Job 30 commentary

Job contrasts his present condition with his former honour and authority. What little cause have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! We should not be cast down if we are despised, reviled, and hated by wicked men. We should look to Jesus, who endured the contradiction of sinners.

Job complains a great deal. Harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset Job. When inward temptations join with outward calamities, the soul is hurried as in a tempest, and is filled with confusion. But woe be to those who really have God for an enemy! Compared with the awful state of ungodly men, what are all outward, or even inward temporal afflictions? There is something with which Job comforts himself, yet it is but a little. He foresees that death will be the end of all his troubles. God's wrath might bring him to death; but his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits. If none pity us, yet our God, who corrects, pities us, even as a father pitieth his own children. And let us look more to the things of eternity: then the believer will cease from mourning, and joyfully praise redeeming love.

CHAPTER 30

Job 30:1-31.

1. younger--not the three friends (Job 15:10; 32:4, 6, 7). A general description: Job 30:1-8, the lowness of the persons who derided him; Job 30:9-15, the derision itself. Formerly old men rose to me (Job 29:8). Now not only my juniors, who are bound to reverence me (Le 19:32), but even the mean and base-born actually deride me; opposed to, "smiled upon" (Job 29:24). This goes farther than even the "mockery" of Job by relations and friends (Job 12:4; 16:10, 20; 17:2, 6; 19:22). Orientals feel keenly any indignity shown by the young. Job speaks as a rich Arabian emir, proud of his descent.

dogs--regarded with disgust in the East as unclean (1Sa 17:43; Pr 26:11). They are not allowed to enter a house, but run about wild in the open air, living on offal and chance morsels (Psa 59:14, 15). Here again we are reminded of Jesus Christ (Psa 22:16). "Their fathers, my coevals, were so mean and famished that I would not have associated them with (not to say, set them over) my dogs in guarding my flock."

2. If their fathers could be of no profit to me, much less the sons, who are feebler than their sires; and in whose case the hope of attaining old age is utterly gone, so puny are they (Job 5:26) [Maurer]. Even if they had "strength of hands," that could be now of no use to me, as all I want in my present affliction is sympathy.

3. solitary--literally, "hard as a rock"; so translate, rather, "dried up," emaciated with hunger. Job describes the rudest race of Bedouins of the desert [Umbreit].

fleeing--So the Septuagint. Better, as Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, "gnawers of the wilderness." What they gnaw follows in Job 30:4.

in former time--literally, the "yesternight of desolation and waste" (the most utter desolation; Eze 6:14); that is, those deserts frightful as night to man, and even there from time immemorial. I think both ideas are in the words darkness [Gesenius] and antiquity [Umbreit]. (Is 30:33, Margin).

4. mallows--rather, "salt-wort," which grows in deserts and is eaten as a salad by the poor [Maurer].

by the bushes--among the bushes.

juniper--rather, a kind of broom, Spartium junceum [Linnæus], still called in Arabia, as in the Hebrew of Job, retem, of which the bitter roots are eaten by the poor.

5. they cried--that is, "a cry is raised." Expressing the contempt felt for this race by civilized and well-born Arabs. When these wild vagabonds make an incursion on villages, they are driven away, as thieves would be.

6. They are forced "to dwell."

cliffs of the valleys--rather, "in the gloomy valleys"; literally, "in the gloom of the valleys," or wadies. To dwell in valleys is, in the East, a mark of wretchedness. The troglodytes, in parts of Arabia, lived in such dwellings as caves.

7. brayed--like the wild ass (Job 6:5 for food). The inarticulate tones of this uncivilized rabble are but little above those of the beast of the field.

gathered together--rather, sprinkled here and there. Literally, "poured out," graphically picturing their disorderly mode of encampment, lying up and down behind the thorn bushes.

nettles--or brambles [Umbreit].

8. fools--that is, the impious and abandoned (1Sa 25:25).

base--nameless, low-born rabble.

viler than, &c.--rather, they were driven or beaten out of the land. The Horites in Mount Seir (Ge 14:6 with which compare Ge 36:20, 21; De 2:12, 22) were probably the aborigines, driven out by the tribe to which Job's ancestors belonged; their name means troglodytæ, or "dwellers in caves." To these Job alludes here (Job 30:1-8, and Ge 24:4-8, which compare together).

