .

(Note: Huldrich Zwingli, in the Greek Aldine of 1518 (edited by Andrea of Asola), which he has annotated throughout in the margin, one of the choicest treasures of the Zurich town library, explains ἅλιμα by θαλάσσια , which was natural by the side of the preceding περικυκλοῦντες . We shall mention these marginal notes of Zwingli now and again.)

The place where they seek for and find this kind of edible plant is indicated by עלי־שׂיח . שׂיח is a shrub in general, but certainly pre-eminently the Arab. šı̂h , that perennial, branchy, woody plant of uncultivated ground, about two-thirds of a yard high, and the same in diameter, which is one of the greatest blessings of Syria and of the steppe, since, with the exception of cow and camel's dung, it is often the only fuel of the peasants and nomads, - the principal, and often in a day's journey the only, vegetation of the steppe, in the shade of which, then everything else is parched, a scanty vegetation is still preserved.

(Note: Thus Wetzstein in his Reise in den beiden Trachonon und um das Haurangebirge.)

The poor in search of the purslain surround this Arab. šı̂ḥ ( shı̂h ), and as Job 30:4 continues: the broom-root is their bread. Ges. understands לחמם according to Isa 47:14, where it is certainly the pausal form for לחמם ("there is not a coal to warm one's self"), and that because the broom-root is not eatable. But why should broom-root and not broom brushwood be mentioned as fuel? The root of the steppe that serves as fuel, together with the shı̂h , is called gizl (from גזל , to tear out), not retem , which is the broom (and is extraordinarily frequent in the Belka ). The Arabs, however, not only call Genista monosperma so, but also Chamaerops humilis, a degenerate kind of which produces a kind of arrow-root which the Indians in Florida use.

(Note: The description of these eaters of the steppe plants corresponds exactly to the reality, especially if that race, bodily so inferior, is contrasted with the agricultural peasant, and some allowance is made for the figure of speech Arab. mubâlagat (i.e., a description in colours, strongly brought out), without which poetic diction would be flat and devoid of vividness in the eye of an Oriental. The peasant is large and strong, with a magnificent beard and an expressive countenance, while e.g., the Trachonites of the present day (i.e., the race of the W'ar, יער ), both men and women, are a small, unpleasant-looking, weakly race. It is certain that bodily perfection is a plant that only thrives in a comfortable house, and needs good nourishment, viz., bread, which the Trachonite of the present day very rarely obtains, although he levies heavy contributions on the harvest of the villagers. Therefore the roots of plants often serve as food. Two such plants, the gahh ( גח ) and the rubbe halı̂le ( רבּה חלילה ), are described by my Reisebericht . A Beduin once told me that it should be properly called rubh lêle ( רבח לילה ), "the gain of a supper,"inasmuch as it often takes the place of this, the chief meal of the day. To the genus rubbe belongs also the holêwâ ( חליוא ); in like manner they eat the bulbous plant, qotên ( קטין ); of another, the mesha‛ ( משׁע ), they eat leaves, stem, and root. I often saw the poor villagers (never Beduins) eat the broad thick fleshy leaves of a kind of thistle (the thistle is called Arab. šûk , shôk ), the name of which is ‛aqqub ( עקּוּב ); these leaves are a handbreadth and a half in length, and half a handbreadth in width. They gather them before the thorns on the innumerable points of the serrated leaves become strong and woody; they boil them in salt and water, and serve them up with a little butter. Whole tribes of the people of the Ruwala live upon the small brown seed (resembling mustard-seed) of the semh ( שׂמח ). The seeds are boiled up a pulp. - Wetzst.)

לחמם in the signification cibus eorum is consequently not incomprehensible. lxx (which throws Job 30:4 into sad confusion): οἳ καὶ ῥΊζας ξύλων ἐμασσῶντο .

(Note: Zwingli observes here: Sigma only once. Codd. Anex. and Sinait. have the reading εμασωντο , which he prefers.)

All the ancient versions translate similarly. One is here reminded of what Agatharchides says in Strabo concerning the Egyptio-Ethiopian eaters of the rush root and herb.

(Note: Vid., Meyer, Botanische Erläuterungen zu Strabons Geographie, S. 108ff.)

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:5-8

5 They are driven forth from society,

They cry after them as after a thief.

6 In the most dismal valleys they must dwell,

In holes of the earth and in rocks.

7 Among the bushes they croak,

Under nettles are they poured forth,

8 Sons of fools, yea sons of base men:

They are driven forth out of the land! -

If, coming forth from their lurking-places, they allow themselves to be seen in the villages of the plain or in the towns, they are driven forth from among men, e medio pelluntur (to use a Ciceronian phrase). גּו (Syr. gau , Arab. gaww , guww ) is that which is internal, here the circle of social life, the organized human community. This expression also is Hebraeo-Arabic; for if one contrasts a house of district with what is outside, he says in Arabic, jûwâ wa -barrâ , guwwâ wa -berrâ , within and without, or Arab. 'l -jûwâ -nı̂ wa -'l -brrâ -nı̂ , el -guwwâni wa'l -berrâni , the inside and the outside. In Job 30:5 , כּגּנּב , like the thief, is equivalent to, as after the thief, or since this generic Art. is not usual with us Germ. and Engl.: after a thief; French, on crie après eux comme après le voleur . In Job 30:6 , לשׁכּן is, according to Ges. §132, rem. 1 (comp. on Hab 1:17), equivalent to היוּ לשׁכּן , "they are to dwell"= they must dwell; it might also signify, according to the still more frequent usage of the language, habitaturi sunt ; it here, however, signifies habitandum est eis, as לבלום , Psa 32:9, obturanda sunt . Instead of בּערוּץ with Shurek , the reading בּערוץ with Cholem (after the form סגור , Hos 13:8) is also found, but without support. ארוּץ is either a substantive after the form גּבוּל (Ges., as Kimchi), or the construct of ערוּץ = נערץ , feared = fearful, so that the connection of the words, which we prefer, is a superlative one: in horridissima vallium , in the most terrible valleys, as Job 41:22, acutissimae testarum (Ew., according to §313, c ). The further description of the habitation of this race of men: in holes ( חרי = בּחרי ) of the earth ( עפר , earth with respect to its constituent parts) and rocks (lxx τρῶγλαι πετρῶν ), may seem to indicate the aborigines of the mountains of the district of Seir, who are called החרים , τρωγλοδύνται (vid., Genesis , S. 507); but why not, which is equally natural, חורן , Eze 47:16, Eze 47:18, the "district of caverns,"the broad country about Bosra , with the two Trachônes ( τράχωνες ), of which the smaller western, the Legâ , is the ancient Trachonitis, and with Ituraea (the mountains of the Druses)?

(Note: Wetzstein also inclines to refer the description to the Ituraeans, who, according to Apuleius, were frugum pauperes , and according to others, freebooters, and are perhaps distinguished from the Arabes Trachonitae (if they were not these themselves), as the troglodytes are from the Arabs who dwell in tents (on the troglodytes in Eastern Hauran, vid., Reisebericht, S. 44, 126). "The troglodyte was very often able to go without nourishment and the necessaries of life. Their habitations are not unfrequently found where no cultivation of the land was possible, e.g., in Safa. They were therefore the rearers of cattle or marauders. The cattle-rearing troglodyte, because he cannot wander about from one pasture to another like the nomads who dwell in tents, often loses his herds by a failure of pasture, heavy falls of snow (which often produce great devastation, e.g., in Hauran), epidemics, etc. Losses may also arise from marauding attacks from the nomads. Still less is this marauding, which is at enmity with all the world, likely to make a race prosperous, which, like the troglodyte, being bound to a fixed habitation, cannot escape the revenge of those whom it has injured."- Wetzst.)

As Job 6:5 shows, there underlies Job 30:7 a comparison of this people with the wild ass. The פּרא , ferâ , goes about in herds under the guidance of a so-called leader (vid., on Job 39:5), with which the poet in Job 24:5 compares the bands that go forth for forage; here the point of comparison, according to Job 6:5, is their bitter want, which urges from them the cry of pain; for ינהקוּ , although not too strong, would nevertheless be an inadequate expression for their sermo barbarus (Pineda), in favour of which Schlottmann calls to mind Herodotus' (iv. 183) comparison of the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians with the screech of the night-owl ( τετρίγασι κατάπερ αι ̓ νυκτερίδες ). Among bushes (especially the bushes of the shih , which affords them some nourishment and shade, and a green resting-place) one hears them, and hears from their words, although he cannot understand them more closely, discontent and lamentation over their desperate condition: there, under nettles ( חרוּל , root חר , Arab. ḥrr , as urtica from urere ), i.e., useless weeds of the desert, they are poured forth, i.e., spread about in disorder. Thus most moderns take ספח = שׁפך , Arab. sfḥ , comp. סרוּח , profusus , Amo 6:4, Amo 6:7, although one might also abide by the usual Hebrew meaning of the verb ספח (hardened from ספה ), adjungere, associare (vid., Habak . S. 88), and with Hahn explain: under nettles they are united together, i.e., they huddle together. But neither the fut . nor the Pual (instead of which one would expect the Niph . or Hithpa .) is favourable to the latter interpretation; wherefore we decide in favour of the former, and find sufficient support for a Hebr.-Arabic ספח in the signification effundere from a comparison of Job 14:19 and the present passage. Job 30:8, by dividing the hitherto latent subject, tells what sort of people they are: sons of fools, profane, insane persons (vid., on Psa 14:1); moreover, or of the like kind ( גּם , not אף ), sons of the nameless, ignobilium or infamium , since בלי־שׁם is here an adj. which stands in dependence, not filii infamiae = infames (Hirz. and others), by which the second בני is rendered unlike the first. The assertion Job 30:8 may be taken as an attributive clause: who are driven forth ... ; but the shortness of the line and the prominence of the verb are in favour of the independence of the clause like an exclamation in its abrupt and halting form. נכּאוּ is Niph . of נכא = נכה ( נכי ), root נך , to hew, pierce, strike.

(Note: The root Arab. nk is developed in Hebr. נכה , הכּה , in Arab. naka'a and nakâ , first to the idea of outward injury by striking, hewing, etc.; but it is then also transferred to other modes of inflicting injury, and in Arab. nawika , to being injured in mind. The root shows itself in its most sensuous development in the reduplicated form Arab. naknaka , to strike one with repeated blows, fig. for: to press any one hard with claims. According to another phase, the obscene Arab. nâka , fut. i, and the decent Arab. nakaḥa , signify properly to pierce. - Fl.)

On הארץ , of arable land in opposition to the steppe, vid., on Job 18:17.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:9-12

9 And now I am become their song,

And a by-word to them.

10 They avoid me, they flee far from me,

And spare not my face with spitting.

11 For my cord of life He hath loosed, and afflicted me,

Therefore they let loose the bridle recklessly.

12 The rabble presses upon my right hand,

They thrust my feet away,

And cast up against me their destructive ways.

The men of whom Job complains in this strophe are none other than those in the preceding strophe, described from the side of their coarse and degenerate behaviour, as Job 24:4-8 described them from the side of the wrong which was practised against them. This rabble, constitutionally as well as morally degraded, when it comes upon Job's domain in its marauding expeditions, makes sport of the sufferer, whose former earnest admonitions, given from sympathizing anxiety for them, seemed to them as insults for which they revenge themselves. He is become their song of derision ( נגינתם to be understood according to the dependent passage, Lam 3:14, and Psa 69:13), and is למלּה to them, their θρύλλημα (lxx), the subject of their foolish talk ( מלּה - Arab. mille , not = melle , according to which Schultens interprets it, sum iis fastidio ). Avoiding him, and standing at a distance from him, they make their remarks upon him; and if they come up to him, it is only for the sake of showing him still deeper scorn: a facie ejus non cohibent sputam . The expositors who explain that, contrary to all decent bearing, they spit in his presence (Eichh., Justi, Hirz., Vaih., Hlgst.), or with Fie! spit out before him (Umbr., Hahn, Schlottm.), overlook the fact of its being מפּני , not לפני . The expression as it stands can only affirm that they do not spare his face with spitting (Jer. correctly: conspuere non veruntur ), so that consequently he is become, as he has complained in Job 17:6, a תּפת , an object of spitting (comp. also the declaration of the servant of Jehovah, Isa 50:6, which stands in close connection with this declaration of Job, according to previous explanations).

It now becomes a question, Who is the subj. in Job 30:11 ? The Chethib יתרו demands an attempt to retain the previous subj. Accordingly, most moderns explain: solvit unusquisque eorum funem suum , i.e., frenum suum, quo continebatur antea a me (Rosenm., Umbr., Stick., Vaih., Hlgst., and others), but it is to be doubted whether יתר can mean frenum ; it signifies a cord, the string of a bow, and of a harp. The reconciliation of the signification redundantia , Job 22:20, and funis , is, in the idea of the root, to be stretched tight and long.

(Note: The Arab. verb watara shows its sensuous primary signification in Arab. watarun , יתר , cord, bow-string, harp-string (Engl. string ): to stretch tight, to extend, so that the thing continues in one line. Hence then Arab. watrun , witrun , separate, unequal, singulus , impar, opp. Arab. šaf‛un , bini , par , just as fard , single, separate, unequal ( opp. zaug , a pair, equal number), is derived from farada , properly, so to strain or stretch out, that the thing has no bends or folds; Greek εξαπλοῦν (as in the Shepherd of Hermas: ἐπάνω λεντίου ἐξηπλωμένον λίνον καρπάσινον ), an original transitive signification still retained in low Arabic (vid., Bocthor under Étendre and Déployer ). Then from Arab. watara spring the secondary roots Arab. tatara and tarâ , which proceed from the VIII form ( ittatara ). The former ( tatara ) appears only in the Arab. adverb tatran and tatrâ , sigillatim, alii post alios , singly one after another, so that several persons or things form a row interrupted by intervals of space of time; the latter ( tara ) and its IV form ( atra ) are equivalent to wâtara , to be active at intervals, with pauses between, as the Arabs explain: "We say Arab. atrâ of a man when he so performs several acts which do not directly follow one another, that there is always a [Arab.] fatrat , intermissio , between two acts."Hence also תּרין , תּרתּין , duals of an assumed sing . תּר , singulus ( um ), תּרתּ singula , therefore prop. duo singuli ( a ) , duae singulae , altogether parallel to the like meaning thinâni ( ithnâni' , thinaini ( ithnaini ), שׁנים ; fem. thintâni ( ithnatâni ), thintaini ( ithnataini ), שׁתּים instead of שׁנתּים , from an assumed sing. thin -un ( ithn -un ), thint -un ( ithnat -un ), from Arab. tanâ , שׁנה , like bin ( ibn ), bint ( ibnat ), בּן , בּת (= בּנת , hence בּתּי ) from Arab. banâ , בּנה .

