17:6 They will be like a shrub 1 in the desert.
They will not experience good things even when they happen.
It will be as though they were growing in the desert,
in a salt land where no one can live.
30:3 gaunt 2 with want and hunger,
they would gnaw 3 the parched land,
in former time desolate and waste. 4
30:4 By the brush 5 they would gather 6 herbs from the salt marshes, 7
and the root of the broom tree was their food.
30:5 They were banished from the community 8 –
people 9 shouted at them
like they would shout at thieves 10 –
30:6 so that they had to live 11
in the dry stream beds, 12
in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.
30:7 They brayed 13 like animals among the bushes
and were huddled together 14 under the nettles.
1 tn This word occurs only here and in Jer 48:6. It has been identified as a kind of juniper, which is a short shrub with minute leaves that look like scales. For a picture and more discussion see Fauna and Flora of the Bible, 131.
2 tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.
3 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).
4 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.”
5 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.
6 tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.
7 tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.
8 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).
9 tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.
10 tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.
11 tn This use of the infinitive construct expresses that they were compelled to do something (see GKC 348-49 §114.h, k).
12 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).
13 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.
14 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).