“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.
Parallel Translations
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“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.
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And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.
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And now I am become their song, yea, I am a byword unto them.
Cross-references (7)
Passages linked to Job 30:9 in the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge, ordered by reader-vote popularity; verse text shown in World English Bible.
- Job 17:6 “But he has made me a byword of the people. They spit in my face.
- Lamentations 3:63 You see their sitting down and their rising up. I am their song.
- Lamentations 3:14 I have become a derision to all my people, and their song all day long.
- Job 12:4 I am like one who is a joke to his neighbor, I, who called on God, and he answered. The just, the blameless man is a joke.
- Psalms 35:15-16 But in my adversity, they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together. The attackers gathered themselves together against me, and I didn’t know it. They tore at me, and didn’t cease. Like the profane mockers in feasts, they gnashed their teeth at me.
- Psalms 69:11-12 When I made sackcloth my clothing, I became a byword to them. Those who sit in the gate talk about me. I am the song of the drunkards.
- Psalms 44:14 You make us a byword among the nations, a shaking of the head among the peoples.
Cross-references from openbible.info (CC BY 4.0)
Explain this verse (14 sources)
Historical commentary, presented as a primary source — not an endorsement.
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Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain They make songs of me, and mock at my…
They make songs of me, and mock at my misery.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain Job 30:9 And now am I their song, yea,…
Job 30:9 And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.
Ver. 9. And now am I their song] They compose comedies out of my tragedies, and make themselves merry in my misery; they not only make ballads and sonnets of my sufferings, but also play them upon their instruments, as the Hebrew word importeth.
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Yea, I am their byword] Sermonis argumentum , the matter of their discourse; I am all their talk; neither have they anything else whereof to chat and babble, but only of me; yea, to make my disgraces to pass into a proverb, they call all miserable men by my name, De me confabulantur et contemptim loquuntur (Disc.). The ale stakes served David in like sort; the drunkards upon their ale bench tossed his name as dogs do carrion, making him their ballad and their byword, Psa 69:12. The whole Church complaineth of the like contempt, Psa 79:4 Lam 3:14; Lam 3:63 Eze 33:32. Thus when the invincible Armada, as they called it, was coming for England, Don Bernardino Mendoza, the Spanish ambassador in France, solaced himself with a vain and false poem or song of England’s miseries; which, as a triumph before the victory, he absurdly printed (Cambd. Eliz.). The gunpowder traitors also did the like in their sevenfold psalmody, as they called it; that devilish ditty, which secretly the Papists passed from hand to hand with tunes set to be sung or played. The matter consisted of railing upon King Edward VI, Queen Elizabeth, King James, and others; of petition, imprecation, prophecy, and praise (Spec. Bell. Sacr.).
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 The matter of their song and derision. They now…
The matter of their song and derision. They now rejoice in my calamities, because formerly I used my authority to punish such vagrants and miscreants.
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 And now am I their song,.... The subject of…
And now am I their song,.... The subject of their song, of whom they sung ballads about the streets, in public places, and at their festivals and merriments, as Christ the antitype of Job was the song of the drunkard, Psa 69:12; see Lam 3:14; or the meaning may be, they rejoiced in his afflictions and calamities, and made themselves merry with them, which was cruel and inhuman, as David's enemies did in his, and those abject, mean, base people, like those that derided Job: and so the Edomites rejoiced over the children of Judah, in the day of their destruction, and as the inhabitants of Popish countries will rejoice over the witnesses when slain, and make merry, Psa 35:15;
yea, I am their byword: all their talk was about him continually, and at every turn would use his name proverbially for an hypocrite, or a wicked man; and thus Christ, of whom Job was a type, became a proverb in the mouth of the Jews, Psa 69:11; and as the Jews themselves now are with others, Jer 24:9.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain Verse 9. Now am I their song] I am…
Verse 9. Now am I their song] I am the subject of their mirth, and serve as a proverb or by-word. They use me with every species of indignity.
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain And now am I their song - See Job…
And now am I their song - See Job 17:6; compare Psa 69:12, “I was the song of the drunkards;” Lam 3:14, “I was a derision to all my people, and their song all the day.” The sense is, that they made Job and his calamities the subject of low jesting, and treated him with contempt. His name and sufferings would be introduced into their scurrilous songs to give them pith and point, and to show how much they despised him now.
Yea, I am their by-word - See the notes at Job 17:6.
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 Bye-word. "Proverb." (Haydock) --- They speak of me with…
Bye-word. "Proverb." (Haydock) --- They speak of me with contempt, chap. xvii. 6.
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 (Job 17:6). Strikingly similar to the derision Jesus Christ…
(Job 17:6). Strikingly similar to the derision Jesus Christ underwent (Lam 3:14; Psa 69:12). Here Job returns to the sentiment in Job 30:1. It is to such I am become a song of "derision."
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 Second strophe — These human outcasts are led on…
Second strophe — These human outcasts are led on to such brutal usage of Job by the treatment he had received at the hands of God, who had himself set the example, by letting loose his horde of calamities against his servant, Job_30:9-15.
9. Their song (of derision) — See Job_17:6. Nothing can give us of the West an idea of the shocking and indecent scurrilities Orientals put into their satirical, or, rather, abusive songs. (Kitto.)
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 9–10. Job’s treatment now at the hands of these…
9–10. Job’s treatment now at the hands of these outcasts.
With “spit in my face” comp. ch. Job_17:6. In ch. 24. Job referred to this miserable race With compassion; they had often no doubt excited his pity, and he saw in their lot and in the injustice and cruelties which they suffered at the hands of more prosperous men a strange mystery of providence. Now he speaks of their conduct to himself with resentment; for it was no requital of any injury he had ever done them. Yet though they might mistake Job’s individual feeling to them, he was one of the class that had robbed them and that continued the robbery and oppression, and they avenged their wrongs on him with a malicious delight in the calamities that had overtaken him.
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 (9) And now am I their song.—See the references…
(9) And now am I their song.—See the references in the margin, which show that it is quite appropriate to give to the complaints of Job a Messianic interpretation.
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 And now am I their song, yea, I am…
And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword. (see Job_17:6; and comp. Psa_69:12)
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Job speaks again about the people who were mocking him.
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But now I have become the subject of their taunting song
The abstract noun "song" can be expressed with the verb "sing." AT: "But now they sing songs about me to taunt me" (See: Abstract Nouns)
I have become a byword for them
Here "byword" is a metonym for the person about whom people make cruel jokes. AT: "I am now one whom they make cruel jokes about" or "They joke and say cruel things about me" (See: Metonymy)
they do not refrain from spitting in my face
This can be stated positively. AT: "they even spit in my face" (See: Litotes)
God has unstrung the string to my bow
A bow that is unstrung is not useful. The phrase "has unstrung the string of my bow" is a metaphor for making Job powerless. AT: "God has taken away my power to defend myself" (See: Metaphor)
those who taunt me
"those who mock me"
cast off restraint before my face
A restraint keeps a person from moving freely and doing what he wants. Here "restraint" represents refraining from doing something, and "cast off restraint" represents not refraining from doing something. In this case the mockers did not refrain from being cruel to Job. AT: "do not refrain from being cruel to me" or "do whatever cruel things they want to do to me" (See: Metaphor and Assumed Knowledge and Implicit Information)
translationWords
son
mock
God
bow and arrow
afflicted
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 30:9 They taunt me! See also 17:6; cp. Ps…
30:9 They taunt me! See also 17:6; cp. Ps 69:12; Lam 3:14, 63.
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.