They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
Parallel Translations
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They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
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For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
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They are gaunt with want and famine; they gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.
Cross-references (3)
Passages linked to Job 30:3 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 24:5 Behold, as wild donkeys in the desert, they go out to their work, seeking diligently for food. The wilderness yields them bread for their children.
- Job 24:13-16 “These are of those who rebel against the light. They don’t know its ways, nor stay in its paths. The murderer rises with the light. He kills the poor and needy. In the night he is like a thief. The eye also of the adulterer waits for the twilight, saying, ‘No eye will see me.’ He disguises his face. In the dark they dig through houses. They shut themselves up in the daytime. They don’t know the light.
- Hebrews 11:38 of whom the world was not worthy—wandering in deserts, mountains, caves, and the holes of the earth.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (12 sources)
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John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 30:3 For want and famine [they were] solitary;…
Job 30:3 For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
Ver. 3. For want and famine they were solitary] Miserably poor they were, and nittily needy; scarce having a rag to their backs, and, therefore, ashamed to show themselves in company of others, propter penuriam, et propter esuriem, they lurked in bycorners, and seldom came abroad, unless when hard hunger drove the wolf out of the wood. Slow bellies they had ever been, and evil beasts, fitter, therefore, to live in the wilderness, in former time desolate and waste, than in a civil society; or, if in any place, at Poneropolis, a city built by Philip, king of Macedonia, for varlets and vagrants, and with such kind of persons peopled; that they might not pester other places. Job would have none such about him; and was, therefore, haply, now in this low condition, so much hated and affronted by them.
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In former time desolate and waste] And so perhaps haunted by the devil, as Isa 13:20-21. Brentius rendereth it, Hesternam pressuram et consternationem, yesterday’s pressures and fright; that is, saith he, The creditor’s eagerness to be satisfied, which frighteth these wretches, and putteth them to their work.
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 Want and famine, brought upon them either by their…
Want and famine, brought upon them either by their own sloth or wickedness, or by God’s just judgment. Heb. In want and famine, which aggravates their following solitude. Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort and company for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, and contemptibleness, and hatefulness to all persons, that they shunned all company, and for fear or shame fled into and lived in desolate places.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain For want and famine they were solitary,.... The Targum…
For want and famine they were solitary,.... The Targum interprets it, without children; but then this cannot be understood of the fathers; rather through famine and want they were reduced to the utmost extremity, and were as destitute of food as a rock, or hard flint, from whence nothing is to be had, as the word signifies, see Job 3:7;
fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste: to search and try what they could get there for their sustenance and relief, fleeing through fear of being taken up for some crimes committed, or through shame, on account of their miserable condition, not caring to be seen by men, and therefore fled into the wilderness to get what they could there: but since men in want and famine usually make to cities, and places of resort, where provision may be expected; this may be interpreted not of their flying into the wilderness, though of their being there, perhaps banished thither, see Job 30:5; but of their "gnawing" (q), or biting the dry and barren wilderness, and what they could find there; where having short commons, and hunger bitten, they bit close; which, though extremely desolate, they were glad to feed upon what they could light on there; such miserable beggarly creatures were they: and with this agrees what follows.
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(q) "qui rodebant in solitudine", V. L. "rodentes siccitatem", Schultens.
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 Solitary - Although want commonly drives persons to places…
Solitary - Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, that they shunned company, and for fear or shame fled into, and lived in desolate places.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 3. Fleeing into the wilderness] Seeking something to…
Verse 3. Fleeing into the wilderness] Seeking something to sustain life even in the barren desert. This shows the extreme of want, when the desert is supposed to be the only place where any thing to sustain life can possibly be found.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain Job 30:3. For want and famine — Brought upon…
Job 30:3. For want and famine — Brought upon them either by their own sloth or wickedness, or by God’s just judgment. Hebrew, בחסר, becheser, In want and famine, which aggravates their following solitude. They were solitary, &c. — Although want commonly draws persons to places of resort and company for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, and contemptibleness, and hatefulness to all persons, that they shunned all company, and for fear or shame fled into and lived in desolate places.
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 For want and famine - By hunger and poverty…
For want and famine - By hunger and poverty their strength is wholly exhausted, and they are among the miserable outcasts of society. In order to show the depth to which he himself was sunk in public estimation, Job goes into a description of the state of these miserable wretches, and says that he was treated with contempt by the very scum of society, by those who were reduced to the most abject wretchedness, and who wandered in the deserts, subsisting on roots, without clothing, shelter, or home, and who were chased away by the respectable portion of the community as if they were thieves and robbers. The description is one of great power, and presents a sad picture of his own condition.