9. (Job 17:6). Strikingly similar to the derision Jesus Christ underwent (La 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."

10. in my face--rather, refrain not to spit in deliberate contempt before my face. To spit at all in presence of another is thought in the East insulting, much more so when done to mark "abhorrence." Compare the further insult to Jesus Christ (Is 50:6; Mt 26:67).

11. He--that is, "God"; antithetical to "they"; English Version here follows the marginal reading (Keri).

my cord--image from a bow unstrung; opposed to Job 29:20. The text (Chetib), "His cord" or "reins" is better; "yea, each lets loose his reins" [Umbreit].

12. youth--rather, a (low) brood. To rise on the right hand is to accuse, as that was the position of the accuser in court (Zec 3:1; Psa 109:6).

push ... feet--jostle me out of the way (Job 24:4).

ways of--that is, their ways of (that is, with a view to my) destruction. Image, as in Job 19:12, from a besieging army throwing up a way of approach for itself to a city.

13. Image of an assailed fortress continued. They tear up the path by which succor might reach me.

set forward--(Zec 1:15).

they have no helper--Arabic proverb for contemptible persons. Yet even such afflict Job.

14. waters--(So 2Sa 5:20). But it is better to retain the image of Job 30:12, 13. "They came [upon me] as through a wide breach," namely, made by the besiegers in the wall of a fortress (Is 30:13) [Maurer].

in the desolation--"Amidst the crash" of falling masonry, or "with a shout like the crash" of, &c.

15. they--terrors.

soul--rather, "my dignity" [Umbreit].

welfare--prosperity.

cloud--(Job 7:9; Is 44:22).

16-23. Job's outward calamities affect his mind.

poured out--in irrepressible complaints (Psa 42:4; Jos 7:5).

24. Expressing Job's faith as to the state after death. Though one must go to the grave, yet He will no more afflict in the ruin of the body (so Hebrew for "grave") there, if one has cried to Him when being destroyed. The "stretching of His hand" to punish after death answers antithetically to the raising "the cry" of prayer in the second clause. Maurer gives another translation which accords with the scope of Job 30:24-31; if it be natural for one in affliction to ask aid, why should it be considered (by the friends) wrong in my case? "Nevertheless does not a man in ruin stretch out his hand" (imploring help, Job 30:20; La 1:17)? If one be in his calamity (destruction) is there not therefore a "cry" (for aid)? Thus in the parallelism "cry" answers to "stretch--hand"; "in his calamity," to "in ruin." The negative of the first clause is to be supplied in the second, as in Job 30:25 (Job 28:17).

25. May I not be allowed to complain of my calamity, and beg relief, seeing that I myself sympathized with those "in trouble" (literally, "hard of day"; those who had a hard time of it).

26. I may be allowed to crave help, seeing that, "when I looked for good (on account of my piety and charity), yet evil," &c.

light--(Job 22:28).

27. bowels--regarded as the seat of deep feeling (Is 16:11).

boiled--violently heated and agitated.

prevented--Old English for "unexpectedly came upon" me, "surprised" me.

28. mourning--rather, I move about blackened, though not by the sun; that is, whereas many are blackened by the sun, I am, by the heat of God's wrath (so "boiled," Job 30:27); the elephantiasis covering me with blackness of skin (Job 30:30), as with the garb of mourning (Jr 14:2). This striking enigmatic form of Hebrew expression occurs, Is 29:9.

stood up--as an innocent man crying for justice in an assembled court (Job 30:20).

29. dragons ... owls--rather, "jackals," "ostriches," both of which utter dismal screams (Mi 1:8); in which respect, as also in their living amidst solitudes (the emblem of desolation), Job is their brother and companion; that is, resembles them. "Dragon," Hebrew, tannim, usually means the crocodile; so perhaps here, its open jaws lifted towards heaven, and its noise making it seem as if it mourned over its fate [Bochart].

30. upon me--rather, as in Job 30:17 (see on Job 30:17), "my skin is black (and falls away) from me."

my bones--(Job 19:20; Psa 102:5).