The significations of watara which Freytag arranges under 1, 2, 3, 4, proceed from the transitive application of יתר , as the Italian soperchiare, soverchiare, from supra, to offend, insult; oltraggiare, outrager, from ultra; ὑβρίζειν from ὑπέρ . Similarly, Arab. tṭâwl ‛lı̂h and ‛stṭâl ‛lı̂h (form VI and X from ṭâl ), to act haughtily towards any one, to make him feel one's superiority, properly to stretch one's self out over or against any one.

But in another direction the signif. to be stretched out goes into: overhanging, surpassing, projecting, to be superfluous, and to be left over, περιττὸν εἶναι , to exceed a number or bulk, superare (comp. Italian soperchiare as intrans.), περιεῖναι , ὑπερεῖναι ; to prove, as result, gain, etc., περιεῖναι , etc. Similar is the development of the meaning of Arab. faḍala and of ṭâ'l , gain, use, from Arab. ṭâl , to be stretched out. In like manner, the German reich, reichlich rich, abundant, comes from the root reichen, recken to stretch, extend. - Fl.)

Hirz. therefore imagines the loosing of the cord round the body, which served them as a girdle, in order to strike Job with it. But whether one decides in favour of the Chethib יתרו or of the Keri יתרי , the persons who insult Job cannot in any case be intended. The isolated sing . form of the assertion, while the rabble is everywhere spoken of in the plur., is against it; and also the כּי , which introduces it, and after which Job here allows the reason to come in, why he is abandoned without any means of defence to such brutal misconduct. The subj. of Job 30:11 is God. If יתרו is read, it may not be interpreted: He hath opened = taken off the covering of His string (= bow) (Ew., Hahn, and similarly even lxx, Jer.), for יתר does not dignify the bow, but the string (Arab. muwattar‛ , stretched, of a bow); and while פּתח , Ezek. 21:33 (usually שׁלף or הריק ), can certainly be said of drawing a sword from its sheath, ערה is the appropriate and usual word (vid., Hab . S. 164) for making bare the bow and shield. Used of the bow-string, פּתּח signifies to loose what is strained, by sending the arrow swiftly forth from it, according to which, e.g., Elizabeth Smith translates: Because He hath let go His bow-string and afflicted me. One cannot, however, avoid feeling that ויּענּני is not a right description of the effect of shooting with arrows, whereas an idea is easily gained from the Keri יתרי , to which the description of the effect corresponds. It has been interpreted: He has loosed my rein or bridle, by means of which I hitherto bound them and held them in check; but יתר in the signification rein or bridle, is as already observed, not practicable. Better Capellus: metaphora ducta est ab exarmato milite, cujus arcûs solvitur nervus sicque inermis redditur ; but it is more secure, and still more appropriate to the ויענני which follows, when it is interpreted according to Job 4:21 : He has untied (loosened) my cord of life, i.e., the cord which stretched out and held up my tent (the body) (Targ. similarly: my chain and the threads of my cord, i.e., surely: my outward and inward stay of life), and bowled me down, i.e., deprived me of strength (comp. Psa 102:24); or also: humbled me. Even in this his feebleness he is the butt of unbridled arrogance: and they let go the bridle before me (not לפני , in my presence, but מפּני , before me, before whom previously they had respect; מפני the same as Lev 19:32), they cast or shake it off ( שׁלּח as Job 39:3, synon. of השׁליך ; comp. 1Ki 9:7 with 2Ch 7:20).

Is it now possible that in this connection פּרחח can denote any else but the rabble of these good-for-nothing fellows? Ewald nevertheless understands by it Job's sufferings, which as a rank evil swarm rise up out of the ground to seize upon him; Hahn follows Ew., and makes these sufferings the subj., as even in Job 30:11 . But if we consider how Ew. translates: "they hung a bridle from my head;"and Hahn: "they have cast a bit before my face,"this might make us tired of all taste for this allegorical mode of interpretation. The stump over which they must stumble is Job 30:13 , where all climax must be abandoned in order to make the words לא עזר למו intelligible in this allegorical connection. No indeed; פּרחח (instead of which פרחח might be expected, as supra , Job 3:5, כמרירי for כמרירי ) is the offspring or rabble of those fathers devoid of morals and honour, those צעירים of Job 30:1, whose laughing-stock Job is now, as the children of priests are called in Talmudic פּרחי כהנּה , and in Arabic farch denotes not only the young of animals, but also a rascal or vagabond. This young rabble rises על־ימין , on Job's right hand, which is the place of an accuser (Psa 109:6), and generally one who follows him up closely and oppresses him, and they press him continually further and further, contending one foot's-breadth after another with him: רגלי שׁלּחוּ , my feet thrust them forth, protrudunt ( שׁלּח the same as Job 14:20). By this pressing from one place to another, a way is prepared for the description of their hostile conduct, which begins in Job 30:12 under the figure of a siege. The fut. consec. ויּסלּוּ , Job 30:12 , is not meant retrospectively like ויענני , but places present with present in the connection of cause and effect (comp. Ew. 343, a ). We must be misled by the fact that ויסלו , Job 19:12 (which see), was said of the host of sufferings which come against Job; here it is those young people who cast up the ramparts of misfortune or burdensome suffering ( איד ) against Job, which they wish to make him feel. The tradition, supported by the lxx, that Job had his seat outside his domain ἐπὶ τῆς κοπρίας , i.e., upon the mezbele , is excellently suited to this and the following figures. Before each village in Hauran there is a place where the households heap up the sweepings of their stalls, and it gradually reaches a great circumference, and a height which rises above the highest buildings of the village.

(Note: One ought to have a correct idea of a Hauranitish mezbele . The dung which is heaped up there is not mixed with straw, because in warm, dry countries no litter is required for the cattle, and comes mostly from single-hoofed animals, since small cattle and oxen often pass the nights on the pastures. It is brought in a dry state in baskets to the place before the village, and is generally burnt once every month. Moreover, they choose days on which the wind if favourable, i.e., does not cast the smoke over the village. The ashes remain. The fertile volcanic ground does not need manure, for it would make the seed in rainy years too luxuriant at the expense of the grain, and when rain fails, burnt it up. If a village has been inhabited for a century, the mezbele reaches a height which far surpasses it. The winter rains make the ash-heaps into a compact mass, and gradually change the mezbele into a firm mound of earth in the interior of which those remarkable granaries, biâr el -ghalle , are laid out, in which the wheat can be completely preserved against heat and mice, garnered up for years. The mezbele serves the inhabitants of the district as a watch-tower, and on close oppressive evenings as a place of assembly, because there is a current of air on the height. There the children play about the whole day long; there the forsaken one lies, how, having been seized by some horrible malady, is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, by day asking alms of the passers-by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed. There the dogs of the village lie, perhaps gnawing at a decaying carcase that is frequently thrown there. Many a village of Hauran has lost its original name, and is called umm el -mezâbil from the greatness and number of these mounds, which always indicate a primitive and extensive cultivation for the villages. And many a more modern village is built upon an ancient mezbele , because there is then a stronger current of air, which renders the position more healthy. The Arabic signification of the root זבל seems to be similarly related to the Hebrew as that of the old Beduin seken ( שכן ), "ashes,"to the Hebrew and Arabic משכן , "a dwelling."- Wetzst.)

Notwithstanding, everything is intelligible without this thoroughly Hauranitish conception of the scene of the history. Bereft of the protection of his children and servants, become an object of disgust to his wife, and an abhorrence to his brethren, forsaken by every attention of true affection, Job 19:13-19, Job lies out of doors; and in this condition, shelterless and defenceless, he is abandoned to the hideous malignant joy of those gipsy hordes which wander hither and thither.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:13-15

13 They tear down my path,

They minister to my overthrow,

They who themselves are helpless.

14 As through a wide breach they approach,

Under the crash they roll onwards.

15 Terrors are turned against me,

They pursue my nobility like the wind,

And like a cloud my prosperity passed away. -

They make all freedom of motion and any escape impossible to him, by pulling down, diruunt , the way which he might go. Thus is נתסוּ (cogn. form of נתץ , נתע , נתשׁ ) to be translated, not: they tear open ( proscindunt ), which is contrary to the primary signification and the usage of the language. They, who have no helper, who themselves are so miserable and despised, and yet so feelingless and overbearing, contribute to his ruin. הועיל , to be useful, to do any good,to furnish anything effective (e.g., Isa 47:12), is here united with ל of the purpose; comp. עזר ל , to help towards anything, Zec 1:15. היה (for which the Keri substitutes the primary form הוּה ), as was already said on Job 6:2, is prop. hiatus , and then barathrum , pernicies , like הוּה in the signification cupiditas , prop. inhiatio . The verb הוה , Arab. hwy , also signifies delabi , whence it may be extended (vid., on Job 37:6) in like manner to the signification abyss (rapid downfall); but a suitable medium for the two significations, strong passion (Arab. hawa ) and abyss (Arab. hâwije , huwwe , mahwa ), is offered only by the signification of the root flare (whence hawâ , air). לא עזר למו is a genuine Arabic description of these Idumaean or Hauranite pariahs. Schultens compares a passage of the Hamâsa: "We behold you ignoble, poor, laisa lakum min sâir -in -nâsi nasirun , i.e., without a helper among the rest of men."The interpretations of those who take למו for לו , and this again for לי (Eichh., Justi), condemn themselves. It might more readily be explained, with Stick.: without any one helping them, i.e., with their own strong hand; but the thought thus obtained is not only aimless and tame, but also halting and even untrue (vid., Job 19:13).

Job 30:14

The figure of a siege, which is begun with Job 30:12 and continued in Job 30:13, leaves us in no doubt concerning פּרץ רחב and שׁאה . The Targ. translates: like the force of the far-extending waves of the sea, not as though פּרץ could in itself signify a stream of water, but taking it as = פרץ מים , 2Sa 5:20 (synon. diffusio aquarum ). Hitzig's translation:

(Note: Vid., Deutsche Morgenländ. Zeitschr. ix. (1855), S. 741, and Proverbs , S. 11.)

"like a broad forest stream they come, like a rapid brook they roll on,"gives unheard-of significations to the doubtful words. In Job 16:14 we heard Job complain: He (Eloah) brake through me על־פני־פרץ פרץ , breach upon breach, - by the divine decrees of sufferings, which are completed in this ill-treatment which he receives from good-for-nothing fellows, he is become as a wall with a wide-gaping breach, through which they rush in upon him ( instar rupturae , a concise mode of comparison instead of tanquam per rupt . ), in order to get him entirely into their power as a plaything for their coarse passions. שׁאה is the crash of the wall with the wide breaches, and תּחת שׁאה signifies sub fragore in a local sense: through the wall which is broken through and crashes above the assailants. There is no ground in Job 30:15 for dividing, with Umbreit, thus: He hath turned against me! Terrors drove away, etc., although this would not be impossible according to the syntax (comp. Gen 49:22, בּנות צעדה ). It is translated: terrors are turned against me; so that the predicate stands first in the most natural, but still indefinite, personal form, Ges. §147, a , although בּלּהות might also be taken as the accus. of the object after a passive, Ges. §143, 1. The subj. of Job 30:15 remains the same: they (these terrors) drive away my dignity like the wind; the construction is like Job 27:20; Job 14:19; on the matter, comp. Job 18:11. Hirz. makes כּרוּח the subj.: quasi ventus aufert nobilitatem meam, in which case the subj. would be not so much ventus as similitudo venti , as when one says in Arabic, 'gâani kazeidin, there came to me one of Zeid's equals, for in the Semitic languages כּ has the manner of an indeclinable noun in the signification instar . But the reference to בלהות is more natural; and Hahn's objection, that calamity does not first, if it is there, drive away prosperity, but takes the place of that which is driven away, is sophisticated and inadequate, since the object of the driving away here is not Job's prosperity, but Job's נדיבה , appearance and dignity, by which he hitherto commanded the respect of others (Targ. רבּנוּתי ). The storms of suffering which pass over him take this nobility away to the last fragment, and his salvation - or rather, since this word in the mouth of an extra-Israelitish hero has not the meaning it usually otherwise has, his prosperous condition (from Arab. wasi‛a , amplum esse ) - is as a cloud, so rapidly and without trace (Job 7:9; Isa 44:22), passed away and vanished. Observe the music of the expression כּעב עברה , which cannot be reproduced in translation.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:16-19

16 And now my soul is poured out within me,

Days of suffering hold me fast.

17 The night rendeth my bones from me,

And my gnawers sleep not.

18 By great force my garment is distorted,

As the collar of my shirt it encompasseth me.

19 He hath cast me into the mire,

And I am in appearance as dust and ashes.

With this third ועתּה (Job 30:1, Job 30:9) the elegiac lament over the harsh contrast between the present and the past begins for the third time. The dash after our translation of the second and fourth strophes will indicate that a division of the elegy ends there, after which it begins as it were anew. The soul is poured out within a man ( עלי as Job 10:1, Psychol . S. 152), when, "yielding itself without resistance to sadness, it is dejected to the very bottom, and all its organization flows together, and it is dissolved in the one condition of sorrow"- a figure which is not, however, come about by water being regarded as the symbol of the soul (thus Hitzig on Psa 42:5), but rather by the intimate resemblance of the representation of a flood of tears (Lam 2:19): the life of the soul flows in the blood, and the anguish of the soul in tears and lamentations; and since the outward man is as it were dissolved in the gently flowing tears ( Isa 15:3), his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestation and result of an inward action. ימי־עני we have translated days of suffering, for עני , with its verb and the rest of its derivatives, is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah. Days of suffering - Job complains - hold him fast; עחז unites in itself, like החזיק , the significations prehendere and prehensum tenere . In Job 30:17 we must not, with Arnh. and others, translate: by night it (affliction) pierces ... , for עני does not stand sufficiently in the foreground to be the subject of what follows; it might sooner be rendered: by night it is pierced through (Targ., Rosenm., Hahn); but why is not לילה to be the subject, and נקּר consequently Piel (not Niph .)? The night has been personified already, Job 3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night (the restless night, Job 7:3, in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it, increases) pierces his bones from him, i.e., roots out his limbs (synon. בּדּים , Job 18:13) so inwardly and completely. The lepra Arabica (Arab. 'l -brṣ , el -baras ) terminates, like syphilis, with an eating away of the limbs, and the disease has its name Arab. juḏâm from jḏm , truncare , mutilare : it feeds on the bones, and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached.

