30:29 I have become a brother to jackals
and a companion of ostriches. 1
30:30 My skin has turned dark on me; 2
my body 3 is hot with fever. 4
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.”
2 tn The MT has “become dark from upon me,” prompting some editions to supply the verb “falls from me” (RSV, NRSV), or “peels” (NIV).
3 tn The word “my bones” may be taken as a metonymy of subject, the bony framework indicating the whole body.
4 tn The word חֹרֶב (khorev) also means “heat.” The heat in this line is not that of the sun, but obviously a fever.