31. organ--rather, "pipe" (Job 21:12). "My joy is turned into the voice of weeping" (La 5:15). These instruments are properly appropriated to joy (Is 30:29, 32), which makes their use now in sorrow the sadder by contrast.

But now they that are younger than I have me in derision - Compare this with Job 29:8, where he speaks of the respect he had from the youth while in the days of his prosperity. Now he is no longer affluent, and they are no longer respectful.

Dogs of my flock - Persons who were not deemed sufficiently respectable to be trusted with the care of those dogs which were the guardians of my flocks. Not confidential enough to be made shepherds, ass-keepers, or camel-drivers; nor even to have the care of the dogs by which the flocks were guarded. This saying is what we call an expression of sovereign contempt.

The strength of their hands profit me - He is speaking here of the fathers of these young men. What was the strength of their hands to me? Their old age also has perished. The sense of which I believe to be this: I have never esteemed their strength even in their most vigorous youth, nor their conduct, nor their counsel even in old age. They were never good for any thing, either young or old. As their youth was without profit, so their old age was without honor. See Calmet. Mr. Good contends that the words are Arabic, and should be translated according to the meaning in that language, and the first clause of the third verse joined to the latter clause of the second, without which no good meaning can be elicited so as to keep properly close to the letter. I shall give the Hebrew text, Mr. Good's Arabic, and its translation: -

The Hebrew text is this: - עלימו אבד כלח aleymo abad calach בחסר ובכפן גלמוד becheser ubechaphan galmud.

The Arabic version which he translates thus: - "With whom crabbed looks are perpetual,

From hunger and flinty famine."

This translation is very little distant from the import of the present Hebrew text, if it may be called Hebrew, when the principal words are pure Arabic, and the others constructively so.

Fleeing into the wilderness - Seeking something to sustain life even in the barren desert. This shows the extreme of want, when the desert is supposed to be the only place where any thing to sustain life can possibly be found.

Who cut up mallows by the bushes - מלוח malluach, which we translate mallows, comes from מלח melach, salt; some herb or shrub of a salt nature, sea-purslane, or the salsaria, salsola, or saltwort. Bochart says it is the ἁλιμος of the Greeks, and the halimus of the Romans. Some translate it nettles. The Syriac and Arabic omit the whole verse. The halimus, or atriplex halimus, grows near the sea in different countries, and is found in Spain, America, England, and Barbary. The salsaria, salsola, or saltwort, is an extensive genus of plants, several common to Asia, and not a few indigenous to a dry and sandy soil.

And juniper roots for their meat - רתמים rethamim. This is variously translated juniper, broom, furze, gorse, or whin. It is supposed to derive its name from the toughness of its twigs, as רתם ratham signifies to bind; and this answers well enough to the broom. Genista quoque vinculi usum praestat, "The broom serves for bands," says Pliny, Hist. Nat. lib. xxiv., c. 9. But how can it be said that the roots of this shrub were eaten? I do not find any evidence from Asiatic writers that the roots of the juniper tree were an article of food; and some have supposed, because of this want of evidence, that the word לחמם lachmam, for their bread, should be understood thus, to bake their bread, because it is well known that the wood of the juniper gives an intense heat, and the coals of it endure a long time; and therefore we find coals of juniper, גחלי רחמים gachaley rethamim, used Psa 120:4 to express severe and enduring punishment. But that the roots of the juniper were used for food in the northern countries, among the Goths, we have a positive testimony from Olaus Magnus, himself a Goth, and archbishop of Upsal, in lib. vii., c. 4, of his Hist. de Gentibus Septentrionalibus. Speaking of the great number of different trees in their woods, he says: "There is a great plenty of beech trees in all the northern parts, the virtue whereof is this: that, being cut between the bark and the wood, they send forth a juice that is good for drink. The fruit of them in famine serves for bread, and their bark for clothing. Likewise also the berries of the juniper, yea, even the roots of this tree are eaten for bread, as holy Job testifies, though it is difficult to come at them by reason of their prickles: in these prickles, or thorns, live coals will last a whole year. If the inhabitants do not quench them, when winds arise they set the woods on fire, and destroy all the circumjacent fields." In this account both the properties of the juniper tree, referred to by Job and David, are mentioned by the Gothic prelate. They use its berries and roots for food, and its wood for fire.