In Job 30:17 , lxx ( νεῦρα ), Parchon, Kimchi, and others translate ערקי according to the Targum. ערקין (= גּידים ), and the Arab. ‛rûq , veins, after which Blumenf.: my veins are in constant motion. But ערקי in the sense of Job 30:3 : my gnawers (Jer. qui me comedunt , Targ. דּמעסּן יתי , qui me conculcant, conterunt ), is far more in accordance with the predicate and the parallelism, whether it be gnawing pains that are thought of - pains are unnatural to man, they come upon him against his will, he separates them from himself as wild beasts - or, which we prefer, those worms ( רמּה , Job 7:5) which were formed in Job's ulcers (comp. Aruch, ערקא , a leech, plur . ערקתא , worms, e.g., in the liver), and which in the extra-biblical tradition of Job's decease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Job's monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposedly petrified worms of Job.

(Note: In Mugir ed-dîn's large history of Jerusalem and Hebron ( kitâb el -ins el -gelı̂l ), in an article on Job, we read: God had so visited him in his body, that he got the disease that devours the limbs ( tegedhdhem ), and worms were produced ( dawwad ) in the wounds, while he lay on a dunghill ( mezbele ), and except his wife, who tended him, no one ventured to come too near him. In a beautiful Kurdic ballad "on the basket dealer"( zembilfrosh ), which I have obtained from the Kurds in Salihîje, are these words:

Veki Gergis beshara beri

Jusuf veki abdan keri

Bikesr' Ejub kurman deri

toh anin ser sultaneti

to men chalaski 'j zahmeti .

"When they divided Gergîs with a saw

And sold Joseph like a slave,

When worms fed themselves in Job's body,

Then Thou didst guide them by a sure way:

Thou wilt also deliver me from need."

More concerning these worms of Job in the description of the monastery of Job. - Wetzst.)

Job 30:18 would be closely and naturally connected with what precedes if לבוּשׁי could be understood of the skin and explained: By omnipotence (viz., divine, as Job 23:6, Ew. §270 a ) the covering of my body is distorted, as even Raschi: משׁתנה גלד אחר גלד , it is changed, by one skin or crust being formed after another. But even Schultens rightly thinks it remarkable that לבושׁ , Job 30:18 , is not meant to signify the proper upper garment but the covering of the skin, but כּתּנת , Job 30:18 , the under garment in a proper sense. The astonishment is increased by the fact that התהפּשׂ signifies to disguise one's self, and thereby render one's self unrecognisable, which leads to the proper idea of לבושׁ , to a clothing which looks like a disguise. It cannot be cited in favour of this unusual meaning that לבושׁ is used in Job 41:5 of the scaly skin of the crocodile: an animal has no other לבושׁ but its skin. Therefore, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we take לבושׁ strictly: "by (divine) omnipotence my garment is distorted (becomes unlike itself), like the collar of my shirt it fits close to me."It is unnecessary to take כּפי as a compound praep.: according to (comp. Zec 2:4; Mal 2:9 : "according as"), in the sense of כּמו , as Job 33:6, since פּי כּתּנת is, according to the nature of the thing mentioned, a designation of the upper opening, by means of which the shirt, otherwise only provided with armholes (distinct from the Beduin shirt thôb , which has wide and long sleeves), is put on. Also, Psa 133:2, פּי מדּותיו signifies not the lower edge, but the opening at the head פּי הראשׁע , Exo 28:32) or the collar of the high priest's vestment (vid., the passage cited). Thus even lxx ὥσπερ τὸ περιστόμιον τοῦ χιτῶνός μου , and Jer.: velut capitio tunicae meae . True, Schlottm. observes against this rendering of Job 30:18, that it is unnatural according to substance, since on a wasted body it is not the outer garment that assumes the appearance of a narrow under one, but on the contrary the under garment assumes the appearance of a wide outer one. But this objection is not to the point. If the body is wasted away to a skeleton, there is an end to the rich appearance and beautiful flow which the outer garment gains by the full and rounded forms of the limbs: it falls down straight and in perpendicular folds upon the wasted body, and contributes in no small degree to make him whom one formerly saw in all the fulness of health still less recognisable than he otherwise is. יאזרני , cingit me , is not merely the falling together of the outer garment which was formerly filled out by the members of the body, but its appearance when the sick man wraps himself in it: then it girds him, fits close to him like his shirt-collar, lying round about the shrivelled figure like the other about a thin neck. On the terrible wasting away which is combined with hypertrophical formations in elephantiasis, vid., Job 7:15, and especially Job 19:20. The subject of Job 30:19 is God, whom Job 30:18 also describes as efficient cause: He has cast me into, or daubed

(Note: The reading wavers between הרני and הרני , for the latter form of writing is sometimes found even out of pause by conjunctive accents, e.g., 1Sa 28:15; Psa 118:5.)

me with, mud, and I am become as ( כּ instead of the dat., Ew. §221, a ) dust and ashes. This is also intended pathologically: the skin of the sufferer with elephantiasis becomes first an intense red, then assumes a black colour; scales like fishes' scales are formed upon it, and the brittle, dark-coloured surface of the body is like a lump of earth.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:20-23

20 I cry to Thee for help, and Thou answerest not;

I stand there, and Thou lookest fixedly at me.

21 Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me,

With the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me.

22 Thou raisest me upon the stormy wind,

Thou causest me to drive along And vanish in the roaring of the storm.

23 For I know: Thou wilt bring me back to death,

Into the house of assembly for all living.

If he cries for help, his cry remains unanswered; if he stands there looking up reverentially to God (perhaps עמד , with משּׁוּע to be supplied, has the sense of desisting or restraining, as Gen 29:35; Gen 30:9), the troubling, fixed look of God, who looks fixedly and hostilely upon him, anything but ready to help (comp. Job 7:20; Job 16:9), meets his upturned eye. התבּנן , to look consideringly upon anything, is elsewhere joined with אל , על , עד , or even with the acc; here, where a motionless fixed look is intended, with בּ (= fi ). It is impossible to draw the לא , Job 30:20 , over to ותּתבּנן (Jer., Saad., Umbr., Welte, and others), both on account of the Waw consec. (Ew. §351 a ), and on account of the separation by the new antecedent עמדתּי . On the reading of two Codd. ותתכנן ("Thou settest Thyself against me"), which Houbigant and Ew. prefer, Rosenm. has correctly pronounced judgment: est potius pro mendo habenda . Instead of consolingly answering his prayer, and instead of showing Himself willing to help, God, who was formerly so kind towards him, changes towards him, His creature, into a cruel being, saevum ( אכזר in the book of Job only here and Job 41:2, where it signifies "foolhardy;"comp. לאויב in the dependent passage, Isa 63:10), and makes war upon him ( שׂטם as Job 16:9) by causing him to feel the strength of His omnipotent hand ( עצם יד as Deu 8:17, synon. חזק ).

It is not necessary in Job 30:22 to forsake the accentuation, and to translate: Thou raisest me up, Thou causest me go in the wind (Ew., Hirz., and others); the accentuation of רוח is indeed not a disjunctive Dechî , but a conjunctive Tarcha , but preceded by Munach , which, according to the rule, Psalter ii. 500, §5, here, where two conjunctives come together, has a smaller conjunctive value. Therefore: elevas me in ventum, equitare facis me, viz., super ventum (Dachselt), for one does not only say הרכּיב על , 1Ch 13:7, or ל , Psa 66:12, but also אל , 2Sa 6:3; and accordingly תּשּׂאני אל־רוּח is also not to be translated: Thou snatchest me into the wind or storm (Hahn, Schlottm.), but: Thou raisest me up to the wind or storm, as upon an animal for riding (Umbr., Olsh.). According to Oriental tradition, Solomon rode upon the east wind, and in Arabic they say of one who hurried rapidly by, racab al -genâhai er -rih , he rides upon the wings of the wind; in the present passage, the point of comparison is the being absolutely passively hurried forth from the enjoyment of a healthy and happy life to a dizzy height, whence a sudden overthrow threatens him who is unwillingly removed (comp. Psa 102:11, Thou hast lifted me up and hurled me forth).

The lot which threatens him from this painful suspense Job expresses ( Job 30:22 ) in the puzzling words: וּתמגגני תשׁיּה . Thus the Keri , after which lxx transl. (if it has not read מישׁוּעה ), καὶ ἀπέῤῥηιψάς με ἀπὸ σωτηρίας . The modern expositors who follow the Keri , by taking ותמגגני for ותמגג לי (according to Ges. §121, 4), translate: Thou causest counsel and understanding (Welte), happiness (Blumenf.), and the like, to vanish from me; continuance, existence, duration would be better (vid., Job 6:13, and especially on Job 26:3). The thought it appropriate, but the expression is halting. Jerome, who translates valide , points to the correct thing, and Buxtorf (Lex. col. 2342f.) by interpreting the not less puzzling Targum translation in fundamento = funditus or in essentia = essentialiter , has, without intending it, hit upon the idea of the Hebr. Keri; תשׁיּה is intended as a closer defining, or adverbial, accusative: Thou causest me to vanish as to existence, ita ut tota essentia pereat h.e. totaliter et omnino . Perhaps this was really the meaning of the poet: most completely, most thoroughly, altogether, like the Arab. ḥaqqan . But it is unfavourable to this Keri , that תושׁיה (from the verb ושׁי ), as might be expected, is always written plene elsewhere; the correction of the תשׁוה is violent, and moreover this form, correctly read, gives a sense far more consistent with the figure, Job 30:22 . Ges., Umbr., and Carey falsely read תּשׁוּה , terres me; this verb is unknown in Hebr., and even in Chaldee is only used in Ithpeal , אשׁתּוי (= Hebr. חרד ); for a similar reason Böttcher's תּשׁוה (which is intended to mean: in despair) is also not to be used. Even Stuhlmann perceived that תשׁוה is equivalent to תּשׁוּאה ; it is, with Ew. and Olsh., to be read תּשׁוּה (not with Pareau and Hirz. תּשׁוה without the Dag .), and this form signifies, as תשׁואה , Job 36:29, from שׁוא = שׁאה , from which it is derived by change of consonants, the crash of thunder, or even the rumbling or roar as of a storm or a falling in ( procellae sive ruinae ). The meaning is hardly, that he who rides away upon the stormy wind melts and trickles down like drops of rain among the pealing of the thunder, when the thunder-storm, whose harbinger is the stormy wind, gathers; but that in the storm itself, which increases in fury to the howling of a tempest, he dissolves away. תּשׁוּה for בּתּשׁוּה , comp. Psa 107:26 : their soul melted away (dissolved) בּרעה . The compulsory journey in the air, therefore, passes into nothing or nearly nothing, as Job is well aware, Job 30:23 : "for I know: (without כּי , as Job 19:25; Ps. 9:21) Thou wilt bring me back to death"( acc. of the goal, or locative without any sign). If תּשׁיבני is taken in its most natural signification reduces , death is represented as essentially one with the dust of death (comp. Job 1:21 with Gen 3:19), or even with non-existence, out of which man is come into being; nevertheless השׁיב can also, by obliterating the notion of return, like redigere , have only the signification of the turn of destiny and change of condition that is effected. The assertion that שׁוּב always includes an "again,"and retains it inexorably (vid., Köhler on Zec 13:7, S. 239), is untenable. In post-biblical Hebrew, at least, it is certain that שׁוּב signifies not only "to become again,"but also "to become,"as Arab. ‛âd is used as synon. of jâ'in , devenir .

(Note: Vid., my Anekdota der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen , S. 347.)

With מות , the designation of the condition, is coupled the designation of the place: Hades (under the notion of which that of the grave is included) is the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:24-27

24 Doth one not, however, stretch out the hand in falling,

Doth he not raise a cry for help on that account in his ruin?

25 Or have I not wept for him that was in trouble,

Hath not my soul grieved for the needy? -

26 For I hoped for good, then evil came;

I waited for light, and darkness came.

27 My bowels boiled without ceasing,

Days of misery met me.

Most of the ancient versions indulge themselves in strange fancies respecting Job 30:24 to make a translatable text, or find their fancies in the text before them. The translation of the Targum follows the fancies of the Midrash, and places itself beyond the range of criticism. The lxx reads בי instead of בעי , and finds in Job 30:24 a longing for suicide, or death by the hand of another. The Syriac likewise reads בי , although it avoids this absurdity. Jerome makes an address of the assertion, and, moreover, also moulds the text under the influence of the Midrash. Aq., Symm., and Theod. strive after a better rendering than the lxx, but (to judge from the fragment in the Hexapla ) without success. Saadia and Gecatilia wring a sense out of Job 30:24 , but at the expense of the syntax, and by dragging Job 30:24 after it, contrary to the tenor of the words. The old expositors also advance nothing available. They mostly interpret it as though it were not להן , but להם (a reading which has been forced into the Midrash texts and some Codd. instead of the reading of the text that is handed down to us). Even Rosenm. thinks להן might, like the Ara. להון , be equivalent to להם ; and Carey explains the enallage generis from the perhaps existing secondary idea of womanly fear, as 2Sa 4:6, הנּה instead of המּה is used of the two assassins to describe them as cowards. But the Hebr. להן is fem.; and often as the enallage masc. pro fem. occurs, the enallage fem. pro masc. is unknown; הנּה , 2Sa 4:6, is an adv. of place (vid., moreover, Thenius in loc. ). It is just as absolutely inadmissible when the old expositors combine שׁוּע with ושׁע ( ושׁע ), or as e.g., Raschi with שׁעשׁע , and translate, "welfare"or "exhilaration"(refreshing). The signif. "wealth"would be more readily admissible, so that שׁוּע , as Aben-Ezra observes, would be the subst. to שׁוע , Job 34:19; but in Job 36:19 (which see), שׁוּע (as שׁוע Isa 22:5) signifies a cry of distress (= שׁוע ), and an attempt must be made here with this meaning before every other.

