Job 30:29-31

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 

30:31 My harp is used for ⁵  mourning

and my flute for the sound of weeping.

[30:29]  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.”

[30:30]  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).

[30:30]  ³ tn The word “my bones” may be taken as a metonymy of subject, the bony framework indicating the whole body.

[30:30]  ⁴ tn The word חֹרֶב (khorev) also means “heat.” The heat in this line is not that of the sun, but obviously a fever.

[30:31]  ⁵ tn The verb הָיָה (hayah, “to be”) followed by the preposition ל (lamed) means “to serve the purpose of” (see Gen 1:14ff., 17:7, etc.).