Job Chapter 30

From The Open Bible Project

30:1 "But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs.

• (a) That is, my estate is changed and while before the ancient men were glad to revere me, the young men now contemn me.
• (b) Meaning to be my shepherds or to keep my dogs.

30:2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?

• (c) That is, their fathers died of hunger before they came to age.

30:3 They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.

30:4 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom are their food.

30:5 They are driven out from the midst of men. They cry after them as after a thief;

• (d) Job shows that those who mocked him in his affliction were like their fathers, wicked and lewd fellows, such as he here describes.

30:6 So that they dwell in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.

30:7 Among the bushes they bray; and under the nettles they are gathered together.

30:8 They are children of fools, yes, children of base men. They were flogged out of the land.

30:9 "Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.

• (e) They make songs of me, and mock my misery.

30:10 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don't hesitate to spit in my face.

30:11 For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me.

• (f) God has taken from me the force, credit, and authority with which I kept them in subjection.
• (g) He said that the young men when they saw him, hid themselves as in (Job 29:8), and now in his misery they were impudent and licentious.

30:12 On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet, They cast up against me their ways of destruction.

• (h) That is, they sought by all means how they might destroy me.

30:13 They mar my path, They set forward my calamity, without anyone's help.

• (i) They need no one to help them.

30:14 As through a wide breach they come, in the midst of the ruin they roll themselves in.

• (k) By my calamity they took an opportunity against me.

30:15 Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.

30:16 "Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold on me.

• (l) My life fails me, and I am as half dead.

30:17 In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest.

• (m) Meaning sorrow.

30:18 By great force is my garment disfigured. It binds me about as the collar of my coat.

30:19 He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes.

• (n) That is, God has brought me into contempt.

30:20 I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me.

30:21 You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me.

• (o) He does not speak this way to accuse God, but to declare the vehemency of his affliction, by which he was carried beside himself.

30:22 You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm.

• (p) He compares his afflictions to a tempest or whirlwind.

30:23 For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.

30:24 "However doesn't one stretch out a hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help?

• (q) No one can deliver me from there, though they lament my death.

30:25 Didn't I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn't my soul grieved for the needy?

30:26 When I looked for good, then evil came; When I waited for light, there came darkness.

• (r) Instead of comforting they mocked me.

30:27 My heart is troubled, and doesn't rest. Days of affliction have come on me.

30:28 I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help.

• (s) Not delighting in any worldly thing, no not so much as in the use of the sun.
• (t) Lamenting them that were in affliction and moving others to pity them.

30:29 I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches.

• (u) I am like the wild beasts that desire solitary places.

30:30 My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat.

• (x) With the heat of affliction.

30:31 Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.