On the other hand comes the question whether בעי is not perhaps to be referred to the verb בּעה , whether it be as subst. after the form מרי (Ralbag after the Targ.) or as part. pass. (Saad. Arab. gı̂r ‛nnh lı̂s 'l -mbtgan , "only that it is not desired"). The verb does not, indeed, occur elsewhere in the book of Job, but is very consistent with its style, which so abounds in Aramaisms, and is at the same time so coloured with Arabic that we should almost say, its Hauranitish style.

(Note: The Arab. verb bg' is still extensively used in Syria, and that in two forms: Arab. bg' ybgy and bg' ybg' . In Damascus the fut. i is alone used; whereas in Hauran and the steppe I have only found fut. a. Thus e.g., the Hauranite poet Kâsim el-Chinn says: "The gracious God encompass thee with His favour and whatever thy soul desires ( wa -l -nefsu ma tebghâ ), it must obtain its desire"( tanûlu munâhû , in connection with which it is to be observed that Arab. bâl , fut. u is used here in the signification adipisci, comp. Fleischer on Job 15:29 [ supra i. 270, note]). - Wetzst.)

Thus taking בעי as one word, Ralbag transl.: prayer stretched not forth the hand, which is intended to mean: is not able to do anything, cannot cause the will of God to miscarry. This meaning is only obtained by great violence; but when Renan (together with Böckel and Carey, after Rosenm.) translates: Vaines prières!..il étend sa main; à quoi bon protester contre ses coups? the one may be measured with the other. If בעי is to be derived from בעי , it must be translated either: shall He, however, without prayer ( sine imploratione ), or: shall He, however, unimplored ( non imploratus ), stretch out His hand? The thought remains the same by both renderings of בעי , and suits as a vindication of the cry for help in the context. But בּעה , in the specific signification implorare , deprecari , is indeed the usage of the Targum, although strange to the Hebr., which is here so rich in synonyms; then, in the former case, לא for בלא is harsh, and in the other, בעי as part. pass. is too strong an Aramaism. We must therefore consider whether בעי as עי with the praep . בּ gives a suitable sense. Since שׁלח יד בּ , e.g., Job 28:9 and elsewhere, most commonly means "to lay the hand on anything, stretch out the hand to anything,"it is most natural to take בעי in dependence upon ישׁלח ידו , and we really gain an impressive thought, if we translate: Only may He not stretch out His hand (to continue His work of destruction) to a heap of rubbish (which I am already become); but by this translation of Job 30:24 , Job 30:24 remains a glaring puzzle, insoluble in itself and in respect of the further course of the thought, for Schlottmann's interpretation, "Only one does not touch ruins, or the ruin of one is the salvation of another,"which is itself puzzling, is no solution. The reproach against the friends which is said to lie in Job 30:24 is contrary to the character of this monologue, which is turned away from his human opponents; then שׁוּע does not signify salvation, and there is no "one"and "another"to be found in the text. We must therefore, against our inclination, give up this dependent relation of בעי , so that בעי signifies either, upon a heap of rubbish, or, since this ought to be על־עי : by the falling in; עי (from עוה = ‛iwj ) can mean both: a falling in or overthrow ( bouleversement ) as an event, and ruins or rubbish as its result.

Accordingly Hirz. translates: Only upon the ruins (more correctly at least: upon ruins) one will not stretch out his hand, and Ew.: Only - does not one stretch out one's hand by one's overthrow? But this "only"is awkward. Hahn is of opinion that אך לא may be taken in the signification not once, and translates: may one not for once raise one's hand by one's downfall; but even this is lame, because then all connection with what precedes is wanting; besides, אך לא does not signify ne quidem . The originally affirmative אך has certainly for the most part a restrictive signification, which, as we observed on Job 18:21, is blended with the affirmative in Hebr., but it is also, as more frequently אכן , used adversatively, e.g., Job 16:7, and in the combination אך לא this adversative signification coincides with the restrictive, for this double particle signifies everywhere else: only not, however not, Gen 20:12; 1Ki 11:39; 2Ki 12:14; 2Ki 13:6; 2Ki 23:9, 2Ki 23:26. It would be more natural to translate, as we have stated above: only may be not, etc., but Job 30:24 puts in its veto against this. If, as Hirz., Ew., and Hahn also suppose, לא , Job 30:24 , is equivalent to הלא , so that the sentence is to be spoken with an interrogative accent, we must translate אך as Jer. has done, by verumtamen . He knows that he is being hurried forth to meet death; he knows it, and has also already made himself so familiar with this thought, that the sooner he sees an end put to this his sorrowful life the better - nevertheless does one not stretch out one's hand when one is falling? This involuntary reaction against destruction is the inevitable result of man's instinct of self-preservation. It needs no proof that שׁלח יד can signify "to stretch out one's hand for help;" ישׁלח is used with a general subj.: one stretches out, as Job 17:5; Job 21:22. With this determination of the idea of Job 30:24 , Job 30:24 is now also naturally connected with what precedes. It is not, however, to be translated, as Ew. and Hirz.: if one is in distress, is not a cry for help heard on account of it? If אם were intended hypothetically, a continuation of the power of the interrogative לא from Job 30:24 would be altogether impossible. Hahn and Loch-Reischl rightly take אם in the sense of an . It introduces another turn of the question: Does one, however, not stretch out one's hand to hasten the fall, or in his downfall (raise) a cry for help, or a wail, on that account? Döderlein's conjecture, לחן for להן (praying "for favour"), deserves respectful mention, but it is not needed: להן signifies neutrally: in (under) such circumstances (comp. בּהם , Job 22:21; Isa 64:5), or is directly equivalent to להן , which (Rth 1:13) signifies propterea , and even in biblical Chaldee, beside the Chaldee signif. sed , nisi , retains this Hebrew signif. (Dan 2:6, Dan 2:9; Dan 4:24). פּיד , which signifies dying and destruction (Talmud. in the peculiar signif.: that which is hewn or pecked open), synon. of איד , has been already discussed on Job 12:5.

Job 30:25

The further progress of the thoughts seems to be well carried out only by our rendering of Job 30:24. The manifestation of feeling - Job means to say - which he himself felt at the misfortune of others, will be still permitted to him in his own misfortune, the seeking of compassion from the sympathising: or have I not wept for the hard of day? i.e., him whose lot in life is hard (comp. Arab. qası̂y , durus , miser ); did not my soul grieve for the needy? Here, also, לא from Job 30:25 continues its effect (comp. Job 3:10; Job 28:17); עגם is ἅπ. γεγρ. , of like signification with אגם , whence אגם Isa 19:10, אגמה (sadness) b. Moëd katan 14 b , Arab. agima , to feel disgust. If the relation of Job 30:25 to Job 30:24 is confirmatory, Job 30:26 and what follows refers directly to Job 30:24 : he who felt sympathy with the sufferings of others will nevertheless dare in his own affliction to stretch out his hand for help in the face of certain ruin, and pour forth his pain in lamentation; for his affliction is in reality inexpressibly great: he hoped for good (for the future from his prosperous condition, in which he rejoiced),

(Note: lxx Aldina: ἐγὼ δὲ ἀπέχων ἀγαθοῖς , which Zwingli rightly corrects ἐπέχων ( Codd. Vat., Alex., and Sinait. ).)

then came evil; and if I waited for light, deep darkness came. Ewald (§232, h ) regards ואיחלה as contracted from ואיחלה , but this shortening of the vowel is a pure impossibility. The former signifies rather καὶ ἤλπιζον or ἐβουλόμην ἐλπίζειν , the latter καὶ ἤλπισα , and that cohortative fut. logically forms a hypothetical antecedent, exactly like Job 19:18, if I desire to rise ( אקומה ), they speak against me (vid., Ew. §357, b ). In feverish heat and anxiety his bowels were set boiling ( רתח as Job 41:23, comp. Talmud. רתחן , a hot-headed fellow), and rested not (from this boiling). The accentuation Tarcha, Mercha, and Athnach is here incorrect; instead of Athnach, Rebia mugrasch is required. Days of affliction came upon him ( קדּם as Psa 18:6), viz., as a hostile power cutting off the previous way of his prosperity.

Keil-Delitzsch: Job 30:28-31

28 I wandered about in mourning without the sun;

I rose in the assembly, I gave free course to my complaint.

29 I am become a brother of the jackals

And a companion of ostriches.

30 My skin having become black, peels off from me,

And my bones are parched with dryness.

31 My harp was turned to mourning,

And my pipe to tones of sorrow.

Several expositors (Umbr., Vaih., Hlgst.) understand קדר of the dirty-black skin of the leper, but contrary to the usage of the language, according to which, in similar utterances (Psa 35:14; Psa 38:7; Psa 42:10; Psa 43:2, comp. supra , Job 5:11), it rather denotes the dirty-black dress of mourners (comp. Arab. qḏḏr , conspurcare vestem ); to understand it of the dirty-black skin as quasi sordida veste (Welte) is inadmissible, since this distortion of the skin which Job bewails in Job 30:30 would hardly be spoken of thus tautologically. קדר therefore means in the black of the שׂק , or mourning-linen, Job 16:15, by which, however, also the interpretation of בּלא חמּה , "without sunburn"(Ew., Hirz.), which has gained ground since Raschi's day ( לא שׁשׁזפתני השׁמשׁ ), is disposed of; for "one can perhaps say of the blackness of the skin that it does not proceed from the sun, but not of the blackness of mourning attire"(Hahn). קדר also refutes the reading בלא חמה in lxx Complut . ( ἄνευ θυμοῦ ),

(Note: Whereas Codd. Alex., Vat., and Sinait., ἄνευ φιμοῦ , which is correctly explained by κημοῦ in Zwingli's Aldine, but gives no sense.)

Syr., Jer. ( sine furore ), which ought to be understood of the deposition of the gall-pigment on the skin, and therefore of jaundice, which turns it (especially in tropical regions) not merely yellow, but a dark-brown. Hahn and a few others render בלא חמה correctly in the sense of בחשׁך , "without the sun having shone on him."Bereft of all his possessions, and finally also of his children, he wanders about in mourning ( הלּך as Job 24:10; Psa 38:7), and even the sun had clothed itself in black to him (which is what קדר השׁמשׁ means, Joe 2:10 and freq.); the celestial light, which otherwise brightened his path, Job 29:3, was become invisible. We must not forget that Job here reviews the whole chain of afflictions which have come upon him, so that by Job 30:28 we have not to think exclusively, and also not prominently, of the leprosy, since הלכתי indeed represents him as still able to move about freely.

In Job 30:28 the accentuation wavers between Dechî, Munach, Silluk, according to which בּקּהל אשׁוּע belong together, which is favoured by the Dagesh in the Beth , and Tarcha, Munach, Silluk, according to which (because Munach , according to Psalter ii. 503, §2, is a transformation of Rebia mugrasch ) קמתּי בּקּהל belong together. The latter mode of accentuation, according to which בקהל must be written without the Dag . instead of בּקהל (vid., Norzi), is the only correct one (because Dechî cannot come in the last member of the sentence before Silluk ), and is also more pleasing as to matter: I rose (and stood) in the assembly, crying for help, or more generally: wailing. The assembly is not to be thought of as an assembly of the people, or even tribunal (Ew.: "before the tribunal seeking a judge, with lamentations"), but as the public; for the thought that Job sought help against his unmerited sufferings before a human tribunal is absurd; and, moreover, the thought that he cried for help before an assembly of the people called together to take counsel and pronounce decisions is equally absurd. Welte, however, who interprets: I was as one who, before an assembled tribunal, etc., introduces a quasi of which there is no trace in the text. בּקּהל must therefore, without pressing it further, be taken in the sense of publice , before all the world (Hirz.: comp. בקהל , ἐν φανερῷ , Pro 26:26); אשׁוּע , however, is a circumstantial clause declaring the purpose (Ew. §337, b ; comp. De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe ii. §357), as is frequently the case after קום , Job 16:8; Psa 88:11; Psa 102:14 : surrexi in publico ut lamentarer , or lamentaturus , or lamentando . In this lament, extorted by the most intense pain, which he cannot hold back, however many may surround him, he is become a brother of those תּנּים , jackals ( canes aurei ), whose dolorous howling produces dejection and shuddering in all who hear it, and a companion of בּנות יענה , whose shrill cry is varied by wailing tones of deep melancholy.

(Note: It is worth while to cite a passage from Shaw's Travels in Barbary , ii. 348 (transl.), here: "When the ostriches are running and fighting, they sometimes make a wild, hideous, hissing noise with their throats distended and beaks open; at another time, if they meet with a slight opposition, they have a clucking or cackling voice like our domestic fowls: they seem to rejoice and laugh at the terror of their adversary. During the loneliness of the night however, as if their voice had a totally different tone, they often set up a dolorous, hideous moan, which at one time resembles the roar of the lion, and at another is more like the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, especially the bull and cow. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies."In General Doumas' book on the Horse of the Sahara, I have read that the male ostrich ( delı̂m ), when it is killed, especially if its young ones are near, sends forth a dolorous note, wile the female ( remda ), on the other hand, does not utter a sound; and so, when the ostrich digs out its nest, one hears a languishing and dolorous tone all day long, and when it has laid its egg, its usual cry is again heard, only about three o'clock in the afternoon.)

The point of comparison is not the insensibility of the hearers ( Sforno ), but the fellowship of wailing and howling together with the accompanying idea of the desert in which it is heard, which is connected with the idea itself (comp. Mic 1:8).

Job 30:30

Now for the first time he speaks of his disfigurement by leprosy in particular: my skin ( עורי , masc., as it is also used in Job 19:26, only apparently as fem. ) is become black ( nigruit ) from me, i.e., being become black, has peeled from me, and my bones ( עצמי , construed as fem . like Job 19:20; Psa 102:6) are consumed, or put in a glow ( חרה , Milel , from חרר , as Eze 24:11) by a parching heat. Thus, then, his harp became mournful, and his pipe ( ועגבי with ג raphatum ) the cry of the weepers; the cheerful music (comp. Job 21:12) has been turned into gloomy weeping and sobbing (comp. Lam 5:15). Thus the second part of the monologue closes. It is somewhat lengthened and tedious; it is Job's last sorrowful lament before the catastrophe. What a delicate touch of the poet is it that he makes this lament, Job 30:31, die away so melodiously! One hears the prolonged vibration of its elegiac strains. The festive and joyous music is hushed; the only tones are tones of sadness and lament, mesto, flebile .