They were solitary - Margin, or, “dark as the night.” Hebrew גלמוד galmûd. This word properly means “hard,” and is applied to a dry, stony, barren soil. In Arabic it means a hard rock. “Umbreit.” In Job 3:7, it is applied to a night in which none are born. Here it seems to denote a countenance, dry, hard, emaciated with hunger. Jerome renders it, “steriles.” The Septuagint, ἄγονος agonos - “sterile.” Prof. Lee, “Hardly beset.” The meaning is, that they were greatly reduced - or dried up - by hunger and want. So Umbreit renders it, “gantz ausgedorrt - altogether dried up.”
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Fleeing into the wilderness - Into the desert or lonely wastes. That is, they “fled” there to obtain, on what the desert produced, a scanty subsistence. Such is the usual explanation of the word rendered “flee” - ערק ‛âraq. But the Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Arabic, render it “gnawinq,” and this is followed by Umbreit, Noyes, Schultens, and Good. According to this the meaning is, that they were “gnawers of the desert;” that is, that they lived by gnawing the roots and shrubs which they found in the desert. This idea is much more expressive, and agrees with the connection. The word occurs in Hebrew only in this verse and in Job 30:17, where it is rendered “My sinews,” but which may more appropriately be rendered “My gnawing pains.” In the Syriac and Arabic the word means to “gnaw,” or “corrode,” as the leading signification, and as the sense of the word cannot be determined by its usage in the Hebrew, it is better to depend on the ancient versions, and on its use in the cognate languages. According to this, the idea is, that they picked up a scanty subsistence as they could find it, by gnawing roots and shrubs in the deserts.
In the former time - Margin, “yesternight.” The Hebrew word (אמשׁ 'emesh) means properly last night; the latter part of the preceding day, and then it is used to denote night or darkness in general. Gesenius supposes that this refers to “the night of desolation,” the pathless desert being strikingly compared by the Orientals with darkness. According to this, the idea is not that they had gone but yesterday into the desert, but that they went into the shades and solitudes of the wilderness, far from the homes of men. The sense then is, “They fled into the night of desolate wastes.”
Desolate and waste - In Hebrew the same word occurs in different forms, designed to give emphasis, and to describe the gloom and solitariness of the desert in the most impressive manner. We should express the same idea by saying that they hid themselves in the “shades” of the wilderness.
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 Who. Hebrew, "solitary in," &c. Yet these vagabond (Haydock)…
Who. Hebrew, "solitary in," &c. Yet these vagabond (Haydock) people now insult over me. (Calmet)
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 solitary--literally, "hard as a rock"; so translate, rather, "dried…
solitary--literally, "hard as a rock"; so translate, rather, "dried up," emaciated with hunger. Job describes the rudest race of Bedouins of the desert [UMBREIT].
fleeing--So the Septuagint. Better, as Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, "gnawers of the wilderness." What they gnaw follows in Job 30:4.
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in former time--literally, the "yesternight of desolation and waste" (the most utter desolation; Eze 6:14); that is, those deserts frightful as night to man, and even there from time immemorial. I think both ideas are in the words darkness [GESENIUS] and antiquity [UMBREIT]. (Isa 30:33, Margin).
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 3. Solitary — Similar to Job_3:7, (which see;) barren,…
3. Solitary — Similar to Job_3:7, (which see;) barren, emaciated, hard like the rock.
Fleeing into — Literally, gnawing the wilderness. The scantness of their livelihood appears from Job_30:4.
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Former time — The prime import of this word, אמשׁ, is darkness, or yesternight, as in margin; others insist upon “the yesterday of waste and desolation.” The language denotes extreme desolation.
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 3. The verse reads,
3. The verse reads,
With want and hunger they are gaunt,
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They gnaw the desert, in former time desolate and waste.
The first clause refers to the “shriveled” appearance of these outcasts from want; the second to their devouring the roots which they can gather in the steppe (Job_30:4), which has for long been desolate and unproductive. The word rendered “they gnaw” occurs again of Job’s gnawing pains, Job_30:17. For “in former time,” i. e. for long, others translate darkness: the darkness of desolation and waste—a description of the desert.
3–8. Description of this wretched class of outcasts. The tenses should all be put in the present. The race of people referred to appears to be the same as that in ch. 24.
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.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain For want and famine they were solitary; rather, they…
For want and famine they were solitary; rather, they were gaunt (see the Revised Version). Compare the descriptions given to us of the native races of Central Africa by Sir S. Baker, Speke, Grant, Stanley, and others. Fleeing into the wilderness; rather, gnawing the wilderness; i.e. feeding on such dry and sapless roots and fruits as the wilderness produces. In former time desolate and waste; or, on the eve of wasteness and desolation.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.