They were driven forth - They were persons whom no one would employ; they were driven away from the city; and if any of them appeared, the hue and cry was immediately raised up against them. The last clause Mr. Good translates, "They slunk away from them like a thief," instead of "They cried after them," etc.

To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys - They were obliged to take shelter in the most dangerous, out-of-the-way, and unfrequented places. This is the meaning.

Among the bushes they brayed - They cried out among the bushes, seeking for food, as the wild ass when he is in want of provender. Two MSS. read ינאקו yinaku, they groaned, instead of ינהקו yinhaku, they brayed.

Under the nettles - חרול charul, the briers or brambles, under the brushwood in the thickest parts of the underwood; they huddled together like wild beasts.

Children of fools - Children of nabal; children without a name; persons of no consideration, and descendants of such.

Viler than the earth - Rather, driven out of the land; persons not fit for civil society.

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.

They abhor me - What a state must civil society be in when such indignities were permitted to be offered to the aged and afflicted!

Because he hath loosed my cord - Instead of יתרי yithri, my cord, which is the keri or marginal reading, יתרו yithro, his cord, is the reading of the text in many copies; and this reading directs us to a metaphor taken from an archer, who, observing his butt, sets his arrow on the string, draws it to a proper degree of tension, levels, and then loosing his hold, the arrow flies at the mark. He hath let loose his arrow against me; it has hit me; and I am wounded. The Vulgate understood it in this way: Pharetram enim suam aperuit. So also the Septuagint: Ανοιξας γαρ φαρετραν αυτου; "He hath opened his quiver."

They have also let loose the bridle - When they perceived that God had afflicted me, they then threw off all restraints; like headstrong horses, swallowed the bit, got the reins on their own neck, and ran off at full speed.

Upon my right hand rise the youth - The word פרחח pirchach, which we translate youth, signifies properly buds, or the buttons of trees. Mr. Good has younglings. Younkers would be better, were it not too colloquial.

They push away my feet - They trip up my heels, or they in effect trample me under their feet. They rush upon and overwhelm me. They are violently incensed against me. They roll themselves upon me, התגלגלו hithgalgalu, velut unda impellit undam, as waves of the sea which wash the sand from under the feet, and then swamp the man to the bottom; see Job 30:14.

They mar my path - They destroy the way-marks, so that there is no safety in travelling through the deserts, the guide-posts and way-marks being gone. These may be an allusion here to a besieged city: the besiegers strive by every means and way to distress the besieged; stopping up the fountains, breaking up the road, raising up towers to project arrows and stones into the city, called here raising up against it the ways of destruction, Job 30:12; preventing all succor and support.

They have no helper - "There is not an adviser among them." - Mr. Good. There is none to give them better instruction.

They came upon me as a wide breaking in - They storm me on every side.

In the desolation they rolled themselves - When they had made the breach, they rolled in upon me as an irresistible torrent. There still appears to be an allusion to a besieged city: the sap, the breach, the storm, the flight, the pursuit, and the slaughter. See the following verse, Job 30:15 (note).

Terrors are turned upon me - Defence is no longer useful; they have beat down my walls.

They pursue my soul as the wind - I seek safety in flight, my strong holds being no longer tenable; but they pursue me so swiftly, that it is impossible for me to escape. They follow me like a whirlwind; and as fast as that drives away the clouds before it, so is my prosperity destroyed. The word נדבתי nedibathi, which we translate my soul, signifies properly my nobility, my excellence: they endeavor to destroy both my reputation and my property.

Is my garment changed - There seem to be here plain allusions to the effect of his cruel disease; the whole body being enveloped with a kind of elephantine hide, formed by innumerable incrustations from the ulcerated surface.

