“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.
Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?
They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food.
They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief;
So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles .
They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land.
“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.
They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 9 That is, mine estate is changed, and whereas before…
That is, mine estate is changed, and whereas before the ancient men were glad to do me reverence, the young men now contemn me.
Meaning to be my shepherds, or to keep my dogs.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Job 30:1 But now [they that are] younger than…
Job 30:1 But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.
Ver. 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision] Id quod ei morbo suo longe gravius fuerit, sicut et Hebraei testantur, saith Mercer. This troubled him much more than all his sores and sicknesses; that every young shackrag slighted him, and laughed him to scorn. In this case especially,
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- Faciles motus mens generosa capit (Ovid).
You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it; but to be despised or belied they cannot brook; but least of all by base persons: Quilibet ab aquila quam corvo discerpi mavult. Job was now grown ancient, and had been honourable, as he had set forth, Job 29:1-25. Old age and honour, in the Greek tongue, are near akin, Cognata sunt, γηρας et γερας, ut ηθος et εθος; and,
Summa fuit quondam capitis reverentia cani:
Inque sue precio ruga senilis erat.
But it is a sign of gasping devotion, and that things are far out of order, when the child behaveth himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable, Isa 3:5, as at Bethel, where those poorly bred children derided the old prophet, and petulantly cried after him, "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head," 2Ki 2:23. If the like unworthy usage befall us, let it suffice us that our betters, Job, David, Christ himself, have sped no better. Art not thou glad to fare as Phocion? said he to a lowly man that was to die with him.
Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock] i.e. To have made my dog keepers, that they might feed with them, as the prodigal son did with the swine. Dogs are commonly looked upon as paltry carrion creatures; only some, for their mind’s sake, and others, for certain necessary uses, as shepherds and hunters, make some reckoning of them. It was not permitted to a dog to enter into the Acropolis, or tower of Athens, for his libidinousness and ill savour, δια του ακολαστου και δυσωδους (Plut.). At Rome they crucified a dog yearly, in detestation of those dogs in the capitol that gave not warning of the approach of an enemy. Job, it seems, had his dog feeders, men of meanest account. Now these men’s sons, a beggarly breed, and very rascals, insulted and trampled upon this precious man, dealt as basely and coarsely with him, haply, as those factious fellows in Geneva did with reverend Calvin; whom they not only in contempt called Cain (as Athanasius was sometimes by his enemies called Sathanasius; and Cyprian, Coprian, that is, a dunghill fellow), but also named their dogs Calvin, as Beza, in his Life, reporteth.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv1–10 But now my condition is sadly changed for the…
But now my condition is sadly changed for the worse.
They that are younger than I; whom both universal custom and the light of nature taught to reverence their elders and betters.
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Have me in derision; make me the object of their contempt and scoffs: thus my glory is turned into shame.
I would have disdained; or rather, I might have disdained, i.e. whose condition was so mean and vile, that in the opinion and according to the custom of the world they were unworthy of such an employment.
To have set with the dogs of my flock; to be my shepherds, and the companions of my dogs which watch my flocks. Dogs are every where mentioned with contempt, as filthy, unprofitable, and accursed creatures; as 2Sa 16:9; 2Ki 8:13; Phi 3:2; Rev 22:15.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On v1 Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint…
Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint of the great disgrace he had fallen into, from the height of honour and reputation, which was exceedingly grievous and cutting to such an ingenuous spirit as Job's was. Two things he insists upon as greatly aggravating his affliction: -
I. The meanness of the persons that affronted him. As it added much to his honour, in the day of his prosperity, that princes and nobles showed him respect and paid a deference to him, so it added no less to his disgrace in his adversity that he was spurned by the footmen, and trampled upon by those that were not only every way his inferiors, but were the meanest and most contemptible of all mankind. None can be represented as more base than those are here represented who insulted Job, upon all accounts. 1. They were young, younger than he (Job 30:1), the youth (Job 30:12), who ought to have behaved themselves respectfully towards him for his age and gravity. Even the children, in their play, played upon him, as the children of Bethel upon the prophet, Go up, thou bald-head. Children soon learn to be scornful when they see their parents so. 2. They were of a mean extraction. Their fathers were so very despicable that such a man as Job would have disdained to take them into the lowest service about his house, as that of tending the sheep and attending the shepherds with the dogs of his flock, Job 30:1. They were so shabby that they were not fit to be seen among his servants, so silly that they were not fit to be employed, and so false that they were not fit to be trusted in the meanest post. Job here speaks of what he might have done, not of what he did: he was not of such a spirit as to set any of the children of men with the dogs of his flock; he knew the dignity of human nature better than to do so. 3. They and their families were the unprofitable burdens of the earth, and good for nothing. Job himself, with all his prudence and patience, could make nothing of them, Job 30:2. The young were not fit for labour, they were so lazy, and went about their work so awkwardly: Whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? The old were not to be advised with in the smallest matters, for in them was old age indeed, but their old age was perished, they were twice children. 4. They were extremely poor, Job 30:3. They were ready to starve, for they would not dig, and to beg they were ashamed. Had they been brought to necessity by the providence of God, their neighbours would have sought them out as proper objects of charity and would have relieved them; but, being brought into straits by their own slothfulness and wastefulness, nobody was forward to relieve them. Hence they were forced to flee into the deserts both for shelter and sustenance, and were put to sorry shifts indeed, when they cut up mallows by the bushes, and were glad to eat them, for want of food that was fit for them, Job 30:4. See what hunger will bring men to: one half of the world does not know how the other half lives; yet those that have abundance ought to think sometimes of those whose fare is very coarse and who are brought to a short allowance of that too. But we must own the righteousness of God, and not think it strange, if slothfulness clothe men with rags and the idle soul be made to suffer hunger. This beggarly world is full of the devil's poor. 5. They were very scandalous wicked people, not only the burdens, but the plagues, of the places where they lived, arrant scoundrels, the scum of the country: They were driven forth from among men, Job 30:5. They were such lying, thieving, lurking, mischievous people, that the best service the magistrates could do was to rid the country of them, while the very mob cried after them as after a thief. Away with such fellows from the earth; it is not fit they should live. They were lazy and would not work, and therefore they were exclaimed against as thieves, and justly; for those that do not earn their own bread by honest labour do, in effect, steal the bread out of other people's mouths. An idle fellow is a public nuisance; but it is better to drive such into a workhouse than, as here, into a wilderness, which will punish them indeed, but never reform them. They were forced to dwell in caves of the earth, and they brayed like asses among the bushes, Job 30:6, Job 30:7. See what is the lot of those that have the cry of the country, the cry of their own conscience, against them; they cannot but be in a continual terror and confusion. They groan among the trees (so Broughton) and smart among the nettles; they are stung and scratched there, where they hoped to be sheltered and protected. See what miseries wicked people bring themselves to in this world; yet this is nothing to what is in reserve for them in the other world. 8. They had nothing at all in them to recommend them to any man's esteem. They were a vile kind; yea, a kind without fame, people that nobody could give a good word to nor had a good wish for; they were banished from the earth as being viler than the earth. One would not think it possible that ever the human nature should sink so low, and degenerate so far, as it did in these people. When we thank God that we are men we have reason to thank him that we are not such men. But such as these were abusive to Job, (1.) In revenge, because when he was in prosperity and power, like a good magistrate, he put in execution the laws which were in force against vagabonds, and rogues, and sturdy beggars, which these base people now remembered against him. (2.) In triumph over him, because they thought he had now become like one of them. Isa 14:10, Isa 14:11. The abjects, men of mean spirits, insult over the miserable, Psa 35:15.
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II. The greatness of the affronts that were given him. It cannot be imagined how abusive they were.
1. They made ballads on him, with which they made themselves and their companions merry (Job 30:9): I am their song and their byword. Those have a very base spirit that turn the calamities of their honest neighbours into a jest, and can sport themselves with their griefs.
2. They shunned him as a loathsome spectacle, abhorred him, fled far from him, (Job 30:10), as an ugly monster or as one infected. Those that were themselves driven out from among men would have had him driven out. For,
3. They expressed the greatest scorn and indignation against him. They spat in his face, or were ready to do so; they tripped up his heels, pushed away his feet (Job 30:12), kicked him, either in wrath, because they hated him, or in sport, to make themselves merry with him, as they did with their companions at foot-ball. The best of saints have sometimes received the worst of injuries and indignities from a spiteful, scornful, wicked world, and must not think it strange; our Master himself was thus abused.
4. They were very malicious against him, and not only made a jest of him, but made a prey of him - not only affronted him, but set themselves to do him all the real mischief they could devise: They raise up against me the ways of their destruction; or (as some read it), They cast upon me the cause of their woe; that is, "They lay the blame of their being driven out upon me;" and it is common for criminals to hate the judges and laws by which they are punished. But under this pretence, (1.) They accused him falsely, and misrepresented his former conversation, which is here called marring his path. They reflected upon him as a tyrant and an oppressor because he had done justice upon them; and perhaps Job's friends grounded their uncharitable censures of him (Job 22:6, etc.) upon the unjust and unreasonable clamours of these sorry people; and it was an instance of their great weakness and inconsideration, for who can be innocent if the accusations of such persons may be heeded? (2.) They not only triumphed in his calamity, but set it forward, and did all they could to add to his miseries and make them more grievous to him. It is a great sin to forward the calamity of any, especially of good people. In this they have no helper, nobody to set them on or to countenance them in it, nobody to bear them out or to protect them, but they do it of their own accord; they are fools in other things, but wise enough to do mischief, and need no help in inventing that. Some read it thus, They hold my heaviness a profit, though they be never the better. Wicked people, though they get nothing by the calamities of others, yet rejoice in them.
5. Those that did him all this mischief were numerous, unanimous, and violent (Job 30:14): They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, when the dam is broken; or, "They came as soldiers into a broad breach which they have made in the wall of a besieged city, pouring in upon me with the utmost fury;" and in this they took a pride and a pleasure: They rolled themselves in the desolation as a man rolls himself in a soft and easy bed, and they rolled themselves upon him with all the weight of their malice.
III. All this contempt put upon him was caused by the troubles he was in (Job 30:11): "Because he has loosed my cord, has taken away the honour and power with which I was girded (Job 12:18), has scattered what I had got together and untwisted all my affairs - because he has afflicted me, therefore they have let loose the bridle before me," that is, "have given themselves a liberty to say and do what they please against me." Those that by Providence are stripped of their honour may expect to be loaded with contempt by inconsiderate ill-natured people. "Because he hath loosed his cord" (the original has that reading also), that is, "because he has taken off his bridle of restraint from off their malice, they cast away the bridle from me," that is, "they make no account of my authority, nor stand in any awe of me." It is owing to the hold God has of the consciences even of bad men, and the restraints he lays upon them, that we are not continually thus insulted and abused; and, if at any time we meet with such ill treatment, we must acknowledge the hand of God in taking off those restraints, as David did when Shimei cursed him: So let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. Now in all this, 1. We may see the uncertainty of worldly honour, and particularly of popular applause, how suddenly a man may fail from the height of dignity into the depth of disgrace. What little cause therefore have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! Those that today cry Hosannah may tomorrow cry Crucify. But there is an honour which comes from God, which if we secure, we shall find it not thus changeable and loseable. 2. We may see that it has often been the lot of very wise and good men to be trampled upon and abused. And, 3. That those who look only at the things that are seen despise those whom the world frowns upon, though they are ever so much the favourites of Heaven. Nothing is more grievous in poverty than that it renders men contemptible. Turba Remi sequitur fortunam, ut semper odit damnatos - The Roman populace, faithful to the turns of fortune, still persecute the fallen. 4. We may see in Job a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men and despised of the people (Psa 22:6; Isa 53:3), and who hid not his face from shame and spitting, but bore the indignity better than Job did.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–10 But now they that are younger than I have…
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,.... Meaning not his three friends, who were men in years, and were not, at least all of them, younger than he, see Job 15:10; nor were they of such a mean extraction, and such low-lived creatures, and of such characters as here described; with such Job would never have held a correspondence in the time of his prosperity; both they and their fathers, in all appearance, were both great and good; but these were a set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who, as soon as Job's troubles came upon him, derided him, mocked and jeered at him, both by words and gestures; and which they might do even before his three friends came to him, and during their seven days' silence with him, and while this debate was carrying on between them, encouraged unto it by their behaviour towards him; to be derided by any is disagreeable to flesh and blood, though it is the common lot of good men, especially in poor and afflicted circumstances, and to be bore patiently; but to be so used by junior and inferior persons is an aggravation of it; as Job was, even by young children, as was also the prophet Elisha, Kg2 2:23; see Job 19:18;
whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock; either to have compared them with the dogs that kept his flock from the wolves, having some good qualities in them which they had not; for what more loving or faithful to their masters, or more vigilant and watchful of their affairs? or to set them at meat with the dogs of his flock; they were unworthy of it, though they would have been glad of the food his dogs ate of, they living better than they, whose meat were mallows and juniper roots, Job 30:4; and would have jumped at it; as the prodigal in want and famine, as those men were, would fain have filled his belly with husks that swine did eat; but as no man gave them to him, so Job disdained to give the meat of his dogs to such as those; or to set them "over" (m) the dogs of his flock, to be the keepers of them, to be at the head of his dogs, and to have the command of them; see the phrase in Sa2 3:8; or else to join them with his dogs, to keep his flock with them; they were such worthless faithless wretches, that they were not to be trusted with the care of his flock along with his dogs. It was usual in ancient times, as well as in ours, for dogs to be made use of in keeping flocks of sheep from beasts of prey, as appears from Orpheus (n), Homer (o), Theocritus (p), and other writers: and if the fathers of those that derided Job were such mean, base, worthless creatures, what must their sons be, inferior to them in age and honour, if any degree of honour belonged to them?
