Job 30:1-15

2. Sorrowful description of his present sad estate (Job 30:1-31)

a. The contempt he has from men of lowest class (Job 30:1-15)

TEXT 30:1-15

1 But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,

Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock

2 Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me?

Men in whom ripe age is perished.

3 They are gaunt with want and famine;

They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation.

4 They pluck salt-wort by the bushes;

And the roots of the broom are their food.

5 They are driven forth from the midst of men;

They cry after them as after a thief;

6 So that they dwell in frightful valleys,

In holes of the earth and of the rocks.

7 Among the bushes they bray;

Under the nettles they are gathered together.

8 They are children of fools, yea, children of base men;

They were scourged out of the land.

9 And now I am become their song,

Yea, I am a byword unto them.

10 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me,

And spare not to spit in my face.

11 For he hath loosed his cord, and afflicted me;

And they have cast off the bridle before me.

12 Upon my right hand rise the rabble;

They thrust aside my feet.
And they cast up against me their ways of destruction.

13 They mar my path,

They set forward my calamity,

Even men that have no helper.

14 As through a wide breach they come:

In the midst of the ruin they roll themselves upon me.

15 Terrors are turned upon me;

They chase mine honor as the wind;
And my welfare is passed away as a cloud.

COMMENT 30:1-15

Job 30:1Job's irretrievable prestigious past is abruptly contrasted with the present chaos derived from the calamities he is presently enduring. Sharp abruptness is conveyed by the repetition of But nowJob 30:1; Job 30:9; Job 30:16 (-ksurely in Job 30:24). The prince who has shared his abundance to meet their needs, his compassion to heal their suffering, is now despised; he is beneath them. These miserable outcasts now despised their former benefactor. Their arrogant ingratitude is now one of Job's great burdens. Job pours out his soul in this poem, which contains four divisions: (1) Irreverence of impious menJob 30:1-8; (2) Resentment of societyJob 30:9-15; (3) God's indifferenceJob 30:16-23; and (4) Misery born of destitutionJob 30:24-31.

The young had formerly treated Job with marked respectJob 29:8; now they make sport of him. The verb translated as have me in derision is the same as in Job 29:24, but the preposition is different. In Job 29:24 he describes their gracious smile; here their vulgar mockery. The cultural decorum called for the respect of all eldersJob 15:10. But those who watched over his former flocks with their guard dogs publicly expressed disrespectIsaiah 56:10 ff; 1 Samuel 17:43; and Psalms 68:23. The dogs were scavengers and so were those who watched my flocks. Now they think they are better than I am.

Job 30:2Perhaps this verse describes the fathers of the youth in verse one. The fathers are weaklings (kalah here, kelah in Job 5:26, where -firm strength-' is conjectured) unfit and unable to do hard work. These men, who are not profitable to anyone, even they despise me.

Job 30:3Through hunger these men are stiff and lifeless. The word gaunt as in A. V. is from a word meaning hard or stony and is rendered barren in Job 3:7. They are so destitute that they gnaw (-rqoccurs only here and in Job 30:17) the roots of the dry ground. The emphasis here is not so much hunger as destitution of diet, diet limited to desert roots. The last line alliterative and literally reads yesterday desolate and waste, clearly suggesting the ruin and utter desolation of their habitat. Even these desert rats hate me.

Job 30:4Their diet is so poor that they eat saltwort. This is a saline plant with sour leaves, which grows in salt marshes. This is miserable food eaten in miserable circumstances. The broom roots yield charcoalPsalms 120:4; Isaiah 47:14; but they are not edible. Only the destitute would eat this type of plant.

Job 30:5Dahood suggests that the obscure phrasemin gew[303]should be translated with a shout they are driven forth, i.e., driven away when they approached inhabited places. These are not like the people of Job 24:5 ff who are forced to steal to have subsistence level of food; but they are social outcasts who are chased away from any community.

[303] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1957, pp. 318ff.

Job 30:6Since they are not welcome in any community, they live in the dreadful ravines among the rocks. Job bitterly relates how even these people taunt him, now that he is also an outcast living on a dunghill.

Job 30:7The root -nhq is used only twice in Job and means bray. It can mean bray suggesting lust, like a stallion in Jeremiah 5:8; but surely here its meaning is the hoarse cries of hunger. The miserable rabble huddle together under the plant (harul) rendered nettle in A. V. They huddle for warmth, not sexual perversion, as Peake suggests. But the meaning is uncertain, though it is related to certain leguminous plantsProverbs 24:31.

Job 30:8These outcasts are sons of no name. They have no respectable standing in any community; they are nobodys.[304] These unwelcomed were thrown out of the land (Heb. nakarendered scourged in A. V. should be thrust out or thrown out).

[304] W. M. W. Roth, Vetus Testamentum, 1960, pp. 402ff, suggests outcasts for sons of a senseless person.

Job 30:9This verse ties the threads together from verse one forward. These nobodys sing taunting songs which make Job the butt of their mockeryPsalms 69:12; and especially Lamentations 3:14.

Job 30:10Yesterday kings and princes revered Job. Now the most contemptuous men despise him. His description of this ilk has been rather elaborateJob 30:3-8; and Psalms 59; Psalms 64; Psalms 73. This conglomeration of socially wretched even spit on the ground in front of methe height of insult!

Job 30:11The metaphors are obscure. Line one is in the singular he has loosed (following the Kethib reading his cord rather than the Qere reading my cord); the second line is in the plural, they have cast off. It is unclear what cord is intended, but the removal of the restraint (A. V.bridle) is an insolent act intended to humiliate Job.

Job 30:12All of the images suggest an assault context. On my right hand could suggest a court of law, where the accuser stood at the right hand; but the context is that of a siege or assault. The word rendered rabble as in A. V. could mean chicks as in Deuteronomy 22:6 and Psalms 83:3, and thus young ones with a deprecatory implication, that is insolent pups. The verb rendered cast off-' in Job 30:11 appears here and means to drive out, or forth; thus the line implies that they have driven Job down roads of ruin or destruction (lit. they have cast off my feet).

Job 30:13The verb (ntsrendered as A. V. -mar) means to break up or pull down. Job continues with the destruction imagery. The outcasts make Job's path impossible. These diabolical persons actively promote (A. V. set forward) his troubles. Those who aggressively attack him have no restraint (A. V. helper). G. R. Driver[305] has shown that the word has polarized meanings of help or hinder; this context calls for hinder.

[305] G. R. Driver, American Journal of Semitic Literature, 1935-6; p. 163; see also Blommerde, who tenders the line as there is none to help me against them.

Job 30:14The imagery of a besieged city under attack is also maintained in this verse. Here the wall is breached and wave after wave of soldiers pour through the wall like a tempest (soahProverbs 1:27; Ezekiel 38:9). In the midst of the ruin expresses the fact of falling stones from the breached wall (Heb. under the crash). The hordes of soldiers roll through (the verb means rollAmos 5:24) the wall like billows or waves. As if inexhaustible, Job's enemies roll over him as a storm-tossed sea.

Job 30:15Terrors are overthrown on top of me. The picture is strikingly violent. Job's princely dignity, once so widely acknowledged, is now blowing in the windJob 21:18 and Psalms 1:4. His well-being (Heb. yesu-'ah[306]prosperity, often rendered salvation) passes swiftly away.

[306] Material and physical welfare is the dimension of the biblical doctrine of salvation often missed and is presently being strongly emphasized by Neo-Marxist Roman Catholics, especially in Latin America. See my Seminar SyllabusSin and Salvation.