Constable: Job 29:1--31:40

2. Job's defense of his innocence ch. 29-31

Job gave a soliloquy before his dialogue with his three friends began (ch. 3). Now he concluded that dialogue with another soliloquy (chs. 29-31). In this one, Job longed for his past state of blessedness (ch. 29), lamented his present misery (ch. 30), and reaffirmed his innocence (ch. 31). His whole discourse is a kind of concluding summary of his case, and he delivered it as if he were in court. He made no reference to his three companions.

Constable: Job 30:1-31

Job's present misery ch. 30

"Chapter 29 speaks of what the Lord gave to Job and chapter 30 speaks of what the Lord took away (cf. 1:21)."¹²³

He was presently without respect (vv. 1-15), disregarded (vv. 16-23), and despondent (vv. 24-31). He had formerly enjoyed the respect of the most respectable, but now he experienced the contempt of the most contemptible (vv. 1-15; cf. 29:8, 21-25).¹²⁴

"The lengthy description of these good-for-nothing fathers is a special brand of rhetoric. The modern Western mind prefers understatement, so when Semitic literature indulges in overstatement, such hyperbole becomes a mystery to the average Western reader. To define every facet of their debauchery, to state it in six different ways, is not meant to glory in it but to heighten the pathetic nature of his dishonor."¹²⁵

God loosed His bowstring against Job (v. 11a) by shooting an arrow at him (i.e., by afflicting him). Job's enemies cast off the figurative bridle that had previously restrained them in their contacts with him (v. 11b). Job described his soul as poured out within him (v. 16) in the sense that he felt drained of all zest for life.¹²⁶ Verse 18 probably means he felt that God was grabbing him by the lapels, so to speak, or perhaps that his sickness had discolored, rather than disheveled, his clothing. Verse 28 evidently refers to Job's emotional state whereas verse 30 refers to his physical condition even though the Hebrew words translated "mourning" and "black" are similar in meaning. The Hebrew words translated "comfort" and "fever" are also very close together in meaning. Job's mental anguish exceeded his physical agony.

Introduction / Outline

JFB: Job (Book Introduction)

JOB A REAL PERSON.--It has been supposed by some that the book of Job is an allegory, not a real narrative, on account of the artificial character of many of its statements. Thus the sacred numbers, three and seven, often occur. He had seven thousand sheep, seven sons, both before and after his trials; his three friends sit down with him seven days and seven nights; both before and after his trials he had three daughters. So also the number and form of the speeches of the several speakers seem to be artificial. The name of Job, too, is derived from an Arabic word signifying repentance.

But Eze 14:14 (compare Eze 14:16, Eze 14:20) speaks of "Job" in conjunction with "Noah and Daniel," real persons. St. James (Jam 5:11) also refers to Job as an example of "patience," which he would not have been likely to do had Job been only a fictitious person. Also the names of persons and places are specified with a particularity not to be looked for in an allegory. As to the exact doubling of his possessions after his restoration, no doubt the round number is given for the exact number, as the latter approached near the former; this is often done in undoubtedly historical books. As to the studied number and form of the speeches, it seems likely that the arguments were substantially those which appear in the book, but that the studied and poetic form was given by Job himself, guided by the Holy Spirit. He lived one hundred and forty years after his trials, and nothing would be more natural than that he should, at his leisure, mould into a perfect form the arguments used in the momentous debate, for the instruction of the Church in all ages. Probably, too, the debate itself occupied several sittings; and the number of speeches assigned to each was arranged by preconcerted agreement, and each was allowed the interval of a day or more to prepare carefully his speech and replies; this will account for the speakers bringing forward their arguments in regular series, no one speaking out of his turn. As to the name Job--repentance (supposing the derivation correct)--it was common in old times to give a name from circumstances which occurred at an advanced period of life, and this is no argument against the reality of the person.

WHERE JOB LIVED.--"Uz," according to GESENIUS, means a light, sandy soil, and was in the north of Arabia-Deserta, between Palestine and the Euphrates, called by PTOLEMY (Geography, 19) Ausitai or Aisitai. In Gen 10:23; Gen 22:21; Gen 36:28; and 1Ch 1:17, 1Ch 1:42, it is the name of a man. In Jer 25:20; Lam 4:21; and Job 1:1, it is a country. Uz, in Gen 22:21, is said to be the son of Nahor, brother of Abraham--a different person from the one mentioned (Gen 10:23), a grandson of Shem. The probability is that the country took its name from the latter of the two; for this one was the son of Aram, from whom the Arameans take their name, and these dwelt in Mesopotamia, between the rivers Euphrates and Tigris. Compare as to the dwelling of the sons of Shem in Gen 10:30, "a mount of the East," answering to "men of the East" (Job 1:3). RAWLINSON, in his deciphering of the Assyrian inscriptions, states that "Uz is the prevailing name of the country at the mouth of the Euphrates." It is probable that Eliphaz the Temanite and the Sabeans dwelt in that quarter; and we know that the Chaldeans resided there, and not near Idumea, which some identify with Uz. The tornado from "the wilderness" (Job 1:19) agrees with the view of it being Arabia-Deserta. Job (Job 1:3) is called "the greatest of the men of the East"; but Idumea was not east, but south of Palestine: therefore in Scripture language, the phrase cannot apply to that country, but probably refers to the north of Arabia-Deserta, between Palestine, Idumea, and the Euphrates. So the Arabs still show in the Houran a place called Uz as the residence of Job.

THE AGE WHEN JOB LIVED.--EUSEBIUS fixes it two ages before Moses, that is, about the time of Isaac: eighteen hundred years before Christ, and six hundred after the Deluge. Agreeing with this are the following considerations: 1. Job's length of life is patriarchal, two hundred years. 2. He alludes only to the earliest form of idolatry, namely, the worship of the sun, moon, and heavenly hosts (called Saba, whence arises the title "Lord of Sabaoth," as opposed to Sabeanism) (Job 31:26-28). 3. The number of oxen and rams sacrificed, seven, as in the case of Balaam. God would not have sanctioned this after the giving of the Mosaic law, though He might graciously accommodate Himself to existing customs before the law. 4. The language of Job is Hebrew, interspersed occasionally with Syriac and Arabic expressions, implying a time when all the Shemitic tribes spoke one common tongue and had not branched into different dialects, Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic. 5. He speaks of the most ancient kind of writing, namely, sculpture. Riches also are reckoned by cattle. The Hebrew word, translated "a piece of money," ought rather be rendered "a lamb." 6. There is no allusion to the exodus from Egypt and to the miracles that accompanied it; nor to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (PATRICK, however, thinks there is); though there is to the Flood (Job 22:17); and these events, happening in Job's vicinity, would have been striking illustrations of the argument for God's interposition in destroying the wicked and vindicating the righteous, had Job and his friends known of them. Nor is there any undoubted reference to the Jewish law, ritual, and priesthood. 7. The religion of Job is that which prevailed among the patriarchs previous to the law; sacrifices performed by the head of the family; no officiating priesthood, temple, or consecrated altar.

THE WRITER.--All the foregoing facts accord with Job himself having been the author. The style of thought, imagery, and manners, are such as we should look for in the work of an Arabian emir. There is precisely that degree of knowledge of primitive tradition (see Job 31:33, as to Adam) which was universally spread abroad in the days of Noah and Abraham, and which was subsequently embodied in the early chapters of Genesis. Job, in his speeches, shows that he was much more competent to compose the work than Elihu, to whom LIGHTFOOT attributes it. The style forbids its being attributed to Moses, to whom its composition is by some attributed, "whilst he was among the Midianites, about 1520 B.C." But the fact, that it, though not a Jewish book, appears among the Hebrew sacred writings, makes it likely that it came to the knowledge of Moses during the forty years which he passed in parts of Arabia, chiefly near Horeb; and that he, by divine guidance, introduced it as a sacred writing to the Israelites, to whom, in their affliction, the patience and restoration of Job were calculated to be a lesson of especial utility. That it is inspired appears from the fact that Paul (1Co 3:19) quotes it (Job 5:13) with the formula, "It is written." Our Savior, too Mat 24:28), plainly refers to Job 29:30. Compare also Jam 4:10 and 1Pe 5:6 with Job 22:29; Rom 11:34-35 with Job 15:8. It is probably the oldest book in the world. It stands among the Hagiographa in the threefold division of Scripture into the Law, the Prophets, and the Hagiographa ("Psalms," Luk 24:44).

DESIGN OF THE BOOK.--It is a public debate in poetic form on an important question concerning the divine government; moreover the prologue and epilogue, which are in prose, shed the interest of a living history over the debate, which would otherwise be but a contest of abstract reasonings. To each speaker of the three friends three speeches are assigned. Job having no one to stand by him is allowed to reply to each speech of each of the three. Eliphaz, as the oldest, leads the way. Zophar, at his third turn, failed to speak, thus virtually owning himself overcome (Job 27:1-23). Therefore Job continued his reply, which forms three speeches (Job 26:1-14; Job 27:1-23; Job 28:1-28; Job 29:1-31:40). Elihu (Job 32:1-37:24) is allowed four speeches. Jehovah makes three addresses (Job 38:1-41:34). Thus, throughout there is a tripartite division. The whole is divided into three parts--the prologue, poem proper, and epilogue. The poem, into three--(1) The dispute of Job and his three friends; (2) The address of Elihu; (3) The address of God. There are three series in the controversy, and in the same order. The epilogue (Job 42:1-17) also is threefold; Job's justification, reconciliation with his friends, restoration. The speakers also in their successive speeches regularly advance from less to greater vehemence. With all this artificial composition, everything seems easy and natural.

The question to be solved, as exemplified in the case of Job, is, Why are the righteous afflicted consistently with God's justice? The doctrine of retribution after death, no doubt, is the great solution of the difficulty. And to it Job plainly refers in Job 14:14, and Job 19:25. The objection to this, that the explicitness of the language on the resurrection in Job is inconsistent with the obscurity on the subject in the early books of the Old Testament, is answered by the fact that Job enjoyed the divine vision (Job 38:1; Job 42:5), and therefore, by inspiration, foretold these truths. Next, the revelations made outside of Israel being few needed to be the more explicit; thus Balaam's prophecy (Num 24:17) was clear enough to lead the wise men of the East by the star (Mat 2:2); and in the age before the written law, it was the more needful for God not to leave Himself without witness of the truth. Still Job evidently did not fully realize the significance designed by the Spirit in his own words (compare 1Pe 1:11-12). The doctrine, though existing, was not plainly revealed or at least understood. Hence he does not mainly refer to this solution. Yes, and even now, we need something in addition to this solution. David, who firmly believed in a future retribution (Psa 16:10; Psa 17:15), still felt the difficulty not entirely solved thereby (Psa. 83:1-18). The solution is not in Job's or in his three friends' speeches. It must, therefore, be in Elihu's. God will hold a final judgment, no doubt, to clear up all that seems dark in His present dealings; but He also now providentially and morally governs the world and all the events of human life. Even the comparatively righteous are not without sin which needs to be corrected. The justice and love of God administer the altogether deserved and merciful correction. Affliction to the godly is thus mercy and justice in disguise. The afflicted believer on repentance sees this. "Via crucis, via salutis" ["The way of the cross, the way of deliverance"]. Though afflicted, the godly are happier even now than the ungodly, and when affliction has attained its end, it is removed by the Lord. In the Old Testament the consolations are more temporal and outward; in the New Testament, more spiritual; but in neither to the entire exclusion of the other. "Prosperity," says BACON, "is the blessing of the Old Testament; adversity that of the New Testament, which is the mark of God's more especial favor. Yet even in the Old Testament, if you listen to David's harp, you shall hear as many hearse-like airs as carols; and the pencil of the Holy Ghost has labored more in describing the afflictions of Job than the felicities of Solomon. Prosperity is not without many fears and distastes; and adversity is not without comforts and hopes." This solution of Elihu is seconded by the addresses of God, in which it is shown God must be just (because He is God), as Elihu had shown how God can be just, and yet the righteous be afflicted. It is also acquiesced in by Job, who makes no reply. God reprimands the "three" friends, but not Elihu. Job's general course is approved; he is directed to intercede for his friends, and is restored to double his former prosperity.

POETRY.--In all countries poetry is the earliest form of composition as being best retained in the memory. In the East especially it was customary for sentiments to be preserved in a terse, proverbial, and poetic form (called maschal). Hebrew poetry is not constituted by the rhythm or meter, but in a form peculiar to itself: 1. In an alphabetical arrangement somewhat like our acrostic. For instance, Lam. 1:1-22. 2. The same verse repeated at intervals; as in Psa 42:1-11; Psa. 107:1-43. 3. Rhythm of gradation. Psalms of degrees, Psa. 120:1-134:3, in which the expression of the previous verse is resumed and carried forward in the next (Psa 121:1-8). 4. The chief characteristic of Hebrew poetry is parallelism, or the correspondence of the same ideas in the parallel clauses. The earliest instance is Enoch's prophecy (Jud 1:14), and Lamech's parody of it (Gen 4:23). Three kinds occur: (1) The synonymous parallelism, in which the second is a repetition of the first, with or without increase of force (Psa 22:27; Isa 15:1); sometimes with double parallelism (Isa 1:15). (2) The antithetic, in which the idea of the second clause is the converse of that in the first (Pro 10:1). (3) The synthetic, where there is a correspondence between different propositions, noun answering to noun, verb to verb, member to member, the sentiment, moreover, being not merely echoed, or put in contrast, but enforced by accessory ideas (Job 3:3-9). Also alternate (Isa 51:19). "Desolation and destruction, famine and sword," that is, desolation by famine, and destruction by the sword. Introverted; where the fourth answers to the first, and the third to the second (Mat 7:6). Parallelism thus often affords a key to the interpretation. For fuller information, see LOWTH (Introduction to Isaiah, and Lecture on Hebrew Poetry) and HERDER (Spirit of Hebrew Poetry, translated by Marsh). The simpler and less artificial forms of parallelism prevail in Job--a mark of its early age.