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(m) "super canes", Noldius, p. 739. No. 1825. (n) De Lapidibus, Hypoth. ver. 53, 54. (o) Iliad. 10. , &c. v. 183. & Iliad 12. v. 303. (p) , &c. Idyll. 5. v. 106. & Idyll. 6. v. 9, 10.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 7, 10 Job's honour is turned into contempt, ver. 1-14. His…
Job's honour is turned into contempt, ver. 1-14. His prosperity, into fears, pains, and a sense of the wrath of God, ver. 15-22. He looks for nothing but death, ver. 23. And rest therein, ver. 24. Reflects on his former sympathy with the afflicted, ver. 25. And describes his own present calamities, ver. 26-31.
Younger - Whom both universal custom, and the light of nature, taught to reverence their elders and betters. Whose fathers - Whose condition was so mean, that in the opinion, of the world, they were unworthy to be my shepherds the companions of my dogs which watch my flocks.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Job proceeds to lament the change of his former…
CHAPTER XXX
Job proceeds to lament the change of his former condition, and
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the contempt into which his adversity had brought him, 1-15.
Pathetically describes the afflictions of his body and mind,
16-31.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXX
Verse 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision] Compare this with Job 29:8, where he speaks of the respect he had from the youth while in the days of his prosperity. Now he is no longer affluent, and they are no longer respectful.
Dogs of my flock.] Persons who were not deemed sufficiently respectable to be trusted with the care of those dogs which were the guardians of my flocks. Not confidential enough to be made shepherds, ass-keepers, or camel-drivers; nor even to have the care of the dogs by which the flocks were guarded. This saying is what we call an expression of sovereign contempt.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8 Job 30:1. But now, &c. — Job having, in…
Job 30:1. But now, &c. — Job having, in the foregoing chapter, described the honour of his former condition, goes on here, by way of contrast, to describe the vileness of his present state. They that are younger than I — Whom both universal custom and the light of nature taught to reverence their elders and betters; have me in derision — Make me the object of their contempt and scoffs: thus my glory is turned into shame. Whose fathers I would have disdained — Or, rather, might have disdained; that is, whose condition was so mean and vile, that in the opinion, and according to the custom of the world, they were unworthy to be my shepherds, and the companions of my dogs, which watch my flocks. This and the seven following verses are an exaggerated description of the vileness of those to whom he was now become a derision, notwithstanding all his former authority.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv1–10 But now they that are younger than I -…
But now they that are younger than I - Margin, “of fewer days.” It is not probable that Job here refers to his three friends. It is not possible to determine their age with accuracy, but in Job 15:10, they claim that there were with them old and very aged men, much older than the father of Job. Though that place may possibly refer not to themselves but to those who held the same opinions with them, yet none of those who engaged in the discussion, except Ehhu Job 32:6, are represented as young men. They were the contemporaries of Job; men who are ranked as his friends; and men who showed that they had had oppoptunities for long and careful observation. The reference here, therefore, is to the fact that while, in the days of his prosperity, even the aged and the honorable rose up to do him reverence, now he was the object of contempt even by the young and the worthless. The Orientals would feel this much. It was among the chief virtues with them to show respect to the aged, and their sensibilites were especially keen in regard to any indignity shown to them by the young.
Whose fathers I would have disdained - Who are the children of the lowest and most degraded of the community. How deep the calamity to be so fallen as to be the subject of derision by such men!
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To have set with the dogs of my flock - To have associated with my dogs in guarding my flock. That is, they were held in less esteem than his dogs. This was the lowest conceivable point of debasement. The Orientals had no language that would express greater contempt of anyone than to call him a dog; compare Deu 23:18; 1Sa 17:43; 1Sa 24:14; 2Sa 3:8; 2Sa 9:8; 2Sa 16:9; 2Ki 8:13; Note Isa 66:3.
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Flock, to watch over them. (Sanchez) (Calmet) --- I…
Flock, to watch over them. (Sanchez) (Calmet) --- I had so little confidence in them, (Haydock) or they were so very mean. (Calmet) --- They were not as well fed as my dogs. (Nicetas.) --- Job does not speak this out of contempt, as he was affable to all. But this proverbial expression denotes how vile these people were. (Menochius) --- Even the most contemptible, and such as were not fit to have the care of dogs, derided him. (Worthington)
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv2–10 If their fathers could be of no profit to…
If their fathers could be of no profit to me, much less the sons, who are feebler than their sires; and in whose case the hope of attaining old age is utterly gone, so puny are they (Job 5:26) [MAURER]. Even if they had "strength of hands," that could be now of no use to me, as all I want in my present affliction is sympathy.
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–10 First strophe — Formerly a prince among nobles, Job…
First strophe — Formerly a prince among nobles, Job is now grossly maltreated by hordes of pariahs, whose mode of life links them with beasts rather than with men, Job_30:1-8.
1. The dogs — In the East the dog serves as a symbol for every kind of uncleanness, (Rev_22:15,) and is universally abhorred. The scoffers Job speaks of were not fit to associate with dogs. Mohammed says, “Angels will enter no house where are dogs and pictures.” In his annals, Sardanapalus speaks of a captive king, “With the dogs I placed him, and I caused him to be chained.” — Column 8:29.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9 1. younger than I] Comp. what was said of…
1. younger than I] Comp. what was said of the demeanour of the youths in former days, ch. Job_30:8.
would have disdained to have set] Or, I disdained to set.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 7, 8, 9 (1) Whose fathers I would have disdained.—Rather, whose fathers…
XXX.
(1) Whose fathers I would have disdained.—Rather, whose fathers I disdained to set. The complaint is that the children of those who were so inferior to him should treat him thus.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1–10 Vers. 1-31. The contrast is now completed. Having drawn…
Vers. 1-31. The contrast is now completed. Having drawn the portrait of himself as he was, rich, honoured, blessed with children, flourishing, in favour with both God and man, Job now presents himself to us as he is, despised of men (vers. 1-10), afflicted of God (ver. 11), a prey to vague terrors (ver. 15), tortured with bodily pains (vers. 17, 18), cast off by God (vers. 19, 20), with nothing but death to look for (vers. 23-31). The chapter is the most touching in the whole book.
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. As Job had been speaking last of the honour in which he was once held, he beans his contrast by chewing how at present he is disgraced and derided. Men who are outcasts and solitary themselves, poor dwellers in caves (ver. 6), who have much ado to keep body and soul together (vers. 3, 4), and not men only" but youths, mere boys, scoff at him, make him a song and a byword (ver. 9). nay, "spare not to spit in his face" (ver. 10). There seem to have been in his vicinity weak and debased tribes, generally contemned and looked down upon, regarded as thieves (ver. 5) by their neighbours, and considered to be of base and vile origin (ver. 8), who saw in Job"s calamities a rare opportunity for insulting and triumphing over a member of the superior race which had crushed them, and thus tasting, to a certain extent, the sweetness of revenge. Whose fathers I would have disdained (rather, I disdained) to have set with the dogs of my flock. Job had not thought their fathers worthy of employing even as the lowest class of herdsmen, those reckoned on a par with the sheep-dogs.
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Vers. 1-15. Job"s second parable: 2. A lamentation over fallen greatness.
I THE CHARACTER OF JOB"S DERIDERS.
1. Juniors in respect of age. (Ver. 1) These were not the young princes of the city, (Job_29:8) by whom he had formerly been held in reverential regard, but "the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men" (Delitzsch) dwelling in the neighbourhood. Job"s inferiors in point of years, they should have treated him with honour and respect, (Lev_19:32) especially when they beheld his intense wretchedness and misery. That they failed to accord him such veneration as was due to seniority in age, and much more that they made him the butt of their contemptuous derision, was not only an express violation of the dictates of nature and religion (cf. the Egyptian moral precept, "Do not mock the venerable man who is thy superior;" vide "Records of the Past," vol. 8. p. 160), but a special mark of depravity in themselves, as well as a certain index to the social and moral degradation of the race to which they belonged. The good qualities of an advancing and the bad qualities of a retrograding people, infallibly discover themselves in the moral characteristics of the youthful portion of the community.
2. Base in respect of ancestry. (Vers. 1, 8) The foregoing inference from the ribald behaviour of the younger men Job confirms by describing them as "children of fools, yea, children of base men," literally, "of men without a name," and as men "whose sires" he "would have disdained to set with the dogs of his flock." It is doubtful if Job does not in this and other expressions of this passage (vers. 1-8) repay the contempt of his scornful assailants with fourfold liberality, thereby failing to evince that meekness in resenting injuries which good men should study to display, and perpetrating the same offence which he imputes to others, as well as talking about his fellow-men (God"s creatures and God"s children no less than himself) in a way that was scarcely excusable even in a patriarchal sage. Nevertheless, what he purposes to convey through the medium of his heated, if also poetic, language is that his revilers were the offspring of a vile, worthless, degraded, brutalized race, who had well-nigh sunk to the level of the beasts that perish.
3. Worthless in respect of service. (Ver. 2) Like their fathers whom Job would have disdained to rank with the dogs of his flock, i.e. whom he regarded as not worthy of being compared to these wise and faithful animals who watched his sheep, they (i.e. these younger vagabonds) were idle and effeminate triflers, lazy, worthless rascals, as little able to work as willing, the ethnic deterioration they were undergoing revealing itself in enervated physical constitutions no less than in depraved moral dispositions. The truth here enunciated with regard to nations and communities is also true of individuals, that sin, vice, immorality, has a tendency to impair the bodily strength, mental vigour, and moral power of such as yield to its fatal fascinations.
4. Furnished in respect of food. (Vers. 3, 4) Strangely blending pity with scorn, Job informs us that in great part the feebleness of those wretched creatures, who "could bring nothing to perfection" (Cox), and were not worth employing to do the work of a shepherd"s dog, was due to the difficulty they had in finding nourishment. Lean and haggard, benumbed from want and hunger, they literally gnawed the desert, picking up such scanty sustenance as the barren steppe afforded, plucking mallows in the thicket, i.e. salt-wort from off the stalk" (Fry), the salt-wort, or seapurslain, being a tall shrubby, plant which thrives in the desert as well as on the coast, "the buds and young leaves of which" also "are gathered and eaten by the poor" (Delitzsch); and taking the roots of broom for their bread, the broom abounding in the deserts and sandy places of Egypt and Arabia, and growing to a height sufficient to afford shelter to a person sitting down. A melancholy picture of destitution, which has its counterpart not only among expiring races, effete desert tribes, and wretched Troglodytes, but also in many a centre of modern civilization. It is hardly questionable that in the lower strata of society in our large cities there are thousands for whom the physical conditions of life are as severe as those just depicted by the Poet.
