Daniel 4:25

4:25 You will be driven ¹  from human society, ²  and you will live ³  with the wild animals. You will be fed ⁴  grass like oxen, ⁵  and you will become damp with the dew of the sky. Seven periods of time will pass by for you, before ⁶  you understand that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms and gives them to whomever he wishes.

Daniel 4:32-33

4:32 You will be driven from human society, and you will live with the wild animals. You will be fed grass like oxen, and seven periods of time will pass by for you before ⁷  you understand that the Most High is ruler over human kingdoms and gives them to whomever he wishes.”

4:33 Now in that very moment ⁸  this pronouncement about ⁹  Nebuchadnezzar came true. ¹⁰  He was driven from human society, he ate grass like oxen, and his body became damp with the dew of the sky, until his hair became long like an eagle’s feathers, and his nails like a bird’s claws. ¹¹ 

Job 30:3-7

30:3 gaunt ¹²  with want and hunger,

they would gnaw ¹³  the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste. ¹⁴ 

30:4 By the brush ¹⁵  they would gather ¹⁶  herbs from the salt marshes, ¹⁷ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

30:5 They were banished from the community ¹⁸  –

people ¹⁹  shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves ²⁰  –

30:6 so that they had to live ²¹ 

in the dry stream beds, ²² 

in the holes of the ground, and among the rocks.

30:7 They brayed ²³  like animals among the bushes

and were huddled together ²⁴  under the nettles.

[4:25]  ¹ tn The Aramaic indefinite active plural is used here like the English passive. So also in v. 28, 29,32.

[4:25]  ² tn Aram “from mankind.” So also in v. 32.

[4:25]  ³ tn Aram “your dwelling will be.” So also in v. 32.

[4:25]  ⁴ tn Or perhaps “be made to eat.”

[4:25]  ⁵ sn Nebuchadnezzar’s insanity has features that are associated with the mental disorder known as boanthropy, in which the person so afflicted imagines himself to be an ox or a similar animal and behaves accordingly.

[4:25]  ⁶ tn Aram “until.”

[4:32]  ⁷ tn Aram “until.”

[4:33]  ⁸ tn Aram “hour.”

[4:33]  ⁹ tn Or “on.”

[4:33]  ¹⁰ tn Aram “was fulfilled.”

[4:33]  ¹¹ tn The words “feathers” and “claws” are not present in the Aramaic text, but have been added in the translation for clarity.

[30:3]  ¹² tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.

[30:3]  ¹³ 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).

[30:3]  ¹⁴ 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.”

[30:4]  ¹⁵ 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.

[30:4]  ¹⁶ tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ¹⁷ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

[30:5]  ¹⁸ 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).

[30:5]  ¹⁹ tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.

[30:5]  ²⁰ tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.

[30:6]  ²¹ tn This use of the infinitive construct expresses that they were compelled to do something (see GKC 348-49 §114.h, k).

[30:6]  ²² 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).

[30:7]  ²³ 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.

[30:7]  ²⁴ 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).