JFB: Job (Outline)

• THE HOLINESS OF JOB, HIS WEALTH, &c. (Job 1:1-5)
• SATAN, APPEARING BEFORE GOD, FALSELY ACCUSES JOB. (Job 1:6-12)
• SATAN FURTHER TEMPTS JOB. (Job 2:1-8)
• JOB REPROVES HIS WIFE. (Job 2:9-13)
• JOB CURSES THE DAY OF HIS BIRTH AND WISHES FOR DEATH. (Job 3:1-19)
• HE COMPLAINS OF LIFE BECAUSE OF HIS ANGUISH. (Job 3:20-26)
• FIRST SPEECH OF ELIPHAZ. (Job 4:1-21)
• ELIPHAZ' CONCLUSION FROM THE VISION. (Job 5:1-27)
• REPLY OF JOB TO ELIPHAZ. (Job 6:1-30)
• JOB EXCUSES HIS DESIRE FOR DEATH. (Job 7:1-21)
• THE ADDRESS OF BILDAD. (Job 8:1-22)
• REPLY OF JOB TO BILDAD. (Job 9:1-35)
• JOB'S REPLY TO BILDAD CONTINUED. (Job 10:1-22)
• FIRST SPEECH OF ZOPHAR. (Job 11:1-20) Zophar assails Job for his empty words, and indirectly, the two friends, for their weak reply. Taciturnity is highly prized among Orientals (Pro 10:8, Pro 10:19).
• JOB'S REPLY TO ZOPHAR. (Job 12:1-14:22)
• JOB'S REPLY TO ZOPHAR CONTINUED. (Job 13:1-28)
• JOB PASSES FROM HIS OWN TO THE COMMON MISERY OF MANKIND. (Job 14:1-22)
• SECOND SPEECH OF ELIPHAZ. (Job 15:1-35)
• JOB'S REPLY. (Job 16:1-22) (Job 13:4).
• JOB'S ANSWER CONTINUED. (Job 17:1-16)
• REPLY OF BILDAD. (Job 18:1-21)
• JOB'S REPLY TO BILDAD. (Job 19:1-29)
• REPLY OF ZOPHAR. (Job 20:1-29)
• JOB'S ANSWER. (Job 21:1-34)
• AS BEFORE, ELIPHAZ BEGINS. (Job 22:1-30) Eliphaz shows that man's goodness does not add to, or man's badness take from, the happiness of God; therefore it cannot be that God sends prosperity to some and calamities on others for His own advantage; the cause of the goods and ills sent must lie in the men themselves (Psa 16:2; Luk 17:10; Act 17:25; 1Ch 29:14). So Job's calamities must arise from guilt. Eliphaz, instead of meeting the facts, tries to show that it could not be so.
• JOB'S ANSWER. (Job 23:1-17)
• BILDAD'S REPLY. (Job 25:1-6) Power and terror, that is, terror-inspiring power.
• JOB'S REPLY. (Job 26:1-14)
• JOB'S SPEECH CONTINUED. (Job 28:1-28)
• SPEECH OF ELIHU. (Job 32:1-37:24) Prose (poetry begins with "I am young").
• ADDRESS TO JOB, AS (Job 32:1-22) TO THE FRIENDS. (Job 33:1-33)
• GOD'S SECOND ADDRESS. (Job 40:1-24)
• JOB'S PENITENT REPLY. (Job 42:1-6) In the first clause he owns God to be omnipotent over nature, as contrasted with his own feebleness, which God had proved (Job 40:15; Job 41:34); in the second, that God is supremely just (which, in order to be governor of the world, He must needs be) in all His dealings, as contrasted with his own vileness (Job 42:6), and incompetence to deal with the wicked as a just judge (Job 40:8-14).

TSK: Job (Book Introduction)

A large aquatic animal, perhaps the extinct dinosaur, plesiosaurus, the exact meaning is unknown. Some think this to be a crocodile but from the description in Job 41:1-41:34 this is patently absurd. It appears to be a large fire breathing animal of some sort. Just as the bomardier beetle has an explosion producing mechanism, so the great sea dragon may have an explosive producing mechanism to enable it to be a real fire breathing dragon.

TSK: Job 30 (Chapter Introduction)

Overview

Job 30:1, Job’s honour is turned into extreme contempt; Job 30:15, and his prosperity into calamity.

Poole: Job 30 (Chapter Introduction)

CHAPTER 30

Job’ s honour is turned into contempt, Job 30:1-14 ; his prosperity into calamity, fears, pains, despicableness, Job 30:15-19 ; notwithstanding his prayer now, and his former charity, and hope, Job 30:20-26 . His great sorrow, Job 30:27-31 .

But now my condition is sadly changed for the worse.

MHCC: Job (Book Introduction)

This book is so called from Job, whose prosperity, afflictions, and restoration, are here recorded. He lived soon after Abraham, or perhaps before that patriarch. Most likely it was written by Job himself, and it is the most ancient book in existence. The instructions to be learned from the patience of Job, and from his trials, are as useful now, and as much needed as ever. We live under the same Providence, we have the same chastening Father, and there is the same need for correction unto righteousness. The fortitude and patience of Job, though not small, gave way in his severe troubles; but his faith was fixed upon the coming of his Redeemer, and this gave him stedfastness and constancy, though every other dependence, particularly the pride and boast of a self-righteous spirit, was tried and consumed. Another great doctrine of the faith, particularly set forth in the book of Job, is that of Providence. It is plain, from this history, that the Lord watched over his servant Job with the affection of a wise and loving father.

MHCC: Job 30 (Chapter Introduction)

(Job 30:1-14) Job's honour is turned into contempt.

(v. 15-31) Job a burden to himself.

Matthew Henry: Job (Book Introduction)

An Exposition, with Practical Observations, of The Book of Job

This book of Job stands by itself, is not connected with any other, and is therefore to be considered alone. Many copies of the Hebrew Bible place it after the book of Psalms, and some after the Proverbs, which perhaps has given occasion to some learned men to imagine it to have been written by Isaiah or some of the later prophets. But, as the subject appears to have been much more ancient, so we have no reason to think but that the composition of the book was, and that therefore it is most fitly placed first in this collection of divine morals: also, being doctrinal, it is proper to precede and introduce the book of Psalms, which is devotional, and the book of Proverbs, which is practical; for how shall we worship or obey a God whom we know not? As to this book,

I. We are sure that it is given by inspiration of God, though we are not certain who was the penman of it. The Jews, though no friends to Job, because he was a stranger to the commonwealth of Israel, yet, as faithful conservators of the oracles of God committed to them, always retained this book in their sacred canon. The history is referred to by one apostle (Jam 5:11) and one passage (Job 5:13) is quoted by another apostle, with the usual form of quoting scripture, It is written, 1Co 3:19. It is the opinion of many of the ancients that this history was written by Moses himself in Midian, and delivered to his suffering brethren in Egypt, for their support and comfort under their burdens, and the encouragement of their hope that God would in due time deliver and enrich them, as he did this patient sufferer. Some conjecture that it was written originally in Arabic, and afterwards translated into Hebrew, for the use of the Jewish church, by Solomon (so Monsieur Jurieu) or some other inspired writer. It seems most probable to me that Elihu was the penman of it, at least of the discourses, because (Job 32:15, Job 32:16) he mingles the words of a historian with those of a disputant: but Moses perhaps wrote the first two chapters and the last, to give light to the discourses; for in them God is frequently called Jehovah, but not once in all the discourses, except Job 12:9. That name was but little known to the patriarchs before Moses, Exo 6:3. If Job wrote it himself, some of the Jewish writers themselves own him a prophet among the Gentiles; if Elihu, we find he had a spirit of prophecy which filled him with matter and constrained him, Job 32:18.

II. We are sure that it is, for the substance of it, a true history, and not a romance, though the dialogues are poetical. No doubt there was such a man as Job; the prophet Ezekiel names him with Noah and Daniel, Eze 14:14. The narrative we have here of his prosperity and piety, his strange afflictions and exemplary patience, the substance of his conferences with his friends, and God's discourse with him out of the whirlwind, with his return at length to a very prosperous condition, no doubt is exactly true, though the inspired penman is allowed the usual liberty of putting the matter of which Job and his friends discoursed into his own words.

III. We are sure that it is very ancient, though we cannot fix the precise time either when Job lived or when the book was written. So many, so evident, are its hoary hairs, the marks of its antiquity, that we have reason to think it of equal date with the book of Genesis itself, and that holy Job was contemporary with Isaac and Jacob; though not coheir with them of the promise of the earthly Canaan, yet a joint-expectant with them of the better country, that is, the heavenly. Probably he was of the posterity of Nahor, Abraham's brother, whose first-born was Uz (Gen 22:21), and in whose family religion was for some ages kept up, as appears, Gen 31:53, where God is called, not only the God of Abraham, but the God of Nahor. He lived before the age of man was shortened to seventy or eighty, as it was in Moses's time, before sacrifices were confined to one altar, before the general apostasy of the nations from the knowledge and worship of the true God, and while yet there was no other idolatry known than the worship of the sun and moon, and that punished by the Judges, Job 31:26-28. He lived while God was known by the name of God Almighty more than by the name of Jehovah; for he is called Shaddai - the Almighty, above thirty times in this book. He lived while divine knowledge was conveyed, not by writing, but by tradition; for to that appeals are here made, Job 8:8; Job 21:29; Job 15:18; Job 5:1. And we have therefore reason to think that he lived before Moses, because here is no mention at all of the deliverance of Israel out of Egypt, or the giving of the law. There is indeed one passage which might be made to allude to the drowning of Pharaoh (Job 26:12): He divideth the sea with his power, and by his understanding he smiteth through Rahab, which name Egypt is frequently called by in scripture, as Psa 87:4; Psa 89:10; Isa 51:9. But that may as well refer to the proud waves of the sea. We conclude therefore that we are here got back to the patriarchal age, and, besides its authority, we receive this book with veneration for its antiquity.

IV. We are sure that it is of great use to the church, and to every good Christian, though there are many passages in it dark and hard to be understood. We cannot perhaps be confident of the true meaning of every Arabic word and phrase we meet with in it. It is a book that finds a great deal of work for the critics; but enough is plain to make the whole profitable, and it was all written for our learning.

1. This noble poem presents to us, in very clear and lively characters, these five things among others: - (1.) A monument of primitive theology. The first and great principles of the light of nature, on which natural religion is founded, are here, in a warm, and long, and learned dispute, not only taken for granted on all sides and not the least doubt made of them, but by common consent plainly laid down as eternal truths, illustrated and urged as affecting commanding truths. Were ever the being of God, his glorious attributes and perfections, his unsearchable wisdom, his irresistible power, his inconceivable glory, his inflexible justice, and his incontestable sovereignty, discoursed of with more clearness, fulness, reverence, and divine eloquence, than in this book? The creation of the world, and the government of it, are here admirably described, not as matters of nice speculation, but as laying most powerful obligations upon us to fear and serve, to submit to and trust in, our Creator, owner, Lord, and ruler. Moral good and evil, virtue and vice, were never drawn more to the life (the beauty of the one and the deformity of the other) than in this book; nor the inviolable rule of God's judgment more plainly laid down, That happy are the righteous, it shall be well with them; and Woe to the wicked, it shall be ill with them. These are not questions of the schools to keep the learned world in action, nor engines of state to keep the unlearned world in awe; no, it appears by this book that they are sacred truths of undoubted certainty, and which all the wise and sober part of mankind have in every age subscribed and submitted to. (2.) It presents us with a specimen of Gentile piety. This great saint descended probably not from Abraham, but Nahor; or, if from Abraham, not from Isaac, but from one of the sons of the concubines that were sent into the east-country (Gen 25:6); or, if from Isaac, yet not from Jacob, but Esau; so that he was out of the pale of the covenant of peculiarity, no Israelite, no proselyte, and yet none like him for religion, nor such a favourite of heaven upon this earth. It was a truth therefore, before St. Peter perceived it, that in every nation he that fears God and works righteousness is accepted of him, Act 10:35. There were children of God scattered abroad (Joh 11:52) besides the incorporated children of the kingdom, Mat 8:11, Mat 8:12. (3.) It presents us with an exposition of the book of Providence, and a clear and satisfactory solution of many of the difficult and obscure passages of it. The prosperity of the wicked and the afflictions of the righteous have always been reckoned two as hard chapters as any in that book; but they are here expounded, and reconciled with the divine wisdom, purity, and goodness, by the end of these things. (4.) It presents us with a great example of patience and close adherence to God in the midst of the sorest calamities. Sir Richard Blackmore's most ingenious pen, in his excellent preface to his paraphrase on this book, makes Job a hero proper for an epic poem; for, says he, " He appears brave in distress and valiant in affliction, maintains his virtue, and with that his character, under the most exasperating provocations that the malice of hell could invent, and thereby gives a most noble example of passive fortitude, a character no way inferior to that of the active hero," etc. (5.) It presents us with an illustrious type of Christ, the particulars of which we shall endeavour to take notice of as we go along. In general, Job was a great sufferer, was emptied and humbled, but in order to his greater glory. So Christ abased himself, that we might be exalted. The learned bishop Patrick quotes St. Jerome ore than once speaking of Job as a type of Christ, who for the job that was set before him endured the cross, who was persecuted, for a time, by men and devils, and seemed forsaken of God too, but was raised to be an intercessor even for his friends and had added affliction to his misery. When the apostle speaks of the patience of Job he immediately takes notice of the end of the Lord, that is, of the Lord Jesus (as some understand it), typified by Job, Jam 5:11.

2. In this book we have, (1.) The history of Job's sufferings, and his patience under them (ch. 1, Job 2:1-13, not without a mixture of human frailty, ch. 3. (2.) A dispute between him and his friends upon them, in which, [1.] The opponents were Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. [2.] The respondent was Job. [3.] The moderators were, First, Elihu, ch. 32-37. Secondly, God himself, ch. 38-41. (3.) The issue of all in Job's honour and prosperity, ch. 42. Upon the whole, we learn that many are the afflictions of the righteous, but that when the Lord delivers them out of them all the trial of their faith will be found to praise, and honour, and glory.