5. Outcasts in respect of society. (Ver. 5) In consequence of their pilfering and marauding habits, they were banished forth from the pale of the organized community Nay, when it happened that they ventured near the precincts of civilized life, they at once became the objects of a hue and cry, men hallooing after them as they did after a thief, and chasing them away to their own miserable haunts of poverty and vice. It is clear they were the criminal classes of patriarchal times, and were regarded with much the same abhorrence as the pariahs of modern society, who wage war against all constituted authority, prey upon the industry of the virtuous and law-abiding, and as a consequence live in a perpetual state of social ostracism.
6. Troglodytes in respect of habitation. (Ver. 6) Driven beyond the pale of civilized society, they were compelled "to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys," literally, "in the horror of glens," i.e. in dismal and gloomy gorges, like the Horites (or cave-men) of Mount Seir, (Gen_14:6) betaking themselves for shelter to the caves of the earth and the holes in the rocks. According to modern scientific theory, they would exemplify man in the earliest or lowest stage of his development; according to the testimony of revelation, the Troglodytes would attest man"s degeneracy from a primeval standard of perfection. And so persistent is this downward tendency in man apart from Divine grace, that almost every civilized community has its social and moral Troglodytes, who dwell in dismal valleys its wretched outcasts, children of sin and shame, whose lurking-places are dens of infamy and haunts of vice.
7. Dehumanized in respect of nature. (Ver. 7) Having previously (Job_24:5) described these evicted aborigines as leading a gregarious life, like wild asses roaming the desert under the guidance of a leader, (Job_39:5) Job recurs to the comparison to indicate, not the eager ferocity with which they scour the steppe for fodder, but how near to the brutes they have been brought by their misery, representing them as huddling themselves together under the bushes, and croaking out, in unintelligible jargon like the brayings of an ass, a doleful lamentation over their miserable condition. Herodotus compares the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians to the screeching of bats. The speech of savage races is mostly composed of "growling gutturals and sharp clicks" (Cox). As a nation advances in civilization its tongue purifies and refines. Like the cave-men of Western Asia and Ethiopia, the moral Troglodytes of society have a jargon of their own; e.g. the language of thieves.
II THE BEHAVIOUR OF JOB"S DERIDERS.
1. Mockery and contempt. (Vers. 1, 9, 10) Physically and morally degraded, this worthless rabble of marauders, half men and half beasts, having fallen in with Job in their wanderings, were so little touched by sympathy for his misfortunes, that they turned his miseries into merry jests, and made bywords of his groans. It is a special mark of depravity when youth mocks at age (2Ki_2:3) and laughs at affliction. The experience of Job was reproduced in the eases of David, (Psa_35:15 Psa_69:12) Jeremiah, (Lam_3:14, Lam_3:63) and Christ. (Mat_27:43 Luk_23:35)
2. Insult and outrage. (Ver. 10) They gave open and undisguised expression to the abhorrence with which they regarded him, by fleeing far from him, or standing at a distance, and making their remarks upon him. If they ventured to come near him it was either to spit in his presence, "the greatest insult to an Oriental" (Carey), or perhaps to spit in his face, (cf. Num_12:14 Deu_25:9) thus carrying their contempt and scorn to the lowest depth of indignity. Job had fallen low indeed to be thus outraged by the vilest dregs of society; but not lower than did Christ, who was similarly treated by the rabble of Judaea, (Mat_26:67 Mat_27:30) as long before it bad been predicted that he should be. (Isa_1:6) No doubt in all this Job"s sufferings were typical of Christ"s.
3. Hostility and violence. (Vers 12-15) Not content with words and gestures, the young vagabonds proceeded to acts of open violence. Having found the poor fallen prince groaning in wretchedness and misery upon the ash-heap outside his house, they abstained not from direct hostility. Like a crowd of witnesses starting up on his right hand, they overwhelmed him with accusations; like an army of assailants thrusting his feet away, they disputed with him every inch of ground, compelling him to retire ever further and further back; pressing on like a tumultuous besieging host, they cast up their ways of destruction, i.e. their military causeways, against him, tearing down his path so as to render escape impossible, breaking in upon him as through a wide breach, and causing him to flee in terror before their irresistible approach, so that his nobility was dispersed like the wind, and his prosperity swept away like a cloud.
III THE MOTIVE JOB"S DERIDERS.
1. Not Job"s unkindness. It was true that these insolent vagabonds, with their fathers, had been summarily evicted from their pristine settlements had been compelled, not without cruel oppression and intolerable hardship, to retire before the superior race who had dislodged them; it may also be that of that conquering Arab tribe Job was a conspicuous member, and might on that account be held responsible for the indignities and wrongs that had been heaped upon the wretched aborigines; but, in point of fact, Job disclaims having taken part in those ruthless acts of tyranny which caused the poor of the land to slink away and hide themselves, naked and shivering, in the dens and caves of the earth, in the holes and crevices of the rocks, (Job_24:4-8) and rather indicates that he regarded their sorrowful lot with compassion, even while, with disgust and aversion, he shrank from any contact with themselves. But:
2. Their own wickedness. They simply saw that he, whom they once knew as a powerful prince, was overtaken by evil fortune, and they turned upon him accordingly. That they traced Job"s calamities, as Job himself did, to the hand of God (ver. 11), was unlikely. Yet the result was the same. God, according to Job according to them, fate had unloosed iris bow and sent a shaft through the heart of this imperious autocrat, or had loosened the cord which upheld the tent of his hitherto vigorous body, and had laid him prostrate beneath a loathsome and painful disease; and so they, casting off restraint, assailed him with unbridled arrogance, acting out, in these early times, the familiar story of the kicking ass and the dead lion, "But yesterday the word of Caesar might Have stood against the world; now lies he there, And none so poor to do him reverence. ("Julius Caesar," act 3. sc. 2.)
Learn:
1. The certainty that man may decade himself beneath the level of the beasts.
2. The right of society to protect itself against the lawless and depraved.
3. The tendency of all wickedness to lead to misery even on earth.
4. The infallibility with which moral depravity perpetuates itself.
5. The instability which attends all human greatness.
6. The length to which wicked men will go in persecuting and oppressing others when God grants permission.
7. The inevitable approach of a nation"s doom when its youth has become corrupt and depraved.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-31. The troubles of the present.
In contrast to the happy past of honour and respect on which he has been so wistfully dwelling in the previous chapter, Job sees himself now exposed to the scorn and contempt of the meanest of mankind; while a flood of miseries from the hand of God passes over him. From this last chapter we have learned the honour and authority with which it sometimes pleases God to crown the pious and the faithful. From the present we see how at other times he crucifies and puts them to the proof. They must be tried on "the right hand and on the left". (2Co_6:7; comp. Php_4:12) We are reminded, too, of the transiency of all worldly good. The heavens and the earth shall perish; how much more the glory, power, and happiness of the flesh (Isaiah 40)!
I THE CONTEMPT OF MEN. (Vers. 1-10) The young men, who were wont to rise in his presence, laugh him to scorn; youths whose fathers, the lowest of mankind thievish, faithless, and worthier, a were of leas value than the watch-dogs of his flock (ver. 1). Themselves, the young men had been of no service to him; they had failed of the full strength of manhood; dried up with want and hunger, they had derived their scanty subsistence from the desolate and barren steppe (vers. 2, 3); plucking up the salt herbs and bushes and juniper roots for food (ver. 4). These wretches led the life of pariahs; driven forth from the society of men, the hunt-cry was raised after them as after thieves. Their place of dwelling was in horrid ravines and caves and rocks (vers. 5, 6). Their wild shouts were heard in the bush; they lay and formed their plots of robbery among the nettles (ver. 7). Sons of fools and base men, they were scourged out of the land (ver. 8). A fearful picture of the dregs of human life! Perhaps those Troglodytes (comp. Job_24:4) were the Horites, the original inhabitants of the mountainous country of Seir, conquered by the Edomites. (Gen_36:6-8 Deu_2:12, Deu_2:22) Of these degraded beings Job has now become the scoffing-song, the derisive byword (ver. 9). They show towards him every mark of abhorrence, retreating from him, or only drawing near to spit in his face with the silent coarse language of contumely and disgust. (ver. 10; comp. Mat_26:67 Mat_27:30) Had Job in any way brought this treatment upon himself from the vilest of mankind? Certainly there is nothing in the story which leads us to cast the blame of haughty or heartless conduct upon the hero. Still, it is ever true that we reap as we sow; but the sower and the reaper may be different persons. The cruel measure meted out to these unfortunates is now measured to the innocent Job. It is not in human nature to requite love with hatred or to give loathing in return for kindness. The responsibility of society for its outcasts is a deep lesson which we have only begun in modern times to learn. All men, however fallen and low, must be treated as the creatures of God. If we treat them as wild beasts, we can but expect the wild-beast return. Said Rabbi Ben Azar, "Despise not any man, and spurn not anything. For there is no man that hath not his hour, nor is there anything that hath not its place." Says our own Wordsworth"He who feels contempt For any living thing, hath faculties That he hath never used, and thought with him Is in its infancy. And again"Be assured That least of all can aught that ever owned The heaven-regarding eye and front sublime Which man is born to, sink, howe"er depressed, So low as to be scorned without a sin, Without offence to God, cast out of view. "Condescend to men of low estate." Gentleness and compassion to our inferiors is one of the chief lessons of our holy religion.
II ABANDONMENT TO MISERY BY GOD. (Vers. 11-15) Health and happiness are ours when God holds us by his hand; sickness, languor, and mental misery when he loosens his grasp. Job"s nerves are relaxed. The war-bands of the Almighty have loosed the bridle; angels and messengers of ill, diseases and plagues, hunt the unhappy sufferer down (ver. 11). This dark throng seems to rise up at his right hand the place of the accuser (Psa_109:6) and to push away his feet, driving him into a narrow space, laying open before him their ways of destruction, heaping up against him besieging ramparts, thus tearing down his own path, his formerly undisputed way of life. They help forward his ruin, needing no assistance from others in the pernicious work (vers. 12, 13). On comes this terrible besieging host, as through a wide breach in the wall of life rolls on with loud roar, while the defences fall into ruin (ver. 14). Terrors turn against him, sudden horrors of death (comp. Job_18:11, 14 27:20) hunting after his honour the honour depicted in Job_29:20, seq. His happiness, in consequence of these violent assaults, passes away suddenly and tracklessly as a cloud from the face of heaven. (ver. 15; comp. Job_7:9 Isa_44:22) If God lays his hand upon the body or outward happiness of his children, there will seldom be release without inward conflict, anguish, fear, and terror. It is with such persons as with St. Paul; without is conflict, and within is fear. (2Co_7:5)
III INCONCEIVABLE INWARD DISTRESS. (Vers. 16-23) His soul is melted and poured out within him; his frame is dissolved in tears. Days of pain hold him in their grip, refuse to depart and leave him in peace (ver. 16). The night racks and pierces his bones, and allows his sinews no rest (ver. 17). By the fearful power of God he is so withered up that his garment hangs loose about him, wraps him like the collar of a coat, nowhere fitting his body (ver. 18). God has cast him upon the ash-heap a sign of the deepest humiliation (Job_16:15) till his skin resembles dust and ashes in its hue (ver. 19). In this nerveless condition prayer itself seems unable to stir its loftiest, most hopeful energies. He can but cry, grievously and in supplication, but without the hope of being heard. "I stand, and thou lookest fixedly at me no sign of attention in thy glance, of favour in thine eye (ver. 20). The aspect of the almighty Father, seen through the medium of intense suffering, becomes one of cruelty and horror (ver. 21). Lifting him upon the storm-wind as upon a chariot, (comp. 2Ki_2:11) God causes him to be carried away, and dissolved as it were in the yeasty surging of the storm (ver. 22). He knows that God is carrying him to death, the place of assembly for all the living (ver. 23).
