Job 30:1-15

Job Complains of the Contempt he Receives from Men.

v. 1. But now they that are younger than I have me in derision, foolish and immature youngsters, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock, to put on a level with the lowest shepherds in his employ, mainly on account of their general untrustworthiness and improvidence.

v. 2. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me, what use could he possibly make of it, in whom old age was perished, whose mode of living kept them from reaching full manly vigor?

v. 3. For want and famine they were solitary, through want and hunger they were starved, their energy and strength were exhausted; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste, they gnaw at the desert, which has long been a waste and a wilderness, affording them only the scantiest living;

v. 4. who cut up mallows, the saltwort of the desert, by the bushes, where it led a precarious existence in the shadow of larger bushes, and juniper roots for their meat, a kind of broom-root or furze being their food.

v. 5. They were driven forth from among men, excluded from human society, (they cried after them as after a thief, such a hue and cry is raised by the Arab inhabitants of the villages when the vagabonds appear,)

v. 6. to dwell in the cliffs of the valleys, in caves of the earth, and in the rocks, those were the dwelling places of this low class of people, whose youngsters now dared to insult Job as he sat there in great misery.

v. 7. Among the bushes they brayed, crying out like the wild ass of the steppes; under the nettles, the brambles of the desert, they were gathered together; like herds of beasts of the wilderness.

v. 8. They were children of fools, yea, children of base men, really, no-account men; they were viler than the earth, literally, "who are whipped out of the country," as useless and dangerous rabble, on the order of vagabonds and gypsies.

v. 9. And now am I their song, their shout of mockery and derision, yea, I am their byword, they refer to Job only in a malicious, contemptuous manner.

v. 10. They abhor me, they flee far from me, shunning him with a most abject abhorrence, and spare not to spit in my face, as an expression of their unbounded contempt. So greatly had Job been degraded by God.

v. 11. Because He hath loosed my cord, God had let loose upon Job the horde of His calamities, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me, men were giving free rein to their violent and hateful attacks upon him. God and men had united in making Job the target of their scorn.

v. 12. Upon my right hand rise the youth, a brood of diseases and sufferings, or, the brood of young rascals who were now mocking him; they push away my feet, leaving him no foothold, no place to stand on, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction, besieging him on all sides, making him the object of their assaults.

v. 13. They mar my path, tearing it down, making it impassable; they set forward my calamity, promoting it, helping it along as it speeds to Job's destruction; they have no helper, there is no helper against them, they come on without hindrance.

v. 14. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, like a wide breach made in a dam or levee; in the desolation, in the midst of the falling ruins, they rolled themselves upon me, like an inrushing army which lays everything low by the force of its impact and assault.

v. 15. Terrors are turned upon me, the sudden fear of death; they pursue my soul as the wind, his dignity, his respect, and his influence like a storm; and my welfare passeth away as a cloud, his prosperity has vanished without leaving a trace. Thus Job brings out the great contrast between his former happy state and that of his present deep dishonor.