Matthew Henry: Job 30 (Chapter Introduction)

It is a melancholy " But now" which this chapter begins with. Adversity is here described as much to the life as prosperity was in the foregoing chapter, and the height of that did but increase the depth of this. God sets the one over-against the other, and so did Job, that his afflictions might appear the more grievous, and consequently his case the more pitiable. I. he had lived in great honour, but now he had fallen into disgrace, and was as much vilified, even by the meanest, as ever he had been magnified by the greatest; this he insists much on (Job 30:1-14). II. He had had much inward comfort and delight, but now he was a terror and burden to himself (Job 30:15, Job 30:16) and overwhelmed with sorrow (Job 30:28-31). III. He had long enjoyed a good state of health, but now he was sick and in pain (Job 30:17-18, Job 30:29, Job 30:30). IV. Time was when the secret of God was with him, but now his communication with heaven was cut off (Job 30:20-22). V. He had promised himself a long life, but now he saw death at the door (Job 30:23). One thing he mentions, which aggravated his affliction, that it surprised him when he looked for peace. But two things gave him some relief: - 1. That his troubles would not follow him to the grave (Job 30:24). 2. That his conscience witnessed for him that, in his prosperity, he had sympathized with those that were in misery (Job 30:25).

Constable: Job (Book Introduction)

Introduction

Title

This book, like many others in the Old Testament, got its name from the central character in it rather than from its writer. While it is possible that Job may have written it, there is no concrete evidence that he did.

"Job" means "hated" or "the much persecuted." Perhaps "Job" was a nickname his friends gave him during his suffering. Job is the title of the book in the Hebrew, Greek (Septuagint), Latin (Vulgate), and English Bibles.

Date

Concerning the time the events recorded took place there have been many views ranging from the patriarchal age of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (beginning about 2100 B.C.) to the sixth century B.C.

Internal evidence suggests that Job lived in the patriarchal period. The length of his life (either 140 or about 210 years; 42:16) is similar to that of Terah (205 years), Abraham (175 years), Isaac (180 years), and Jacob (147 years). The writer measured Job's wealth in terms of his livestock. This is how Moses evaluated the wealth of Abraham and Jacob (1:3; 42:12; cf. Gen. 12:16; 13:2; 30:43; 32:5). The Sabeans and Chaldeans (1:15, 17) were nomads during the patriarchal period but not later. Job was the priest of his family (1:5) a condition that became less common when nations in the Near East developed more organization. Names of people and places in the book were also common in the patriarchal age (e.g., Sheba, Tima, Eliphaz, Uz, Job). Genesis, the Mari documents, and the Egyptian Execration texts, all of which refer to life in the Near East at this time, also refer to these names.

"The idea that Job has an Edomite background is as old as the LXX, which equates Job with Jobab, king of Edom (Gn. 36:33)."¹

"Most recent [liberal] writers are agreed that in its original form the book was of post-exilic origin, and the secondary parts of later composition."²

Internal evidence, however, has led many careful students of the book to conclude that it was the work of one person. Perhaps someone else added a few minor touches later under divine inspiration (e.g., 42:16-17). If Job lived in the patriarchal period, as the evidence seems to suggest, what clues are there that someone did not write it then or very soon afterwards? The detailed recounting of the conversations that took place certainly suggests a composition date fairly close to that of the actual events. That has been the position of Jewish and Christian scholars until destructive criticism became popular in the last few centuries. Critics point to the fact that oral tradition was very exact in the ancient world and that people could have transmitted Job's story by mouth for generations and retained its purity. With the Holy Spirit's superintending work it could have been, but there is no evidence that this is what happened. Literacy was widespread in the ancient world at this time.³ Critics further point out that in the process of social evolution composition of a work such as this book was more typical at a date much later than the patriarchal period. Yet again there is no evidence that someone wrote it later. The simpler explanation is that someone wrote it early. Since there is no proof that someone wrote it later, most conservative scholars have continued to prefer the traditional early date of composition theory.

Writer

The book does not identify its writer. Furthermore the ancient Hebrews could not agree on who wrote it. Consequently many different scholars have made guesses as to who the writer was.

From the patriarchal period Job himself is the favored candidate, though some scholars have nominated Elihu. These men seem to be the most likely of the chief characters to have preserved the record of Job's trials. There are many examples of ancient extra-biblical writings in which the author spoke of himself in the third person, so we need not eliminate Job on that ground. The book reads as though an eyewitness of the events recorded wrote it.

Jewish tradition favored Moses as the writer. Moses recorded other events during the patriarchal period in Genesis, he was familiar with desert life, and he had enough ability to write such a book as this one.

Solomon has supporters mainly because he composed other poetic biblical literature (Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and Song of Solomon). Moreover there are some similarities between Job and Proverbs such as the relationship between fearing God and being wise.

Other scholars have suggested later writers including Hezekiah, Isaiah, and Ezra.

Of course, the writer may have been none of these individuals. No one knows for sure who wrote Job. I tend to prefer a contemporary of Job or Job himself because of the antiquity of this view and the fact that no one has proved it unsatisfactory.

Scope

It is also difficult to determine how much time the events narrated in the book cover.

The first chapter tells about Job's life before his trial, and the last chapter reveals what happened after it until Job's death. The chapters in between deal with a relatively short period in Job's long life. How long was this period?

We have a few clues. Job referred to months when he spoke of his sufferings (7:3; 29:2). In view of Job's physical symptoms his ailments seem to have bothered him for several months at least. He may have suffered for years. However, Job said the same people who had respected him previously had come to reject and avoid him. He implied that his rejection was fairly recent.

The main part of the book contains dialogue that took place between a few individuals. There is no indication in the text that extended periods of time interrupted Job's sojourn at the city dump. It seems to have continued for a few days at the most, though the conversations may have stopped and then restarted. The writer may have telescoped the events to keep the narrative flowing smoothly. It appears that the scope of the main action at the city dump lasted no longer than a few days or possibly weeks.

Genre

Job is primarily a combination of at least three literary types: lawsuit,⁴ lament,⁵ and controversy dialogue.⁶ The larger category is wisdom literature. However there are so many different types of literature in this book that many writers despair of assigning one type as the dominant one.

"The book of Job defies all efforts to establish its literary genre. While it has been viewed as an epic,⁷ a tragedy,⁸ and a parable,⁹ upon close analysis it is none of these even though it exhibits properties belonging to each of them. As Robert Gordis observes, the author of Job has created his own literary genre.¹⁰ The book is didactic in the sense that the author seeks to teach religious truth, a task which he executes primarily by means of lyrical poetry expressive of deep emotions."¹¹

"The book of Job is an astonishing mixture of almost every kind of literature to be found in the Old Testament. Many individual pieces can be isolated and identified as proverbs, riddles, hymns, laments, curses, lyrical nature poems."¹²

"One should think of this aspect of interpretation [i.e., genre] as being like the Olympics, a grand occasion made up of a variety of sports. Though it is all sport, each game is played by its own rules and has its own expectations about how to play the game. The variety of literature is the same way. It all has a message, but it conveys that message in a variety of ways and with a variety of expectations. To try to play basketball with soccer's rules will never work, though both use a ball and require foot speed. Or think of musical instruments, they all make music, but in different ways with different sounds. One cannot play the violin like a piano or drums; nor should one expect a violin to sound like either a piano or the kettledrum! In the same way, to read the poetry of the Psalms like a historical book is to miss the emotional and pictorial impact of the message, though both genres convey reality about people's experience with God."¹³

Message

What this book is all about has been the subject of considerable debate. Many people think God gave it to us to provide His answer to the age-old problem of suffering. In particular, many believe it is in the Bible to help us understand why good people suffer. This is undoubtedly one of the purposes of the book and one that I want to develop at some length. However, I think another purpose is more foundational than this one.

Other people have focused on the great questions Job voiced in the book. During his suffering, when God allowed Satan to knock all the props that support human earthly existence out from under him, Job got down to the most basic needs that people face. He made many profound observations about life. He articulated the most fundamental needs that human beings have. He voiced the greatest philosophical questions about life. These questions are an extremely important contribution of the book and one that I plan to give some attention. Nevertheless I think God has inspired and preserved the message of the Book of Job primarily for another reason.

I believe He did so because this book proves that the basic relationship that God has established with people does not rest on retribution but on grace. This is the message statement. Let me explain it.

In our study of the Old Testament historical books I have pointed out that God blesses people for two reasons. These are His sovereign choice to bless and people's response of trust and obedience to Him.

Because we cannot control God's sovereign choice to bless some people more than others we tend to forget that. We tend to focus on what we can control to some extent, namely our securing His blessing by trusting and obeying Him. This is understandable and legitimate, but it leads to a potential problem. The problem is that we may conclude that we can control God. Since God blesses those who trust and obey Him and He curses those who do not, we may conclude that if we trust and obey God, He owes us blessing.

This conclusion assumes that the basis of God's relationship with people is retribution. If I am good, God will reward me with blessing in some form, but if I am bad, He will punish me somehow. While this is normally the way God deals with human beings it is not always His method. Consequently there must be a more fundamental principle that governs God's dealings with people. On what basis does God consistently deal with us?

Throughout the Book of Job this is the major question that God is answering. Every major character in the book--Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, Zopher, and Elihu--assumed that God governed humankind on the basis of retribution. They believed there were no exceptions to the rule that God blesses good people and punishes bad people.

Job concluded that God was unjust since he had been good but God was allowing him to suffer. Job's wife agreed with him. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zopher believed that Job must be a bad man instead of a good man since he was suffering. Elihu felt the solution to this apparent exception to the rule was not God's injustice but Job's ignorance rather than his sin. Elihu took a more agnostic approach to the solution of Job's problem. He suspected Job was a bad man, but he wasn't as sure about that as Job's other three friends were.

The Book of Job reveals that while God usually blesses the godly and punishes the ungodly, He does not always do so. There is a more fundamental basis from which God operates. That basis is His own free choice to bless or not bless whom He will.

We might conclude then that the basis of God's dealings with mankind is His sovereignty. However, that answer goes too far back. God's sovereignty really has nothing to do with how He rules. The attribute of sovereignty only sets forth God's position as supreme ruler. How does God rule sovereignly? If it is not on the basis of retribution, on what basis is it?

Evidence in the Book of Job points to God's grace as the basis of His dealings with people. Instead of always dealing with us in retribution, God always deals with us in grace. What does this mean?

This means that instead of responding to our good actions with blessing or our bad actions with cursing God initiates favor toward us without our deserving it.

What is the evidence in the Book of Job that God always deals with people on this basis?

This comes through in God's responses to Job (chs. 38-41). In replying to Job, God essentially reminded him of how good He had been to Job. He pointed out how much wiser and stronger He was than Job. In all of this, God wanted to impress Job with His favor toward the patriarch. That Job got the point is clear from the fact that when God finished speaking Job simply rested in God (42:6). He returned to his joy in being the recipient of God's unmerited favor even though God had not answered his questions.

How does the conflict in heaven that we learn about in chapters 1 and 2 fit into this view? Satan too believed that retribution was the basis on which God deals with people (1:9-11). God proceeded to show him that he was wrong. God allowed calamities to overtake a good man. Then when Job's trouble was all over, God blessed him even though he did not trust and obey God as he should have during his trials (42:12-17).

Satan has consistently failed to appreciate God's grace. Instead of being grateful for his own blessings, he has been in rebellion to obtain more than God gave him. Moreover he has led people to do the same things (cf. Gen. 3; Matt. 4).

I would also like to comment on a fourth possible message of the book that some have suggested. Some students of Job have said that the whole purpose of the book is to show God's superiority over Satan. Not many people hold this view, but it has appealed to some. The main problem with this interpretation, from my viewpoint, is that the dialogues and monologues that constitute the bulk of the book (in chapters 3-41) contribute nothing to this theme. While they do contain references to God's greatness, they do not deal with the issue of God's superiority over Satan.

Finally let me make some observations about the great revelation of this book, namely that the basis for God's dealings with man is His grace rather than His retribution.

First, the Book of Job appears to have been one of the first books of the Bible that God gave as special revelation if not the first. If it was one of the first, its subject would have been one of the most foundational for human beings to understand as history unfolded. What more basic revelation could God have given than the message of this book? The knowledge that God initiates favor toward His creatures without their earning or deserving it is at the heart of God's plan of salvation and the doctrine of God. When you think of Job, think of grace (cf. Ps. 103:10).

Second, like Satan, we tend to disbelieve that God wants the best for us, and we doubt that He will give it to us. Consequently we try to secure what we want for ourselves. We also become ungrateful for God's grace. Ingratitude is at the root of much sin as well as much unhappiness in life. Rejoice in God's grace. Cultivate a spirit of thankfulness (1 Thess. 5:18).

Third, we tend to elevate a secondary principle of God's dealings with people (retribution) into the primary position because it enables us to feel we have some control over God. In this way we can get God to serve us rather than serving God. If I can obligate God to bless me by being good, then God owes me something. Many people, of course, believe God owes them salvation because they are good people. However, we cannot dictate to God how He should bless us. We can count on His promises to bless in certain ways when we relate to Him in certain ways. Yet if God does not bless us as we wish He would, when we do not have His promise, we can still count on the fact that He will bless us ultimately. He will do so because it is His will and He has promised to bless the righteous. His basis of dealing with us is grace.

What about the unsaved? If God wants to bless everyone, why does He send some to eternal torment? The fact that some people choose not to accept God's grace does not mean He does not reach out to them with grace. The whole Bible is a testimony to the fact that God always has and always will reach out to humankind offering unmerited favor. The basis of God's dealings with humankind is grace. His common grace extends to all (Rom. 1; Eph. 1). God does not give us what we deserve. He gives us much better than we deserve.