IV FAILURE OF ALL HIS HOPES. (Vers. 24-31) According to human calculation, he must despair of life. But can the unhappy man be blamed if he stretches out his hand for help amidst the ruin of his fall, and sends forth his cry as he passes into destruction? Is not this a law for all living creatures (ver. 24)? Did not Job show compassion in all the misfortunes of others, and has he not, therefore, a right to complain, and expect compassion in his own (ver. 25)? All the suffering of Job is condemned in the thought that, after the happiness of former days had bred hopes of the like future, he was visited by the deepest misery, and cast into the lowest distress (vers. 26-31). The light of former days glances upon him again, and so his address reverts to its beginning. (Job 29) Hoping for good, there ensued evil; (Isa_59:9 Jer_14:19) waiting for the light, deeper darkness came on. There is an inward seething of the mind. Days of affliction have fallen upon him. He goes darkened, without the glow of the sun; his swarthy appearance is due to another cause he is smeared with dust and ashes. He stands in the assembly, giving loud vent to his lamentation amidst the mourning company who surround him. A "brother to the jackals, a comrade of the ostriches," these desert creatures of the loud and plaintive cry, is be. His black skin parts and falls from him; his bones are parched by a consuming heat. And then, in one beautiful poetic touch, the whole description of his woe is summed up, "My harp became mourning, and my psalm mournful tones." But he will yet learn to tune his harp again to gladness and praise. Now, however, his melancholy haunts him; and not one kindly glance pierces the gloom of his dark thoughts to give him comfort. But despair of self has never led Job to despair of God. There is still, therefore, a glimmering spark of hope amidst this wild storm. He carries in his hand a bud which will yet unfold into a flower. This is no example of the fatal sorrow of the world, but of the life-giving power of the sorrow that is after God (compare Robertson"s sermon on the "Power of Sorrow," vol. 2.). J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN Vers. 1-31. A sorrowful contrast.
Job"s condition has become one of sorrowfulness, the humiliation of which stands in direct contrast to his former state. He graphically expresses it in a few words: "But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock." The picture of sorrowful humiliation, standing in contrast, to previous honour, wealth, and power, is very striking. It is a typical example, showing to what depths the loftiest may be reduced. The details are as follows.
I THE CONTEMPTUOUS TREATMENT OF MEAN AND UNWORTHY MEN. "They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth. And now am I their song, yes, I am their by-word. They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my race." It requires the utmost strength of righteous principle, and the most complete self-command and self-restraint, to endure such treatment without violent outbreaks of passion.
II GREAT MENTAL AFFLICTION. "Terrors are turned upon me;" "My soul is poured out in me.
III GREAT BODILY PAIN. "My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.
IV APPARENT INDIFFERENCE OF GOD TO HIS PRAYER. Saddest hour of all the sad hours of the human life is that when the one unfailing Helper closes his ear. The lowest depth of sorrow reached by the Man of sorrows found expression in "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
V To this is added THE FEAR THAT GOD HIMSELF TURNS HIS HAND AGAINST HIM. "Thou art become cruel to me." His afflictions appear to him as Divine judgments; yet he knoweth not why he is afflicted.
VI THE GLOOMY APPREHENSION THAT ALL WILL END IN DEATH. "Thou wilt bring me to death." No brightness in the afar-off cheers the sufferer. There is no prospect of light at eventide.
VII To all is added THE SITTER PAINFULNESS OF EXCLUSION. He is an outcast. There is no help for him in man. "I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls." Bitter, indeed, is the cup mixed of such ingredients. Strong the heart that can thus suffer and not break. R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY Vers. 1-10. The fall from honour to contempt.
I MISFORTUNE BRINGS CONTEMPT, Job has just been reciting the honours of his happier days. With the loss of prosperity has come the loss of those honours. He who was slavishly flattered in wealth and success is cruelly scorned in the time of adversity. This is monstrously unjust, and Job feels it to be so. Nevertheless, it is only true to life. Men do judge by the outward appearance. Therefore any who experience in some proportion what Job experienced need not be taken by surprise. The judgment of the world is of little worth. The good opinion of men may shift like a weathercock. We need to look for a higher, more sure and true and lasting glory than that of man"s honour.
II PRIDE PREPARES FOR CONTEMPT. There is a note of pride in ver. 1, "Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock." A relic of aristocratic hauteur creeps out in this utterance of the humiliated patriarch. If we treat men like dogs, we may expect that, when they get the chalice to do so, they will turn on us like dogs. They may cower and cringe when we are strong, but they waft be eager to snap at us when our time of weakness comes.
III MEAN NATURES JUDGE SUPERFICIALLY. As Job describes them, the miserable creatures who turned upon him were the very dregs of the populace. They were outlaws and thieves and worthless people who had been driven to mountain-caves idlers and degraded beings who grubbed up weeds to live on. Plainly these men are to be distinguished from the poor whose only defect is their want of means. Yet among them may have been some of those who in his more prosperous days blessed Job for helping them when they were ready to perish. (see Job_29:13) Ingratitude is only too common among all men, and we cannot be surprised at finding it in persons of low and brutal habits.
IV IT IS PAINFUL TO SUFFER FROM CONTEMPT. In his prosperity Job would have despised the opinion of those who now vex him with their insults. Yet he could never have been complacent under contempt. It has been well said that the greatest man in the world would receive some discomfort if he came to know that the meanest creature on earth despised him from the bottom of his heart. The pride that is quite indifferent to the good or ill opinion of others is not a virtue. Humility will set some value on the favour of the lowest. If we have a spirit of brotherliness we cannot but desire to live on good terms with all our neighbours.
V IT IS POSSIBLE TO TURN FROM THE CONTEMPT OF MAN TO THE APPROVAL OF GOD. The Christian should learn to bear contempt, since Christ bore it. He was "despised and rejected of men". (Isa_53:3) Like Job, he was insulted and spat upon. Yet we feel that all the insults with which he was loaded did not really humiliate him. On the contrary, he never appears to us so dignified as when "he opened not his mouth" in the midst of contumely and outrage. In that awful scene of the night before the crucifixion, it is the enemies of Christ who appear to us as lowered and degraded. Now we know that the cross was the ground of Christ"s highest glory. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted him ". (Php_2:9) The Church crowned the memories of her martyrs with honour. Despised, suffering Christians may learn to possess their souls in patience if they are walking in the light of God"s countenance. W.F.A.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On v1 But now they that are younger than I have…
Job_30:1-15
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision.
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Jobs social disabilities
Mans happiness as a social being is greatly dependent upon the kind feeling and respect which is shown to him by his contemporaries and neighbours. The social insolence from which he suffers, and of which he complains, was marked by the following circumstances:--
I. It came from the most contemptible characters. He regarded them as despicable in their ancestry. Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock. They were driven from among men, and people cried after them as after a thief. Among the bushes they brayed. These were the creatures amongst whom the patriarch now lived, and whose insolence he had to endure. They had no faculty to discern or appreciate his moral worth, and so utterly destitute of any power to compassionate distress that they treated him with a heartless cruelty and revolting insolence. Men may say that a man of his high character ought not to have allowed himself to have been pained with the conduct of such wretches. But who has ever done so? Even Christ Himself felt the reproaches of sinners, and was not indifferent to their revilings and their sneers. He endured their contradictions.
II. It was manifested in personal annoyances. Now I am their song, he says, I am their byword.
III. It was shown to him on account of his providential reverses. Not because he had become contemptible in character, or morally base and degraded. Only because his circumstances were changed, great prosperity had given way to overwhelming adversity. Learn--
1. The worthlessness of mere social fame. What is it worth? Nothing. Its breath of favour is more fickle than the wind.
2. The moral heroism of the worlds Redeemer. Christ came into a social position far more heartless and insolent than that which the patriarch here describes. Of the people there was none with Him, He was despised and rejected of men.
3. The importance of habitual reliance on the absolute. Do not trust in man. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 With his former state of happiness and honour Job…
THE CONTRAST.—JOB’S SOLILOQUY, CONTINUED
With his former state of happiness and honour Job now contrasts his present misery and degradation. His object as well to show the grounds he has for complaint as to ease his burdened spirit. Probably now sitting in the open air, near his own residence, outside the city. Still among the ashes, and covered from head to foot with the worst form of leprosy. Abandoned by his wife and domestics, and viewed by his pious visitors as suffering the penalty of past transgressions perhaps secretly committed, he is at the same time frequently surrounded by a rude rabble, especially of younger persons, who now, like the young men who mocked Elisha, deride him for his former piety and present affliction; perhaps taking a spiteful revenge for his former reproofs. These persons, whose character and condition, as well as that of their fathers, Job describes, probably the remains of the Horites who had been conquered and dispossessed by the Idumdans, to whom Job’s ancestors belonged, and who had now for some time been in possession of the country (Gen_14:6; Gen_36:20-21; Deu_2:12; Deu_2:22). Some of those Horites had probably been enslaved by their conquerors, while others, to preserve their liberty, had fled into the desert and taken refuge among the mountains.
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I. Job describes the class of persons by whom he was now treated with scorn and insult (Job_30:1-8). These were—
1. Younger than himself. Job_30:1.—“But now they that are younger than I have me in derision.” Derision a bitter aggravation of affliction. Christ’s experience (Mat_27:27-31; Luk_23:34-37). Such treatment from juniors an aggravation of the trial. Seniors habitually treated with respect, and veneration paid to age among the orientals, especially in Arabia. Another aggravation in Job’s case that he had formerly been treated with deference, not only by the youth but even by aged men, himself being still comparatively young (chap. Job_29:8). A sign of great corruption in morals when seniors are treated with disrespect, still more with derision—especially when these are in affliction and distress. Sad state of society when the youth are rude and insolent, and particularly towards those who suffer, whether from age, poverty, or affliction. David’s prayer (Psa_144:11-12).
2. Base-born. “Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with (in the same employment; or ‘to set over,’ as keepers; or ‘to rank in equality with’) the dogs of my flock.” A large number of dogs required for Job’s seven thousand sheep. Dogs anciently employed, as now, both for watching flocks and dwellings (Isa_56:10). Job’s language in reference to these men probably from their character and conduct rather than their condition. Observe—
(1) Sad when men, made in the image of God and capable of engaging along with angels in the highest and most honourable services, are inferior in usefulness and condition to the dogs that guard a flock of sheep, and from want of principle unfit to be entrusted even with such an employment. Dogs in the east esteemed unclean and treated with little consideration (Psa_59:14-15).
(2) The character of sin to degrade men beneath the brutes. Job_30:8.—“They were the children of fools (or ‘worthless, wicked men’—both by birth and imitation); yea, children of base men” (Heb., “of men without a name”—with no reputation except a bad one—men of low birth and still lower character). Parentage of great account in the east. Felt to be a disgrace, as well as a loss, to be born of base and wicked parents. Children unable to help their birth; yet often “like father like child.” Persons supposed to bear the character as well as the features of their parents. The education and moral training of the children of bad or base men usually neglected. Such children grow up in a morally poisonous atmosphere. The taint of the parent usually attaches more or less to the children. A man’s parentage and education often indicated by his character and conduct. Children often inherit both the parents’ vices and their consequences. To exult over the wretched sufficient evidence of a base extraction. An aggravation of Job’s trial and degradation, to be “held in derision” by youths of such low and base parentage. The contempt of the vile a bitter trial to an ingenuous spirit. David’s experience (Psa_35:15). Verified in that of Christ (Mat_27:27-31). The class of persons here described such as, from their character, were unable to obtain any respectable—however humble—employment. Job’s example in regard to them to be imitated. Important for masters and heads of families to look well to the character of those whom they employ, even in the humblest situations. David’s resolution (Psa_101:6-7).
3. Feeble and useless. Job_30:2.—“Yea whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?” (or, “in whom the vigour of manhood was lost;” or, “in whom there was no expectation of their ever reaching old age,” whether from their vices or their mode of life,—neither having strength to work themselves nor wisdom to direct others). Job’s reason for treating them as he did;—in this case the clause applied rather to the fathers than to the sons. Observe—
(1) No uncommon thing for vices, as well as inadequate means of life, to enfeeble the frame and induce premature old age and death. Races by such means often stunted in stature as well as enfeebled in mind, and often die out. Often the case with the aborigines of lands taken into possession by a foreign race. Well if the vices, as in the case of the North American Indians and others, have not been imported by the foreigners themselves.
