Job 30:1-10

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 

30:2 Moreover, the strength of their ⁴  hands –

what use was it to me?

Men whose strength ⁵  had perished;

30:3 gaunt ⁶  with want and hunger,

they would gnaw ⁷  the parched land,

in former time desolate and waste. ⁸ 

30:4 By the brush ⁹  they would gather ¹⁰  herbs from the salt marshes, ¹¹ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

30:5 They were banished from the community ¹²  –

people ¹³  shouted at them

like they would shout at thieves ¹⁴  –

30:6 so that they had to live ¹⁵ 

in the dry stream beds, ¹⁶ 

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

30:7 They brayed ¹⁷  like animals among the bushes

and were huddled together ¹⁸  under the nettles.

30:8 Sons of senseless and nameless people, ¹⁹ 

they were driven out of the land with whips. ²⁰ 

Job’s Indignities

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

I have become a byword ²¹  among them.

30:10 They detest me and maintain their distance; ²² 

they do not hesitate to spit in my face.

Psalms 35:15-16

35:15 But when I stumbled, they rejoiced and gathered together;

they gathered together to ambush me. ²³ 

They tore at me without stopping to rest. ²⁴ 

35:16 When I tripped, they taunted me relentlessly, ²⁵ 

and tried to bite me. ²⁶ 

Psalms 69:12

69:12 Those who sit at the city gate gossip about me;

drunkards mock me in their songs. ²⁷ 

Matthew 27:39-44

27:39 Those ²⁸  who passed by defamed him, shaking their heads 27:40 and saying, “You who can destroy the temple and rebuild it in three days, save yourself! ²⁹  If you are God’s Son, come down ³⁰  from the cross!” 27:41 In ³¹  the same way even the chief priests – together with the experts in the law ³²  and elders ³³  – were mocking him: ³⁴  27:42 “He saved others, but he cannot save himself! He is the king of Israel! If he comes down ³⁵  now from the cross, we will believe in him! 27:43 He trusts in God – let God, if he wants to, deliver him now ³⁶  because he said, ‘I am God’s Son’!” 27:44 The ³⁷  robbers who were crucified with him also spoke abusively to him. ³⁸ 

Matthew 27:1

Jesus Brought Before Pilate

27:1 When ³⁹  it was early in the morning, all the chief priests and the elders of the people plotted against Jesus to execute him.

Colossians 4:13

4:13 For I can testify that he has worked hard ⁴⁰  for you and for those in Laodicea and Hierapolis.

[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.

[30:2]  ⁴ tn The reference is to the fathers of the scorners, who are here regarded as weak and worthless.

[30:2]  ⁵ 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.

[30:3]  ⁶ tn This word, גַּלְמוּד (galmud), describes something as lowly, desolate, bare, gaunt like a rock.

[30:3]  ⁷ 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]  ⁸ 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]  ⁹ 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]  ¹⁰ tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ¹¹ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

[30:5]  ¹² 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]  ¹³ tn The form simply is the plural verb, but it means those who drove them from society.

[30:5]  ¹⁴ tn The text merely says “as thieves,” but it obviously compares the poor to the thieves.

[30:6]  ¹⁵ tn This use of the infinitive construct expresses that they were compelled to do something (see GKC 348-49 §114.h, k).

[30:6]  ¹⁶ 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]  ¹⁷ 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]  ¹⁸ 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).

[30:8]  ¹⁹ 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]  ²⁰ 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]  ²¹ 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.”

[30:10]  ²² tn Heb “they are far from me.”

[35:15]  ²³ tn Heb “they gathered together against me, stricken [ones], and I did not know.” The Hebrew form נֵכִים (nekhim, “stricken ones” ?) is problematic. Some suggest an emendation to נָכְרִים[כְ] (kÿnokhÿrim, “foreigners”) or “like foreigners,” which would fit with what follows, “[like] foreigners that I do not recognize.” Perhaps the form should be read as a Qal active participle, נֹכִים (nokhim, “ones who strike”) from the verbal root נָכָה (nakhah, “to strike”). The Qal of this verb is unattested in biblical Hebrew, but the peal (basic) stem appears in Old Aramaic (J. Fitzmyer, The Aramaic Inscriptions of Sefire [BibOr], 114; DNWSI 1:730.) In this case one might translate, “attackers gathered together against me though I was not aware of it” (cf. NASB “smiters”; NEB, NRSV “ruffians”; NIV “attackers”).

[35:15]  ²⁴ tn Heb “they tore and did not keep quiet.” By using the verb “tear,” the psalmist likens his enemies to a wild animal (see Hos 13:8). In v. 17 he compares them to hungry young lions.

[35:16]  ²⁵ tc The MT reads “as profane [ones] of mockers of food,” which is nonsensical. The present translation assumes (1) an emendation of בְּחַנְפֵי (bÿkhanfey, “as profane men”) to בְּחַנְפִי (bekhanfiy, “when I tripped”; preposition + Qal infinitive construct from II חָנַף [“limp”] + first common singular pronominal suffix) and (2) an emendation of לַעֲגֵי מָעוֹג (la’agey ma’og, “mockers of food”) to עָגוּ[ם]לַעְגָּ (la’gam ’agu, “[with] taunting they taunted”; masculine plural noun with enclitic mem + Qal perfect third common plural from לַּעַג [la’ag, “taunt”]).

[35:16]  ²⁶ tn Heb “gnashing at me with their teeth.” The infinitive absolute adds a complementary action – they gnashed with their teeth as they taunted.

[69:12]  ²⁷ tn Heb “the mocking songs of the drinkers of beer.”

[27:39]  ²⁸ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[27:40]  ²⁹ sn There is rich irony in the statements of those who were passing by, “save yourself!” and “come down from the cross!” In summary, they wanted Jesus to come down from the cross and save his physical life, but it was indeed his staying on the cross and giving his physical life that led to the fact that they could experience a resurrection from death to life.

[27:40]  ³⁰ tc ‡ Many important witnesses (א* A D pc it sy^[s],p) read καί (kai, here with the force of “then”) before κατάβηθι (katabhqi, “come down”). The shorter reading may well be due to homoioarcton, but judging by the diverse external evidence (א² B L W Θ 0250 Ë^1,13 33 Ï lat) it is equally possible that the shorter reading is original (and is so considered for this translation). NA²⁷ puts the καί in brackets, indicating doubts as to its authenticity.

[27:41]  ³¹ tn Here καί (kai) has not been translated.

[27:41]  ³² tn Or “with the scribes.” See the note on the phrase “experts in the law” in 2:4.

[27:41]  ³³ tn Only “chief priests” is in the nominative case; this sentence structure attempts to capture this emphasis.

[27:41]  ³⁴ tn Grk “Mocking him, the chief priests…said.”

[27:42]  ³⁵ tn Here the aorist imperative καταβάτω (katabatw) has been translated as a conditional imperative. This fits the pattern of other conditional imperatives (imperative + καί + future indicative) outlined by ExSyn 489.

[27:43]  ³⁶ sn An allusion to Ps 22:8.

[27:44]  ³⁷ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[27:44]  ³⁸ sn Matthew’s wording suggests that both of the criminals spoke abusively to him. If so, one of them quickly changed his attitude toward Jesus (see Luke 23:40-43).

[27:1]  ³⁹ tn Here δέ (de) has not been translated.

[4:13]  ⁴⁰ tn Grk “pain.” This word appears only three times in the NT outside of this verse (Rev 16:10, 11; 21:4) where the translation “pain” makes sense. For the present verse it has been translated “worked hard.” See BDAG 852 s.v. πόνος 1.