Constable: Job (Outline)

Outline

I. Prologue chs. 1-2

A. Job's character 1:1-5

B. Job's calamities 1:6-2:10

1. The first test 1:6-22

2. The second test 2:1-10

C. Job's comforters 2:11-13

II. The dialogue concerning the basis of the divine-human relationship 3:1-42:6

A. Job's personal lament ch. 3

1. The wish that he had not been born 3:1-10

2. The wish that he had died at birth 3:11-19

3. The wish that he could die then 3:20-26

B. The first cycle of speeches between Job and his three friends chs. 4-14

1. Eliphaz's first speech chs. 4-5

2. Job's first reply to Eliphaz chs. 6-7

3. Bildad's first speech ch. 8

4. Job's first reply to Bildad chs. 9-10

5. Zophar's first speech ch. 11

6. Job's first reply to Zophar chs. 12-14

C. The second cycle of speeches between Job and his three friends chs. 15-21

1. Eliphaz's second speech ch. 15

2. Job's second reply to Eliphaz chs. 16-17

3. Bildad's second speech ch. 18

4. Job's second reply to Bildad ch. 19

5. Zophar's second speech ch. 20

6. Job's second reply to Zophar ch. 21

D. The third cycle of speeches between Job and his three friends chs. 22-27

1. Eliphaz's third speech ch. 22

2. Job's third reply to Eliphaz chs. 23-24

3. Bildad's third speech ch. 25

4. Job's third reply to Bildad chs. 26-27

E. Job's concluding soliloquies chs. 28-31

1. Job's discourse on God's wisdom ch. 28

2. Job's defense of his innocence chs. 29-31

F. Elihu's speeches chs. 32-37

1. The introduction of Elihu 32:1-5

2. Elihu's first speech 32:6-33:33

3. Elihu's second speech ch. 34

4. Elihu's third speech ch. 35

5. Elihu's fourth speech chs. 36-37

G. The cycle of speeches between Job and God 38:1-42:6

1. God's first speech 38:1-40:2

2. Job's first reply to God 40:3-5

3. God's second speech 40:6-41:34

4. Job's second reply to God 42:1-6

III. Epilogue 42:7-17

A. Job's friends 42:7-9

B. Job's fortune 42:10-17

A structural outline of Job14
Prologue	Job's opening lament	Dialogue-dispute(3 cycles)	Interlude on Wisdom	Monologues (3 cycles)	Job's closing contribution	Epilogue
Chs. 1-2	Ch. 3	Chs. 4-14 Chs. 15-- 21 Chs. 22-- 27	Ch. 28	Chs. 29-- 31 (Job) Chs. 32-- 37 (Elihu) Chs. 38-- 41 (God)	Chs. 40:3-5; 42:1-6	Ch. 42:7-17

Constable: Job

Job

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Gammie, John G. "Behemoth and Leviathan: On the Didactic and Theological Significance of Job 40:15-41:26." In Israelite Wisdom: Theological and Literary Essays in Honor of Samuel Terrien, pp. 217-31. Edited by John G. Gammie, Walter A. Brueggmann, W. Lee Humphreys, and James M. Ward. New York: Union Theological Seminary, 1978.

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Copyright 2003 by Thomas L. Constable

Haydock: Job (Book Introduction)

THE BOOK OF JOB.

INTRODUCTION.

This Book takes its name from the holy man, of whom it treats; who, according to the more probable opinion, was of the race of Esau, and the same as Jobab, king of Edom, mentioned [in] Genesis xxxvi. 33. It is uncertain who was the writer of it. Some attribute it to Job himself; others to Moses, or some one of the prophets. In the Hebrew it is written in verse, from the beginning of the third chapter to the forty-second chapter. (Challoner) --- The beginning and conclusion are historical, and in prose. Some have divided this work into a kind of tragedy, the first act extending to chap. xv., the second to chap. xxii., the third to chap. xxxviii., where God appears, and the plot is unfolded. They suppose that the sentiments of the speakers are expressed, though not their own words. This may be very probable: but the opinion of those who look upon the work as a mere allegory, must be rejected with horror. The sacred writers speak of Job as of a personage who had really existed, (Calmet) and set the most noble pattern of virtue, and particularly of patience, Tobias ii. 12., Ezechiel xiv. 14., and James v. 11. Philo and Josephus pass over this history, as they do those of Tobias, Judith, &c. (Haydock) --- The time when Job lived is not clearly ascertained. Some have supposed (Calmet) that he was a contemporary with Esther; (Du Hamel; Thalmud) on which supposition, the work is here placed in its chronological order. But Job more probably live during the period when the Hebrews groaned under the Egyptian bondage, (Haydock) or sojourned in the wilderness, Numbers xiv. 9. The Syrians place the book at the head of the Scriptures. (Calmet) --- Its situation has often varied, and is of no great importance. The subject which is here treated, is of far more; as it is intended to shew that the wicked sometimes prosper, while the good are afflicted. (Haydock) --- This had seldom been witnessed before the days of Abraham: but as God had now selected his family to be witnesses and guardians of religion, a new order of things was beginning to appear. This greatly perplexed Job himself; who, therefore, confesses that he had not sufficiently understood the ways of God, till he had deigned to explain them in the parable of the two great beasts, chap. xlii. 3. We cannot condemn the sentiments expressed by Job, since God has declared that they were right, chap. xlii. 8) and reprimands Elihu, (chap. xxxviii. 2.) and the other three friends of Job, for maintaining a false opinion, though, from the history of past times, they had judge it to be true. This remark may excupate them from the stain of wilful lying, and vain declamation. (Houbigant) --- However, as they assert what was false, their words of themselves are of no authority; and they are even considered as the forerunners of heretics. (St. Gregory; St. Augustine, &c.) (Tirinus) --- Job refutes them by sound logic. (St. Jerome) --- We may discover in this book the sum of Christian morality, (Worthington) for which purpose it has been chiefly explained by St. Gregory. The style is very poetical, (Haydock) though at the same time simple, like that of Moses. (Du Hamel) --- It is interspersed with many Arabic and Chaldaic idioms; (St. Jerome) whence some have concluded, that it was written originally by Job and his friends (Haydock) in Arabic, and translated into Hebrew by Moses, for the consolation of his brethren. (Worthington) --- The Hebrew text is in many places incorrect; (Houbigant) and the Septuagint seem to have omitted several verses. (Origen) --- St. Jerome says almost eight hundred, (Calmet) each consisting of about six words. (Haydock) --- Shultens, in 1747, expressed his dissatisfaction with the labours of all preceding commentators. To explain this book may not therefore be an easy task: but we must be as short as possible. (Haydock) --- Those who desire farther information, may consult Pineda, (Worthington) whose voluminous work, in two folios, will nearly (Haydock) give all necessary information. (Calmet)

Gill: Job (Book Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOB

This book, in the Hebrew copies, generally goes by this name, from Job, who is however the subject, if not the writer of it. In the Vulgate Latin version it is called "the Book of Job"; in the Syriac version, the Writing of Job; and in the Arabic, the Writing or Book of Job the Just. In some Hebrew Bibles it stands between the Book of Proverbs and the Song of Solomon; but, according to the Talmudists ^a, it should stand between the Psalms of David and the Proverbs of Solomon. Some have made a question of it, whether there ever was such a man as Job, and suppose this book not to be a real history, or to contain matters of fact, but to be written under fictitious names, and to be parabolical, and that it is designed to set forth an example of patience in suffering affliction; and some of the Jewish writers ^b affirm, that Job never was in being, and that this book is a parable, apologue, or fable; and to this Maimonides ^c himself inclines; but this opinion is justly rejected by Aben Ezra, Peritsol, and others; for that there was such a man is as certain as that there were such men as Noah and Daniel, with whom he is mentioned by the Prophet Ezekiel, Eze 14:14 and the testimony of the Apostle James is full to this purpose, who speaks of him as a person well known, and not to be doubted of; of whom, and of whose patience, the Jews he writes to had heard much, Jam 5:11 besides, the names of the countries where he and his friends lived, the account given of his family, and of his substance, both before and after his afflictions, show it to be a real history. Learned men are not agreed about the signification of his name; according to Jerom ^d, it signifies a magician, taking it to be the same with אוב, "ob": and some Jewish writers ^e place him with Balaam and Jethro, as the counsellors of Pharaoh against the Israelites, for which he was afflicted: the same ancient fathers render the word grieving and howling; others, as Spanheim ^f, derive it from יאב, to "love" or "desire", and so it signifies desire or delight, and is the same with Desiderius or Erasmus; hence Job is called by Suidas ^g τριποθητος, exceeding desirable; but Hillerus ^h, deriving it from the same root, makes it to signify just the reverse, "without desire"; or not desirable; and supposes it to be a compound of יאוב, "desire", and איב, "not"; but the generality of writers derive it from איב, "to be at enmity", and so it signifies one that is exposed to the hatred and enmity of men, or one that is a hater and enemy of wicked men; or, as Schmidtt ⁱ interprets it, a man zealous for God, and showing hatred to wickedness and wicked men on his account. Who Job was, it is not easy to say; not the same with Jobab, of the race of Esau, as some, Gen 36:33. Aristeas ^k says he was a son of Esau himself, by his wife Bessare, and was first called Jobam; nor the same with Job a son of Issachar, Gen 46:13, nor was he a descendant of Abraham by Keturah; but rather sprung from Uz, the firstborn of Nahor, brother of Abraham, Gen 22:21, who gave name to the country where Job lived, as Buz his brother did to that of which Elihu was, and as Chesed, another brother of Uz, did to the Chasdim or Chaldeans, who were both near to Job. It is also not agreed in what time Job lived; Maimonides ^l says, of their writers some place him in the times of the patriarchs, some in the times of Moses, others in the times of David, and others say that he was of the wise men of Babylon; and some add, that he was of them that came out of the captivity there, and had a school at Tiberias, as say the Talmudists ^m who give very different accounts of him: some say he was in the times of the judges; others in the times of the queen of Sheba; and others in the times of Ahasuerus; but the more general opinion is, and indeed the more probable, that he was born when the Israelites went down into Egypt, and that he was dead when they came from thence ⁿ: in short, they place him almost in all the ages from Abraham to the Babylonish captivity, and after it; and even Luther ^o was of opinion that he lived in the times of Solomon, for which there is no more reason than for the rest: it seems most probable that he lived before Moses ^p, at least before the giving of the law to him, since no mention is made of it in this book, nor any reference to it; whereas there is to things more ancient, as the general deluge, the burning of Sodom, &c. the law concerning sacrifices only to be offered by priests was not as yet given; for Job offered sacrifices as being the head of his family, and so did his three friends, Job 1:5. The length of his life best agrees with the times before Moses, for in his time the age of man was reduced to seventy years; whereas Job must live two hundred years or more, since he lived one hundred and forty after his restoration: add to this, that this book seems to have been written before any idolatry was in the world but the worship of the sun and moon, Job 31:25 and before there were any writings divinely inspired, since there is no appeal to any in the whole controversy between Job and his friends; but the appeal is made to men of years and wisdom, and to traditions of former times, Job 5:1. According to Dr. Owen ^q Job lived three hundred and fifty years after the dispersion at Babel, about A. M. 2100. It is also greatly controverted who was the writer of this book; some ascribe the writing of it to Isaiah the prophet; others to Solomon, as Luther ^r; others to one of the prophets who was an Idumaean; but most to Moses, so the Jews ^s say, that he wrote his own book, the section of Balaam, and Job. Some think that he wrote it when in Midian, for the comfort and encouragement of the Hebrews afflicted in Egypt at that time, and who might hope to be delivered out of their afflictions, as this good man was delivered out of his; and this, it is supposed, accounts for the use of many Arabic words in it; Midian being in Arabia, where Moses, having lived some years, had mixed their language with his own. Some are of opinion that he met with this book when in those parts, which he found either in the Arabic or Syriac language, and translated it into Hebrew ^t for the use of the Israelites; and others think it was written by Job's friends, and particularly by Elihu, which is concluded from Job 32:15, but it is most probable that it was written by Job himself, or at least compiled from his diary or "adversaria" kept by him, or from those of his friends, or from both, and that it was written in the language it is now in: but be it written by whom it may, there is no doubt to be made of the divine authority of it; as appears from the sublimity of the style, the subject matter of it, its agreement with other parts of the sacred writings, and particularly from a quotation of a passage out of Job 5:13 by the Apostle Paul, 1Co 3:19 see also Job 5:17, compared with Heb 12:5. The design of it is not only in general to assert and explain the doctrine of Providence, as Maimonides observes; but in particular to show, that, though good men are afflicted, yet sooner or later they are delivered out of their afflictions; and that it becomes them to bear them patiently, and not murmur at them; nor complain of God on account of them, whose ways and works are unsearchable, and who gives no account of his matters to men, but is sovereign, wise, and just, in all he does; and whatsoever is done by him issues in the good of his people, as well as in his own glory, as the event shows. This book may be considered either as an history of the life of Job, in which an account is given of him in his prosperity; of his afflictions, and how they came upon him; of a visit paid him by his friends, and of the discourses that pass between him and them, and of his restoration to greater affluence than he enjoyed before: or as a drama or dialogue consisting of divers parts, and in which various speakers are introduced, as God, Satan, Job, his wife, and friends; or as a dispute, in which Job's three friends are the opponents, himself the respondent, Elihu the moderator, and God the umpire, who settled and determined the point in question. It contains many useful things in it concerning the Divine Being, and the perfections of his nature, his wisdom, power, justice, goodness, and sovereignty; concerning the works of creation and providence; concerning original sin, and the corruption of mankind; concerning redemption by Christ, and good works to be done by men; and concerning the resurrection of the dead, and eternal life. Some think Job was a type of Christ in his afflictions and sufferings; in his patience under them, and deliverance out of them; in his exaltation to an high pitch of happiness and prosperity; and in his intercession for his friends. He is in many things worthy of imitation, though in others to be blamed, and not followed; and, on the whole, this book of his may be read with great pleasure and profit.

Gill: Job 30 (Chapter Introduction)

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 30

Job in this chapter sets forth his then unhappy state and condition, in contrast with his former state of prosperity described in the preceding chapter: things had taken a strange turn, and were just the reverse of what they were before; he that was before in such high esteem and credit with all sorts of men, young and old, high and low, rich and poor, now is had in derision by the meanest and basest of men, whose characters are described, Job 30:1; and the instances of their contempt of him by words and gestures are given, Job 30:9; he who enjoyed so much ease of mind, and health of body, is now filled with distresses of soul, and bodily diseases, Job 30:15; and he who enjoyed so much of the presence of God, and communion with him, and of his love and favour, was now disregarded, and, as he thought, cruelly used by him, who not only had destroyed his substance, but was about to bring him to the grave, Job 30:20; all which came upon him, though he had a sympathizing heart with the poor, and them that were in trouble, and when he expected better things, Job 30:25; and he close the chapter, lamenting his sad and sorrowful circumstances, Job 30:29.