(2) True religion favourable to physical as well as spiritual growth and development. Muscularity the natural outcome of a healthy Christianity. God’s truth and service beneficial to man in all his aspects.
(3) Godliness no less profitable to races than to individuals. Humanity itself either deteriorated by vices and their consequences, or elevated by religion and morality.
(4) Physical vigour and longevity among the features of the millennial period and the reign of righteousness upon earth. “The child shall die an hundred years old, and the sinner, being an hundred years old, shall be accursed. As the days of a tree shall be the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands” (Isa_65:20-22).
4. Wretched and famished. Job_30:3.—“For want and famine they were solitary (or, ‘afflicted,’—‘desolate,’ as in Isa_49:21; or, in ‘extreme want and hunger’); fleeing into the wilderness (as unfit for civilized life, or as loving the solitude and independence of the desert, or finally from a sense of guilt and shame as evil-doers; or, ‘gnawing’ and feeding on the wilderness), in former time desolate and waste (or, ‘the night or darkness of the solitary waste’); who cut up mallows (or purslain, a species of halimus; a saltish plant growing in deserts, beside hedges, and by the sea-shore, and used as food by the poor) by the bushes, and juniper roots (or, ‘roots of the broom,’ a plant abundant in the sandy plains of Arabia) for their food” (or ‘to warm themselves,’—the stems of the juniper or broom being used for fuel, as the berries and roots were for food). These men probably worse off for food than were Job’s dogs. No fault however of Job’s. Some prefer the most wretched fare to following an honest calling. One of the effects of sin, somewhere, that men are in any degree destitute of the proper means of life. Abundant provision originally made by the Creator for man’s comfortable subsistence (Gen_1:29). Man, continuing in obedience, would have eaten of the good, not only of Paradise, but of every land. The finest of the wheat and honey out of the rock the promised portion of obedient Israel (Psa_81:16). The earth in consequence of man’s sin, made to yield him thorns and thistles (Gen_5:18). Vice and indolence in some, with tyranny and oppression in others, still continue want and misery in the world. Among the blessings of the better time coming under the Prince of Peace, is, that “the earth shall yield her increase,” and men “shall eat and be satisfied” (Psa_68:6; Psa_68:22; Psa_68:26; Isa_65:21-22).
5. Excluded from civilized society. Verse.
5.—“They were driven from among men,—to dwell in the cliffs (or ‘clefts,’—perhaps rather ‘the horrid gloom’) of the valleys (ravines or torrent-beds), in caves of the earth and in the rocks. Among the bushes they brayed (like wild asses, for thirst or hunger; or ‘groaned’ from want and misery): under the nettles (or brambles) they were gathered together” (they huddled together; or “stretched themselves,” as all the resting-place they had). To dwell in valleys in the East a mark of vileness. The rocks of stony Arabia abundant in caves. The text descriptive both of the country and the manners of the inhabitants. A people in that region anciently known as Troglodytes, or dwellers in caves. Such places the usual resort of some at least of the inhabitants of a subjugated mountainous country, as well as of the lowest and most lawless among the people. The fastnesses of the mountains in Wales the last resource of the ancient Britons. Dens and caves the refuge of the persecuted worshippers of Jehovah in the days of Ahab and at other times (1Ki_17:4; Heb_11:38). The retreat of the Christians of Madagascar. The parties mentioned in the text expelled from the cities and inhabited parts of the country on account of their vicious conduct and disreputable character. Evil-doers in a state to be improved or expelled. The diseased limb, however, only to be cut off when all means of cure have failed. Time not to be lost in purging either Church or State of corrupt and incorrigible members. “One sinner destroyed much good.” “Evil communications,” &c. David’s resolution as king of Israel and type of Messiah: “I will early cut off all evil-doers from the city of the Lord” (Psa_101:8).
6. Depraved in character and conduct. Job_30:5.—“They cried after them as after a thief” (in the way of threatening, or in order to their apprehension, or to warn others of their character). Job_30:8.—“They were viler than the earth” (or, “they were whipped out of the land,” viz., for their evil deeds) perhaps one of the results of Job’s careful administration of justice, for which the wretched vagabonds, or their sons, now make retaliation on the humbled magistrate (Pro_20:8; Pro_20:26).
The section brings us face to face with a portion of the lowest stratum of humanity and the dregs of society. Such found in most countries, Britain not excepted. The result not merely of vice and indolence in themselves and their fathers, perhaps for generations, but also probably of oppression and neglect on the part of their superiors. Their existence in a country often, under Divine Providence, a retribution. Probably due to Christianity that the description in the text was not verified in the British refugees among the mountains of Wales, and even in the Saxons after the Norman possession. The waifs and roughs, thieves and city Arabs, in the slums of London, perhaps as much the result of harsh treatment and neglect as of personal depravity. Church and State in general only now beginning to wake up to a sense of duty in regard to this class of society, when the case has become next to unmanageable. The great problem of the present day—What is to be done for the reclamation and elevation of the sunken masses? Much capable of being done both by Church and State, under the impulse of loving hearts and the direction of enlightened heads. The Gospel of the grace of God, suitably presented and lovingly applied, the Divinely-appointed, and therefore the most efficient, means of restoring fallen humanity. Embraces in the contemplated objects of its operation the lowest grades of society in every land. The commission of its Divine Author: “Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature.” Possesses in itself, and along with its faithful ministration, a power sufficient to elevate the lowest and reclaim the most utterly lost of the human family. “The power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth.” “Mighty through God to the pulling down of the strongholds” of ignorance and vice. Has already proved itself adequate to this end. Has achieved its triumphs both among the profligates of Corinth, and the Bechuanas of Caffraria. The glory of Christianity, that its greatest, and perhaps most numerous, trophies have been from among the lowest classes of society. “Not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble are called; but God hath chosen the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; and God hath chosen the weak things of the world to confound the things which are mighty: and base things of the world, and things which are despised hath God chosen, yea and things which are not, to bring to nought things which are” (1Co_1:26-28).
Christianity suited to all classes and conditions of men. Views all men as brethren. Teaches the unity of the race. “God hath made of one blood all nations of men” (Act_17:26). The Gospel an enemy to caste of every description. All nations and all classes represented by it as equally the purchase of the same precious blood of the Son of God (1Ti_2:6). The countless multitude of the redeemed before the throne gathered out of every nation, and kindred, and people, and tongue (Rev_7:9). One of the precepts of Christianity, “Honour all men” (1Pe_2:17. “Fraternity,” and “equality,” as well as “liberty,” emblazoned on the Gospel banner. Corresponding responsibility involved in regard to its possessors. Only a Cain asks: “Am I my brother’s keeper.”
Solemn inquiry for every possessor and professor of the Gospel: Am I faithfully attempting to perform my part, however humble, in raising up the sunken masses of my brethren at home and abroad, by communicating to them that Gospel which has already done so much for many and for me? Am I, like the Master I profess to follow, while contemplating, whether with the eye of the body or of the mind, the multitudes that are as sheep without a shepherd, “moved with compassion towards them,” and so moved as, like Him also, to reach forth a helping hand? or, Am I still verily guilty concerning my brother?
II. The treatment received from these persons (Job_30:9-14). Enlarged on by Job, as indicating how deeply he felt it. Particulars specified.
1. His sufferings and afflictions made the subject of their coarse jests and ribald mirth. Job_30:9.—“And now I am their song (accompanied with a musical instrument): yea, I am their byword” (or jest, probably both from his former piety and present sufferings; perhaps, also, as the rich man brought low, the proud Emir humbled, and the secret oppressor punished). Similar treatment experienced by David, and by David’s Lord and antitype (Psa_35:15; Psa_69:12). Christ, in His deepest affliction, taunted with His former trust in God and charity to men, while now neither delivered by God nor able to deliver Himself (Mat_27:43; Luk_23:35). The prophet Jeremiah in his humiliation also the song of his ungodly countrymen (Lam_3:14; Lam_3:63). In Job’s case this treatment from the rabble less to be wondered at after the conduct of his pious friends. Note—The lower classes of the Arabs addicted to scurrility and abuse. Indulge freely in the streets and bazaars in satirical and abusive songs upon their rulers and superiors. Clever in extemporising verses, which they usually accompany with the music of a drum, tambourine, or lute.
2. Shunned with abhorrence. Job_30:10—“They abhor me; they flee far from me.” Their abhorrence of him from—
(1) His loathsome disease.
(2) His lying apparently under the Divine malediction.
(3) His supposed wickedness and oppression as the cause of it. His miserable disease, instead of evoking sympathy, caused him only to be avoided as a pestilence or a sight too loathsome and shocking to be looked upon.
3. Treated with insult and contempt. “They spare not (either as doing it abundantly and repeatedly, or as casting off all restraint) to spit in my face” (or, in my presence). Note: Orientals seldom spit but for the purpose of insult, and much more frequently spit on the ground before the party they wish to insult than on his face or person, though both are done. To spit out before another an expression of the greatest contempt (Deu_25:9). Frequently done by Mohammedans in respect to Christians, whom they regard as infidels and dogs. So great the affront in the East, that when done even by a father in regard to his daughter, the shame of the thing required her to shut herself up in her tent or apartment for a whole week (Num_12:14). Sad contrast in Job’s case with his former honour (chap. Job_29:8-11). This deep insult put more than once upon the Son of God while standing as our substitute. Predicted (Isa_50:6). Realized (Mat_26:67; Mat_27:30).
4. All restraint in regard to him cast off by the rabble around him, in consequence of his affliction. Job_30:11.—“Because he (the Almighty) hath loosed my cord (dissolved my strength and authority; or, according to another reading, ‘his cord,’—giving loose reins to his anger), and afflicted (or humbled) me, they have also let loose the bridle before me” (have cast off all restraint in my presence, and treat me with unbridled insolence). All Job’s afflictions ascribed by him to God as their first Author. His cord now loosed by Him, a sad contrast to his fond anticipation (chap. Job_39:8-11). Observe—The wicked sometimes allowed to say and do whatever their pleasure may suggest or their malice invent. This now done by Job’s enemies—
(1) As if it were a merit to treat with insult one who appeared the object of Divine execration.
(2) From the absence either of power in himself or inclination in others to restrain them. The same experienced by the Saviour from the soldiers, servants, and others, when in the hands of his enemies (Mar_14:65; Mar_15:16-20).
5. Violently pushed by rude youths, who employed every method to annoy and distress him. Job_30:12.—“Upon my right hand (—the place of accusers; also where he should otherwise have been most able to defend himself,—thus chosen for greater insult and contempt) rise the youth (Hebrew, ‘brood,’—so called in disdain); they push away my feet (probably stretched out as he sat or lay among the ashes), and raise up against me the ways of their destruction” (or, “their destructive ways,”—the ways by which they may attack and destroy me, like the raised ways or banks of a besieging army, 2Ki_19:32). A wicked and mischievous band of city youths, like those who mocked Elisha at Jericho, now surround and assault him on set purpose to annoy and do him injury, as an army employing every means they can contrive to overthrow the beleaguered fortress. A picture of deeper degradation and misery hardly conceivable; all the darker from the contrast afforded by the previous chapter. Yet, even this only a shadow of the outrages endured by the King of kings when “made a curse for us” (Mat_25:3-4, to the end of that and the following chapter).
6. His sufferings increased by the rabble, who seemed to take pleasure in adding to his affliction, and completing his overthrow. Job_30:13.—“They mar (cut up) my path (annoying me whenever I attempt to walk, and preventing all escape or access to me from without), they set forward my calamity [as if it afforded them profit as well as pleasure], they have no helper” (persons of the lowest and most worthless character). So Christ in His last sufferings reviled by the thieves that were crucified with Him (Mat_27:44). Observe—A mark of deepest depravity to take pleasure in another’s calamity, and to add affliction to those already afflicted. Edom and other nations severely threatened for similar conduct in regard to humbled Israel (Oba_1:10-15; Zec_1:15). The experience also of David and David’s son (Psa_69:26).
7. His utter ruin eagerly sought by the rabble multitude about him. Job_30:14.—“They came (or come) upon me as a wide breaking-in of waters (or, ‘as by a wide breach’—the figure of a siege still continued); in the (or, like a) desolation (or, ‘under the crash or ruin,’ as of the falling walls and buildings of the breached fortress; or, ‘with a tumult,’ or ‘shout’ of triumph) they rolled (or roll) themselves upon me” (as a storming party entering the breach). Implies—
(1) The number of those seeking to distress and overthrow him.
