Job 30:1-31
1 But now they that are youngera than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.
2 Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, in whom old age was perished?
3 For want and famine they were solitary;b fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
4 Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.
5 They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)
6 To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, in cavesc of the earth, and in the rocks.
7 Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.
8 They were children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.
9 And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.
10 They abhor me, they flee far from me, and spare not to spit in my face.
11 Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.
12 Upon my right hand rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.
13 They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.
14 They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters: in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me.
15 Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my sould as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.
16 And now my soul is poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.
17 My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.
18 By the great force of my disease is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.
19 He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me not.
21 Thou art becomee cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.
22 Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride upon it, and dissolvest my substance.f
23 For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.
24 Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave,g though they cry in his destruction.
25 Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was not my soul grieved for the poor?
26 When I looked for good, then evil came unto me: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.
27 My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.
28 I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, and I cried in the congregation.
29 I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.h
30 My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with heat.
31 My harp also is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.
Job 30:1. The dogs of my flock. Job does not say this through pride, for he owns that the slave and himself were formed by the same hand: Job 31:15. He says it rather with a view to describe the sin and the folly of the untutored race.
Job 30:4. Who cut up mallows and juniper-roots for their meat. The rabbins are irrelevant here. Calmet is silent, and Schultens with all his Arabic is uncertain. But the monkeys in South Africa, when the leaves are decayed, will often guide the hungry Hottentot where to find roots. Vaillant's Travels.
Job 30:7. They brayed under the nettles. The LXX, they sighed; growled out their noisy and revolting speeches under the bushes.
Job 30:8. They were children of fools. Of all the versions the English seems the least successful; better, flagitious children, children of men without a name, vile beyond comparison with earth.
Job 30:18. Force of my disease. These words are deficient in the Hebrew, but copied in the Latin from some authorized reading. The LXX read, “He has with great strength taken hold of my robe, and bound me by the collar of my coat,” as wrestlers do to throw their antagonists to the ground. The text is obscure, which occasions variations in all the versions. The French reads, “The colour of my vestment is changed;” and it would seem, by the soporation of his sores; a reading altogether at issue with the LXX.
Job 30:29. A brother to dragons. Job sat in solitude, hearing the hissings and wailings of serpents in the night. See note on Deuteronomy 32:33.
REFLECTIONS.
Job was truly a philanthropic character. His camp, his city, and his heart were open, to give the wretched wanderers work and bread. They found a home and an asylum under his wings. It is the character of a happy man to make others happy too. But how mortifying when those Arabian wanderers found Job, as they supposed, overthrown and lost, that they should turn their tongues against the afflicted, and make him the scornful subject of their songs. Nay, not only the poor, but God himself seemed to fight against a worm. “Thou holdest me with thy strong hand. I cry to thee, and thou dost not hear. When I looked for good, behold evil came.”
Job's anguish was made the more grievous by contrast with former times. My harp is turned to mourning. In the ancient church, music was always joined with devotion, but the least so in christian assemblies. It guides and enlivens psalmody. But alas, alas, our choirs, through vanity and pride, put the people to silence by a superabundance of new tunes, which have little merit, except novelty. It grieves and wounds the church, who love the old melodies: assuredly these singers must give up their account with shame.