Job 30:1

Job’s Present Misery

30:1 “But now they mock me, those who are younger ¹  than I,

whose fathers I disdained too much ² 

to put with my sheep dogs. ³ 

Job 30:8-9

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, ⁴ 

they were driven out of the land with whips. ⁵ 

Job’s Indignities

30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song;

I have become a byword ⁶  among them.

[30:1]  ¹ tn Heb “smaller than I for days.”

[30:1]  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.

[30:1]  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.

[30:8]  ⁴ 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).

[30:8]  ⁵ 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.”

[30:9]  ⁶ 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.”