(2) Their eagerness in their wickedness.
(3) Their actual mischief.
The section affords an affecting view of the depths of Job’s aggravated and accumulated sufferings. As if the sudden and peculiarly melancholy death of his whole ten children; the loss of his entire property; his personal suffering from a most loathsome and distressing disease; his being made the object of aversion by his wife and domestics, and of suspicion and reproach by his friends—as if all this had not been enough, he is subjected to the coarsest treatment and most unfeeling mockery from a low rabble, who take a fiendish pleasure in insulting him and adding to his affliction. Observe—
1. Impossible to say to what suffering a child of God may be subjected in this world. Sometimes all the powers of wickedness in earth and hell apparently let loose against him, while at the same time suffering under distressing dispensations of Divine Providence. No trial so sharp but a godly man may meet with it. If Satan has one dart in his quiver more fiery than another, he may shoot it at him. In respect to outward trials and sufferings, but for the inward comfort and future hope afforded them, believers, sometimes, of all men the most miserable (1Co_15:19). Tribulation and persecution promised by the Master. This, at times, abundantly and amazingly realized. Witness the sufferings of the martyrs of Lyons, Smyrna, and elsewhere, in the second century. “Tortures by racks, by pincers, by faggots, by the tossings of wild beasts, by being seated in burning [iron] chairs, that the fumes of their roasting flesh might come up about them, amid scoffs and jeers from the rabble, when a word of retraction would have saved them.” See Dickinson’s Theological Quarterly, July, 1875, p. 389.
2. Nothing strange for a child of God to fall from esteem into contempt and disgrace (Mat_5:11). Hatred and reproach their promised fare. Mockery not the least painful and effective species of persecution (Heb_10:32-33; Gen_21:9 compared with Gal_4:29).
3. The depravity of the human heart, which is capable of conduct such as is ascribed to Job’s rabble persecutors. “Murder,” in its worst form, proceeding out of it (Mat_15:19). Capable of inflicting deliberate injury on those already deeply afflicted and suffering, from the mere gratification of a fiendish pleasure in witnessing it, or from a diabolical hatred of moral excellence in the sufferer.
4. The intense malevolence and cruelty of Satan, the author of these aggravated sufferings on the part of Job, and the instigator of those wretched creatures whom he found or made his ready tools, in rendering his suffering as bitter as it could possibly be. Nothing wanting on Satan’s part if men are not as wretched and miserable as himself.
5. The mutability of outward happiness and popular favour. None ever enjoyed both in a higher degree than Job, and none ever, for a time, so entirely stripped of them. The fickleness of “fortune” and popular applause proverbial. The “Hosanna” of to-day the “crucify Him” of to-morrow. To-day a silken couch—to-morrow a scaffold. To-day Paul is ready to be worshipped as a divinity; to-morrow he is dragged out of the city and all but stoned to death. The believer’s comfort—
(1) That all these vicissitudes are under his Heavenly Father’s appointment.
(2) That his real happiness is elsewhere and far above the reach of change.
6. The love of Christ in submitting, for our sake, to sufferings and indignities which are only foreshadowed in those of the Patriarch. In the last eighteen hours of His life on earth all the bitter ingredients indicated in this chapter were infused into the cup of suffering appointed for Him as our substitute to drink. “He was made a curse for us,” and therefore abandoned to every species of human endurance. The Gospel narrative presents us with a scene of suffering which only finds anything approaching a parallel to it in the case of the Patriarch, as exhibited in this and preceding chapters.
III. Reverts to his personal affliction, more especially as from the hand of God (Job_30:15-18). Laments.—
1. The sad reverse in his condition. Job_30:15.—“Terrors are turned upon me (or, ‘things are changed’—tables are turned with me; or, ‘I am overthrown,’ like a stormed fortress; or, ‘trouble,’—carrying consternation with it, like the terror in a city taken by storm,—‘pursues me’); they (the terrors or calamities) pursue (like the besiegers when entering the breach they have made in the walls; or, ‘thou pursust’) my soul (Heb., ‘my nobility’ or princely state—perhaps a term for the soul from its nobler nature) as the wind [pursues and drives along the chaff—i.e. vehemently and irresistibly]; my welfare (all the happiness and comfort of my life) passeth away as a cloud” [which leaves no trace of its former presence and can no more be recalled]. Observe:—
(1). Sad reverses from a happy and prosperous condition among the most painful of human trials.
(2) Soul terrors the greatest troubles. These not unknown to a child of God (Psa_88:15-16). Amazement and consternation among the ingredients of Christ’s cup (Mar_14:33-34).
2. His inward grief, expressing itself in continual groans and lamentations. Job_30:16.—“And now my soul is poured out upon me (or, ‘within me,’ as if dissolved in grief; Heb., pours itself out,’ i.e., in tears and groans); the days of affliction have taken hold (or fast hold) of me” (like armed men entering a besieged city—denoting the violence of his troubles; “days of affliction,” as indicating its continuance and the sad contrast with his former happy experience). Observe—Days of affliction, sooner or later, and of longer or shorter continuance, to take hold of each (Ecc_11:8). Happy then to have one with us who “in all our afflictions is afflicted” (Isa_63:9). His promise (Isa_43:2). Christ’s presence with us in the furnace quenches the violence of the fire (Dan_3:25; Heb_11:34).
3. His bodily sufferings. Job_30:17.—“My bones are pierced in me (Heb., ‘from off me’) in the night season (or, ‘night pierceth my bones from off me,’—i.e. with acute pains, usually most severe in the night); and my sinews (or ‘my gnawing pains’) take (or find) no rest.” Acute and gnawing pains added to all Job’s other afflictions. Satan accomplishes his wish and goes the full length of his permission,—“Touch his flesh and his bones.” The bones sensible of the most acute and severe pain. The affliction carried into his very bones. Severe suffering usually expressed by reference to the bones (Psa_51:8; Isa_38:13). An aggravation of pain and suffering when endured in the night while others enjoy rest, and when one’s own exhausted nature requires repose. Night also the season in which sorrow sinks deepest.
4. The pollution of his garments and the changed appearance of his skin in consequence of his disease. Job_30:18.—“By the great force of my disease is my garment (either literally, in consequence of the purulent discharge from his sores; or figuratively, his skin so changed in its appearance that he could scarcely be recognized): it bindeth me as the collar of my coat” (vest, tunic, or inner garment—his loose outer garment being now so stiff with gore and matter as to sit as close to his person as his tunic; or, ‘it—the disease—bindeth me about like my vest;’ sitting as closely, constantly, and completely upon me as my tunic). A sore aggravation of disease—
(1) When it pollutes our garments and disfigures our persons—
(2) When it appears likely to yield neither to time nor treatment.
5. Degradation coupled with extreme debility. Job_30:19.—“He (God, or, ‘it,’ the disease) hath cast me into the mire (as a wrestler seizing his antagonist by the throat and throwing him to the ground; or, hath rendered me filthy and abominable as one cast into the mire), and I am become like dust and ashes” (as low and mean, as weak and powerless, as the ashes on which I sit; or, I am reduced to dust and ashes, deprived of vital energy, and more like a corpse than a living man; his disease such as to give his body the appearance of clods and ashes, from its dried scabs and filthy ulcers). Observe—Piety enables us to keep an eye upon God as the supreme and sovereign Author of all our troubles. In one sense our troubles as truly from God, as in another from Satan, the world, or ourselves. God the ultimate Author, whoever or whatever may be the immediate instrument or occasion. No trouble but by His purpose and permission. Satan and the world only God’s hand in afflicting and chastening His children. Satan’s demand in regard to Job: “Put forth thy hand upon him;” God’s answer, “He is in thine hand.” Paul’s thorn in the flesh from Satan, yet given by God (2Co_12:7). Better to think of God the first cause in our trouble, than of man or any other second cause. “I was dumb, I opened not my mouth; because Thou didst it” (Psa_39:9).
IV. Directs his complaint against God Himself (Job_30:20-22).
1. As disregarding his prayer in his affliction. Job_30:20.—“I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear (or hearken, so as to help and deliver) me; I stand up (in frequent and earnest supplication; or, I stand, continue waiting and expecting an answer), and thou regardest me not” (or “thou considerest me” [and my case], but dost not answer or afford relief). Observe—
(1) Crying to God a familiar exercise with Job. Good for us to have the path to the mercy-seat a well-trodden one.
(2) Job not only prayed in his affliction, but continued to do so. Unlike the hypocrite (chap. Job_27:10).
(3) Standing a usual and Scriptural posture in prayer (Gen_18:22; Jer_15:1; Mat_6:5; Luk_18:11-13). The early Christians usually knelt in prayer on every day of the week, except the Lord’s day, when they stood, as a posture more befitting a day of joy and triumph.
(4) Sometimes one of the most painful trials to an afflicted child of God, to pray, and continue praying, without any apparent attention to his prayer on the part of God. The trial of David and of David’s Lord in his deepest affliction (Psa_22:1-2; Mat_27:46).
(5) God’s regard to our prayer not to be judged by immediate appearances.
Answers to Prayer
Believing prayer heard, though followed by no immediate or direct answer. Prayer offered through the Holy Spirit’s assistance never unheard or unanswered. Answers to prayer not restricted to time or form. Sometimes, the thing itself not granted, but something better in its stead. So with Paul (2Co_12:8-9). With Christ (Luk_22:42-43). Sometimes petitions for temporal benefits not granted, that those for spiritual and better ones may be so. The withholding an answer sometimes a greater blessing than the answer itself. God not a mere force, but an intelligence acting according to infinite wisdom and judgment in the bestowment of His mercies. “The absurdity of Tyndall’s famous ‘prayer-test’ was, that it regarded God as simply a force in nature, and proposed to experiment with it to see just what it would do.… The impossibility of knowing the motives which actuate God must for ever render the expectation of receiving an invariable answer to any prayer absurd in the extreme. The very fact that our prayers are sometimes answered and sometimes denied, and that the answers when granted are sometimes modified and often delayed, is itself proof that we are dealing with a great intelligence, whose acts are governed only by his own will and purposes.”—Rev. Jacob Todd, M.A., in Dickinson’s Theological Quarterly, July, 1875, p. 369. True and acceptable prayer carries in it submission to the Divine will. A part of every such prayer, understood if not expressed,—Not my will, but thine be done. Christ our exemplar in prayer (Luk_22:24). Himself the example of His own teaching (Mat_6:10). Believing prayer like seed. whose temporary disappearance in the earth is necessary to its production of fruit. All the tears of God’s people put into His bottle, and all their prayers recorded in His book (Psa_56:8). All Job’s prayers at length abundantly answered, even in this life. Perhaps the most of believers’ prayers only to be answered after they have ceased both to pray and live. Better, in trouble, to pray for patience to endure it, and grace to improve it, than for deliverance out of it.
2. As acting towards him with apparent cruelty and hostility. Job_30:21.—“Thou art become cruel to me (Hebrew, ‘Art turned into a cruel one unto me’); with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me,” (or, ‘carriest on a bitter hostility against me;’ or ‘liest in wait for me’). One of the severest things Job ever uttered in regard to God, indicating the bitterness of his grief at being thus treated by Him as an enemy. Observe—
(1) The flesh has never, any more than Satan, anything good to say of God.
(2) The flesh makes the most grievous mistakes in its judgments of God and of Divine things. Says of God what is exactly true of the devil, and the very opposite of what is true of God. God is love, and Satan the impersonation of vruelty. His name Satan denotes “an adcersary,” and is closely allied to the word Job employs in speaking of God. Satan the opposer of every man’s happiness, and especially the adversary of believers (1Pe_5:8).
(3) God may, for wise purposes, in a little wrath hide his face from his children “for a moment,” and in apparent wrath may “smite them,” though really in love (Isa_54:8; Isa_57:17; Rev_3:19). Even this not the case at present in regard to Job. While Satan was bruising, God was praising him.
(4) Job’s experience in the text, without the sin, realized by his great Antitype when uttering the cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me (Mat_27:46). For our sakes, that satisfaction might be made for man’s sins, God obliged to assume the aspect of “a cruel one” to His own beloved Son. The bitterest element of the cup given him, as our surety, to drink.
3. As sporting with his sufferings, and giving him up to destruction. Job_30:22.—“Thou liftest me up to the wind (like the grain thrown up from the threshing-floor by the winnowing shovel against the wind) thou causest me to ride (tossest me up and down, or carriest me away) upon it” (as the chaff of the threshing-floor when separated from the wheat, or as any light substance made the sport of the wind and carried away by it). Observe—
(1) Job, under the misleading suggestions of the flesh, views God as sporting with his sufferings, while, in reality, glorying in him before principalities and powers as his faithful servant, who had not his like upon earth.
(2) What Job here ignorantly and unbelievingly ascribes to God, very like what Satan desired to do with the disciples of Jesus in the night of their Master’s betrayal (Luk_22:31-32). The thing Satan was actually doing now with Job.
4. As filling him with terror and making an utter end of him. “Thou dissolvest my substance” (or, my health and soundness, as well from terror as disease; or “Thou dissolvest me, Thou terrifest me;” or, according to another reading, “Thou dissolvest me in the tempest’s crash”). A tragic picture of inward as well as outward distress. Vague terror and deep depression of spirits among the effects of Job’s peculiar disease. Trouble of soul the soul of all trouble. Terrible experience, when in affliction and trouble God is viewed as dealing with us in anger. Sometimes the temporary experience of a believer. Sure to be the unending experience of every impenitent unbeliever. God’s terrors able to dissolve the firmest substance, and to terrify the stoutest heart. “A fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.”
V. Reflects upon the future (Job_30:23-24).
1. Anticipates death as the result of his present sufferings. Job_30:23.—“For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living” (the grave, or the earth, according to Gen_3:19; the book of Genesis, in some form or other, most probably in Job’s hands). Job’s language that of dejection and despondency, not without an alloy of petulance. Faith again at the ebb. Despondency one of the effects of his disease. Sense and sight said: “He will slay me—this disease must be fatal;” only faith could say: “I shall not die but live.” Observe—
(1) The flesh ever apt to draw hasty and wrong conclusions from God’s dealings in Providence.
(2) God acknowleged by Job as the dispenser of all His afflictions, and as the disposer of all events. None go down to the grave till God brings them there, though some are brought, before their time. The keys of death and the eternal world in Christ’s hands.
The grave the house appointed for all living
Declares the general law relating to humanity. Only two known exceptions. More to be made at the Lord’s second advent. Believers then changed without tasting of death (1Co_15:51-52; 1Th_4:15-17). Till Christ shall come, the grave the appointed receptacle for humanity. Job mistaken as to the time and occasion of his death; no mistake as to the fact of it. Every disease, if not strictly “unto death,” yet brings us nearer to it. In regard to the issue of our trouble, God often better than our fears. Paul’s case (2Co_1:8-10). God as able to bring up from the grave as to bring down to it. The times of each in His hand. Useful in affliction to remember our mortality, and to regard death as the possible, if not the certain, result of it. From the universality of the grave as “the house appointed for all living,” we learn—
(1) A lesson of humility. Pride ill becoming in any creature,—preposterous in those who in a few years at most will have only a dark chamber in the earth of a few cubic feet for their dwelling, with the worms as their nearest companions, and actually making a banquet of their flesh. Such a dwelling awaiting the prince equally with the peasant.
(2) Earnestness in attending to present and important duty, more especially in seeking the eternal welfare of ourselves and others connected with us. Opportunity for attending to the concerns of eternity confined to this life. The exhortation of Divine wisdom—“Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might; for there is no work, &c., in the grave, whither thou goest” (Ecc_9:10). “The night cometh when no man can work.”
(3) The evil of sin. The grave not originally “the house appointed for all living.” Death to mankind the result of transgression. “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” “By one man sin entered the world, and death by sin.” “The wages of sin is death.” No grave but sin has dug it. Terrible evil which has filled the world with sepulchres and dead men’s bones. Sad to be in love with that which has proved the murderer of the race. So great an evil must require a corresponding means for its expiation and removal.
(4) The inflexible character of the Divine law. The sentence against transgressors of that law fulfilled, though a whole race must be reduced to death. Adequate satisfaction to be made to it before the grave can close its mouth or yield up its dead to an eternal life. That satisfaction, through Divine compassion, already made. “By man came death; by man came also the resurrection from the dead.” “The wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life, through Jesus Christ our Lord.” “I am the resurrection and the life; he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live; and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” “He suffered for our sins, the just One in the room of the unjust.” “All we like sheep have gone astray; and the Lord hath laid upon him the iniquity of us all. He was wounded for our transgressions. By His stripes we are healed. For the transgression of My people was he stricken. He hath made his soul an offering for sin. He bare the sin of many” (1Co_15:21; Rom_6:23; Joh_11:25; Isa_53:5-12).
(5) True wisdom to seek a better than an earthly portion. The ‘house appointed for all living’ the end of all mere earthly enjoyments and possessions. Sad to spend our time only in the pursuit of such, and to be found at last with nothing we can carry with us beyond it.
(6) The grave the vestibule to two other houses, both eternal in their duration, but immensely different in their character. The one of these a home of light and beauty, peace and purity, life and health, joy and song, where death is unknown and no tear is shed. The other one of darkness and despair,—‘weeping, wailing, and gnashing of teeth.’ Solemn and important question for each—which of these shall be my home? “Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” “Without holiness no man shall see the Lord.”
2. Despairs of help being afforded in answer to his prayers, and looks only for relief in the grave. Job_30:24.—“Howbeit (or surely) he will not stretch out his hand (in the way of help and deliverance) to the grave (now when I am already on the verge of it; or, ‘surely prayer avails nothing when he stretches forth his hand,’ viz., to smite or to slay); though they (or men) cry in his destruction” (the destruction sent by him—while he is visiting with destruction). The verse, however, may also be read as expressing the assurance of rest in the grave: “Howbeit he will not stretch out his [afflicting] hand to the grave (so as to afflict in or beyond it); in the destruction He sends there is deliverance.” Or even as justifying prayer in such circumstances as this: “Howbeit, do not men [still] stretch out the hand [imploring help] in ruin, and utter a cry on account of it in the destruction which is sent by Him?” Observe—
(1) The language of unbelief—“There is no hope.” The flesh, even in a believer, ever ready in protracted trial and disappointed hope, to say, with Ahab: “Why should I wait any longer?”
(2) Faith in a believer has its ebbs and flows. Low water with Abraham’s faith when he spoke to God of Eliezer of Damascus being his heir, and when he prayed that Ishmael might live before him,—as if he were to have no other son. Mounts and triumphs when he goes forth at God’s command to offer up to God the heir of promise, believing that He was able even to raise him from the dead. Faith in its ebb with David when he said: “I shall one day fall by the hand of Saul.” At its flow, when he wrote in the 118th Psalm: “I shall not die but live, and declare the works of the Lord.” Faith high in Elijah when he sent for Ahab and told him to gather together all the prophets of Baal; low, when he fled from the face of Jezebel and sat down under the juniper tree, with the prayer “Take away my life, for I am no better than my fathers.” Hard to believe when all appearances are, and continue to be, clean contrary to our prayers. The part of faith to hope against hope, having to do with a God to whom all things are possible, and who adopts as his title—“Thou that hearest prayer” (Psa_65:2).
(3) Sweet consolation to a suffering child to know that he has at least rest and deliverance in the grave. “Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord, for they do rest from their labours” (Rev_14:13). Man cannot lay on his afflicting hand in the grave, and God will not. A believer’s faith may not be able to see deliverance on this side of death, but clearly sees it on the other.
(4) A believer prays, although answers are withheld and there appears little prospect of any. Prayer a necessity of his nature. A latent faith always in the renewed heart that God is gracious, and that He is the hearer and answerer of prayer.
VI. Expresses his disappointment and the grounds of it (Job_30:25-26).
1. The grounds of his disappointment. Job_30:25.—“Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Was not my soul grieved for the poor?” His sympathy deep and real. Conscience bore its testimony to the sincerity of his charity. Could appeal to those around him for the general and genuine character of his compassion. The question affirmed by the admission of Eliphaz (chap. Job_3:3-4). Having shown sympathy and compassion to others when in trouble, he calculated on experiencing the same himself when in similar circumstances. The same thought expressed by the Psalmist, speaking as the type of Messiah (Psa_35:13-14). A natural as well as Scriptural law—“With the same measure that ye mete withal, it shall be measured to you again (Luk_6:38). True in respect to God, though sometimes for a time apparently otherwise. One of the laws of His kingdom,—“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” (Mat_5:7). Generally, though not always, true in relation to men. Job and Job’s Antitype remarkable examples of the contrary. In Christ’s case, unbounded compassion and tenderest sympathy repaid with cruelty and insult. An aggravation of trouble when sympathy and compassion are withheld where there is a just right to expect them. Mark of monstrous depravity when the sympathizing and compassionate are treated With unkindness and cruelty.
Job, according to the text, a beautiful example of Christian sympathy. The exemplification of the precept: “Weep with them that weep” (Rom_12:15). Remarkable manifestation of the grace of the Spirit in patriarchal times. May well put many living under the Christian dispensation to the blush. The great want in the Church of Christ, the Master’s sympathy and compassion for the poor and afflicted. Yet the glory of Christianity and the evidence of its Divine character, that such a spirit has been so largely produced under it. Among its characteristic precepts are: “Be pitiful;” “Put on bowels of mercies” (1Pe_3:8; Col_3:12). Christ’s compassionate spirit, in a greater or less degree, infused into all His members. The privilege as well as duty of believers, to be filled and pervaded with it (Eph_5:18). Provision made for this in the present dispensation by the full bestowment of the Holy Spirit. Such sympathy and compassion the necessary qualification for Christian usefulness.
2. The disappointment itself. Job_30:26.—“When I looked for good, then evil came unto me; and when I waited for (or expected) light (happiness and joy), there came darkness” (trouble and distress). Natural to expect happiness as the result of piety. Godliness has the “promise of the life that now is as well as of that which is to come” (1Ti_4:8). Wisdom’s ways pleasantness, and all her paths peace. Experienced as a matter of fact. The experience of Job himself previous to his calamities, and again after they were past. Promises of temporal happiness and comfort to be understood with an exception of needful trials. Fear of future trials not foreign to Job in the time of his prosperity (chap. Job_3:25-26; Job_1:5; Job_2:10). Observe—
(1) Trials as well as comforts necessary in a state of discipline. Darkness as well as light needful in the spiritual as in the natural world.
(2) A believer’s expectation, if good, always realized, though not always in this life or in the things of it. His trials and disappointments blessings as well as his comforts.
VII. Enlarges on his troubles (Job_30:27-31).
1. Incessant inward as well as outward affliction. Job_30:27.—“My bowels boiled (with inward distress, as Lam_1:20, or as the physical effect of his disease), and rested not (continued to do so without intermission, night and day); the days of affliction prevented me” (met me or came upon me suddenly and unexpectedly—an aggravation of the trouble).
2. Continued grief. Job_30:28.—“I went (moved about) mourning (or black, in person or attire) without the sun.” Not as the effect of exposure to the heat; or, in gloomy solitary places; or, in a state of dejection and sorrow. Reference perhaps to his experience previous to his disease, which probably kept him confined to his dwelling or the vicinity of it; enough in the loss of his ten children to occasion it.
3. Public and unrestrained complaint. Job_30:28.—“I stood up [through deep earnestness and anguish], and I cried (as the expression of deep and uncontrollable grief, or as imploring relief and aid) in the congregation” (assembled for public business or Divine worship). Here also probable reference to the period in which he was still able to mingle with others and to appear in the public assemblies, and hence previous to his being smitten with his leprosy. Lepers excluded from society (Lev_5:2-3). Miriam, under the same disease, shut out from the camp seven days (Num_12:15). King Azariah, when a leper, obliged to dwell in a “several,” or separate house, and “cut off from the house of the Lord” (2Ch_26:20-21. Usual for Orientals to give vent to their feelings in public.
4. Solitary moaning. Job_30:29.—“I am a brother (by close resemblance) to dragons (or jackals, which roam in solitary places and utter doleful and hideous cries, especially in the night), and a companion to owls” (or ostriches, also remarkable for their loud nocturnal cries (Mic_1:8).
5. The disfigurement of his person, and internal physical suffering. Job_30:30.—“My skin is black upon me (or, becomes black [and falls] from off me, among the effects of his disease, hence called the black leprosy: the skin, however, also blackened by grief, Psa_119:83; Jer_8:21; Lam_5:16); and my bones are burned with heat” (as the result of internal inflammation, or expressive of inward distress, Psa_102:3).
6. His whole experience one of sorrow and lamentation. Job_30:31.—“My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ (or pipe) into the voice of them that weep” (as at funerals—the early practice of funereal wailing still continued in the East). The harp, and organ or pipe, instruments of music earliest in use. Mentioned Gen_4:21. Indicative of the period in which the patriarch lived. Especially employed on joyful occasions. The language descriptive of a melancholy change from a joyous to a sorrowful experience. The sudden transition from previous joy an aggravation of present sorrow. Observe—
(1) Job’s previous life one rather of gaiety than gloom. True piety the sister of innocent pleasure. Wisdom’s ways those of pleasantness. The voice of rejoicing and salvation heard in the tabernacles of the righteous.
(2) The holiest heart and the happiest home liable to be overtaken by sudden and overwhelming sorrow. The major key often exchanged for the minor, and the song of gladness for the wail of grief. His Father’s “house” the only place where the believer’s sun never goes down, and his moon never withdraws itself. Heaven the only land where the harp and the organ are always in use, and the garments are always white.
Job held up in these tragic verses as an affecting picture of human distress. The inquiry suggested—why such grief and trouble under the administration of a benevolent Creator? Why its existence at all? Why in connection with comparative innocence? Why in the experience of a child of God?
(1) The existence of suffering easily accounted for on the ground that sin is in the world. Sorrow and suffering the shadow cast by sin. Sin and suffering inseparably linked. Absence of sorrow impossible in a world of sin. Suffering to be viewed either—(i.) As the necessary and inevitable accompaniment of sin, as pain accompanies inflamation; or (ii.) as the infliction of a penalty, as punishment follows transgression in the state; or (iii.) as a kind and salutary discipline, like that employed by a father with his children. No absolutely innocent person in the world. The comparatively innocent necessarily suffer along with the guilty. Often suffer in consequence of the sin and suffering of others.
(2) Suffering in a child of God part of the treatment necessary for his perfection and preparation for his eternal inheritance. A need-be for his heaviness through manifold temptations. Gold necessarily tried and purified in the fire. The believer’s troubles necessary for the exercise and development of the graces of the Spirit. Made to conduce to the glory of God and the benefit of others. God sometimes glorified more in His patient than in His prosperous children. Suffering a theatre for the display both of the excellence and reality of true religion. Often the very result of the character and condition of a child of God. Such the special object of Satan’s temptations and the world’s persecution. By his renewed nature, made more sensible of the evil of sin within himself, and more deeply affected with the sufferings and sins of others. The glory and privilege of a child of God to be made a partaker of the afflictions of Christ, and for the same object (Col_1:24).
(3) Suffering and sorrow to be expected in the world as long as Satan is permitted to go up and down in it (chap. Job_1:7). This not always to be the case (Rev_20:1-3).
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Job's Present Misery
Job's Present Misery
Job bitterly contrasts his present with his past condition, as described in Job 29. It must be borne in mind that Job was now outcast and beggared.
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1-8. Job complains that he is insulted by abject outcasts, the class of broken men who are expelled from respectable tribes and live by thieving. They are common E. of Jordan in the nomadic regions.
2b. RV 'Men in whom ripe age' (or vigour) 'is perished.'
3. Solitary] RV 'gaunt.'
Flying, etc.] render, 'Fugitives in the desert on the eve of want and ruin.'
4. Render, 'They pluck salt-wort' (a plant sometimes eaten by the abjectly poor) 'among the bushes, and the roots of the white broom to warm them.' This broom is a distinctive shrub of the southern desert hills: cp. 1Ki_19:4; RM.
7. Render, 'They snore under bushes and huddle under thorny shrubs.'
8b. RY 'They were scourged out of the land.'
9-14. A description of a poor old man mobbed and worried by the rabble. Or possibly 11-15 refers to God as assailing him with troops of afflictions. The Heb. is very obscure.
11. RV renders, 'For he hath loosed his cord, and afflicted me, and they have cast off the bridle before me.' RM gives another reading, 'my cord (or bowstring).' Perhaps 'loosed my bowstring' is the best of these alternatives: cp. Job_29:20. Conder suggests,' For they spy the (tent) door and insult me, and stretch out a headstall before my face.' This was an insult and one which is still customary. The headstall means that the man is regarded as an ass.
12. Conder suggests, 'The brood (of boys) stand upon my right hand (an insult, for the place of honour was on the right hand). They trip up my feet and jostle me on the dangerous paths.' They no longer make room for him. The last clause is more usually regarded as a metaphor from a siege; so RV 'And they cast up against me their ways of destruction.'
13. They have no helper] Perhaps we should read, 'There is none to check them.'
15. My soul] RV 'my honour.'
16-31. Job laments his misery of mind and body, and the severity of God.
17. Are pierced] by acute pain. Sinews] render, 'gnawing pains.'
18. Changed] lit. 'disfigured.' His complaint causes painful changes in his appearance.
20. Regardest me not] rather, 'lookest at me,' with indifference to his sufferings.
22. Figurative of the storm of God's anger. Dissolvest my substance] RV' dissolvest me in the tempest.'
23. House appointed] RM 'house of meeting.' Job is convinced that his sufferings can only end in death.
24. Render, 'Doth not a sinking man stretch out his hand, and cry out in his calamity?'
27a. Figurative of his agitated condition.
27b. Prevented me] RV 'are come upon me.'
28a. RM 'I go blackened, but not by the sun'; the result perhaps of his disease: see Job_30:30.
28b. RV 'I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.'
29. Dragons] RV 'jackals.'
Owls] lit. 'daughters of screeching.' These are animals associated with desolate places: cp. Isa_13:21, Isa_13:22.
3oa. RV 'My skin is black, and falleth from.me.'
31. Organ] RV 'pipe.' Job's happiness is turned to sorrow.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 1. His present humiliation and shame (Job 30:1-19)
CHAPTER 30
1. His present humiliation and shame (Job 30:1-19)
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2. No answer from God: completely forsaken (Job 30:20-31)
Job 30:1-19. He had spoken of his past greatness and now he describes his present misery. Ah! the bitterness if it--those younger than I have me in derision! Alas! through it all we hear nothing but pride. He scorns those who were so much beneath him. And those who were scourged out of the land, these children of fools and base men, mock him, the former prince among men. “I am become their song; I am a byword to them; they abhor me; they spit in my face.” Then he describes his affliction. “Days of affliction have taken hold upon me--the pains that gnaw me take no rest.” He is in the mire and has become like dust and ashes.
Job 30:20-31. He brings in God again. Thou dost not answer me! Heaven had been silent to all his pleas. What a dreadful charge: “Thou art turned to be cruel to me; with the might of Thy hand Thou persecutest me”! He thinks himself completely forsaken, not knowing that God’s thoughts towards him were thoughts of love and peace. His skin is black, he says, his bones are burned with heat. No joy for him, nothing but weeping.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On v1 Job Complains of the Contempt he Receives from Men.…
Job Complains of the Contempt he Receives from Men. —
v. 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, foolish and immature youngsters, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock, to put on a level with the lowest shepherds in his employ, mainly on account of their general untrustworthiness and improvidence.
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v. 2. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, what use could he possibly make of it, in whom old age was perished, whose mode of living kept them from reaching full manly vigor?
v. 3. For want and famine they were solitary, through want and hunger they were starved, their energy and strength were exhausted; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste, they gnaw at the desert, which has long been a waste and a wilderness, affording them only the scantiest living;
v. 4. who cut up mallows, the saltwort of the desert, by the bushes, where it led a precarious existence in the shadow of larger bushes, and juniper roots for their meat, a kind of broom-root or furze being their food.
v. 5. They were driven forth from among men, excluded from human society, (they cried after them as after a thief, such a hue and cry is raised by the Arab inhabitants of the villages when the vagabonds appear,)
v. 6. to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks, those were the dwelling places of this low class of people, whose youngsters now dared to insult Job as he sat there in great misery.
v. 7. Among the bushes they brayed, crying out like the wild ass of the steppes; under the nettles, the brambles of the desert, they were gathered together; like herds of beasts of the wilderness.
v. 8. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men, really, no-account men; they were viler than the earth, literally, "who are whipped out of the country," as useless and dangerous rabble, on the order of vagabonds and gypsies.
v. 9. And now am I their song, their shout of mockery and derision, yea, I am their byword, they refer to Job only in a malicious, contemptuous manner.
v. 10. They abhor me, they flee far from me, shunning him with a most abject abhorrence, and spare not to spit in my face, as an expression of their unbounded contempt. So greatly had Job been degraded by God.
v. 11. Because He hath loosed my cord, God had let loose upon Job the horde of His calamities, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me, men were giving free rein to their violent and hateful attacks upon him. God and men had united in making Job the target of their scorn.
v. 12. Upon my right hand rise the youth, a brood of diseases and sufferings, or, the brood of young rascals who were now mocking him; they push away my feet, leaving him no foothold, no place to stand on, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction, besieging him on all sides, making him the object of their assaults.
v. 13. They mar my path, tearing it down, making it impassable; they set forward my calamity, promoting it, helping it along as it speeds to Job’s destruction; they have no helper, there is no helper against them, they come on without hindrance.
v. 14. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, like a wide breach made in a dam or levee; in the desolation, in the midst of the falling ruins, they rolled themselves upon me, like an inrushing army which lays everything low by the force of its impact and assault.
v. 15. Terrors are turned upon me, the sudden fear of death; they pursue my soul as the wind, his dignity, his respect, and his influence like a storm; and my welfare passeth away as a cloud, his prosperity has vanished without leaving a trace. Thus Job brings out the great contrast between his former happy state and that of his present deep dishonor.
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 9 have nothing but mockery for me
have nothing but mockery for me
The abstract noun "mockery" can be expressed with the verb "mock." AT: "only mock me" (See: Abstract Nouns)
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whose fathers I would have refused to allow to work beside the dogs of my flock
This shows how much he despised those fathers. They were not even good enough to be with his dogs. AT: "whose fathers I despised and would not have allowed to work beside the dogs of my flock" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
the dogs of my flock
The dogs' relationship to the flock can be stated clearly. AT: "the dogs that guarded my flock" (See: Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
Indeed, the strength of their fathers' hands, how could it have helped me ... perished?
Job uses this question to mock the weakness of those men. AT: "The strength of their fathers' hands could not have helped me ... perished." (See: Rhetorical Question)
men in whom the strength of their mature age had perished
Their strength perishing is a metaphor that represents no longer being strong but weak. The phrase "mature age" refers to them being old. AT: "men who had become old and had no strength" or "men who had become old and weak" (See: Metaphor)
They were thin from poverty and hunger
The word "They" refers to the fathers of the young mockers.
They were thin from poverty and hunger
The abstract noun "poverty" can be expressed with the word "poor." The abstract noun "hunger" can be expressed with the words "hungry" or "starving." AT: "They were very thin because they were poor and starving" (See: Abstract Nouns)
they gnawed at the dry ground
Possible meanings are that 1) "dry ground" is a metonym for the dry roots that grow in the ground. AT: "they chewed on the dry roots they found in the ground" or 2) "gnawed at the dried ground" is a metonym for eating whatever they could find in the dry ground. (See: Metonymy)
translationWords
mock
works
flocks
ancestor
hand
perish
darkness
desert
desolate
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv2, 5, 9, 10 30:2-3 In the past, the most honorable members of…
30:2-3 In the past, the most honorable members of society spoke well of Job (29:11); now, the least honorable mocked him (30:1) and spit in his face (30:10). Cp. Pss 35:15; 69:12; Mark 14:65; 15:17-20.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.