It bindeth me about - There is now a new kind of covering to my body, formed by the effects of this disease; and it is not a garment which I can cast off; it is as closely attached to me as the collar of my coat. Or, my disease seizes me as a strong armed man; it has throttled me, and cast me in the mud. This is probably an allusion to two persons struggling: the stronger seizes the other by the throat, brings him down, and treads him in the dirt.

I cry unto thee - I am persecuted by man, afflicted with sore disease, and apparently forsaken of God.

I stand up - Or, as some translate, "I persevere, and thou lookest upon me." Thou seest my desolate, afflicted state; but thine eye doth not affect thy heart. Thou leavest me unsupported to struggle with my adversities.

Thou art become cruel to me - Thou appearest to treat me with cruelty. I cry for mercy, trust in thy goodness, and am still permitted to remain under my afflictions.

Thou opposest thyself - Instead of helping, thou opposest me; thou appearest as my enemy.

Thou liftest me up to the wind - Thou hast so completely stripped me of all my substance, that I am like chaff lifted up by the wind; or as a straw, the sport of every breeze; and at last carried totally away, being dissipated into particles by the continued agitation.

Thou wilt bring me to death - This must be the issue of my present affliction: to God alone it is possible that I should survive it.

To the house appointed for all living - Or to the house, מועד moed, the rendezvous, the place of general assembly of human beings: the great devourer in whose jaws all that have lived, now live, and shall live, must necessarily meet. " - O great man-eater!

Whose every day is carnival; not sated yet!

Unheard of epicure! without a fellow!

The veriest gluttons do not always cram!

Some intervals of abstinence are sought

To edge the appetite: thou seekest none.

Methinks the countless swarms thou hast devour'd,

And thousands that each hour thou gobblest up,

This, less than this, might gorge thee to the full.

But O! rapacious still, thou gap'st for more,

Like one, whole days defrauded of his meals,

On whom lank hunger lays her skinny hand,

And whets to keenest eagerness his cravings;

As if diseases, massacres, and poisons,

Famine, and war, were not thy caterers."

The Grave.

He will not stretch out his hand to the grave - After all that has been said relative to the just translation and true meaning of this verse, is it not evident that it is in the mouth of Job a consolatory reflection? As if he said, Though I suffer here, I shall not suffer hereafter. Though he add stroke to stroke, so as to destroy my life, yet his displeasure shall not proceed beyond the grave.

Though they cry in his destruction - Mr. Good translates: Surely there, in its ruin, is freedom. In the sepulcher there is freedom from calamity, and rest for the weary.

Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? - Mr. Good translates much nearer the sense of the original, לקשה יום liksheh yom. "Should I not then weep for the ruthless day?" May I not lament that my sufferings are only to terminate with my life? Or, Did I not mourn for those who suffered by times of calamity? Was not my soul grieved for the poor? Did I not relieve the distressed according to my power; and did I not sympathize with the sufferer?

My bowels boiled - This alludes to the strong commotion in the bowels which every humane person feels at the sight of one in misery.

I went mourning without the sun - חמה chammah, which we here translate the sun, comes from a root of the same letters, which signifies to hide, protect, etc., and may be translated, I went mourning without a protector or guardian; or, the word may be derived from חם cham, to be hot, and here it may signify fury, rage, anger; and thus it was understood by the Vulgate: Maerens incedebam, sine furore, I went mourning without anger; or, as Calmet translates, Je marchois tout triste, mais sans me laisser aller a l'emportement; "I walked in deep sadness, but did not give way to an angry spirit." The Syriac and Arabic understood it in the same way.

I am a brother to dragons - By my mournful and continual cry I resemble תנים tannim, the jackals or hyenas.

And a companion to owls - בנות יענה benoth yaanah, to the daughters of howling: generally understood to be the ostrich; for both the jackal and the female ostrich are remarkable for their mournful cry, and for their attachment to desolate places - Dodd.

My skin is black - By continual exposure to the open air, and parching influence of the sun.

My bones are burned with heat - A strong expression, to point out the raging fever that was continually preying upon his vitals.

My harp also is turned to mourning - Instead of the harp, my only music is my own plaintive cries.

And my organ - What the עגב uggab was, we know not; it was most probably some sort of pipe or wind instrument. His harp, כנור kinnor, and his pipe, עגב uggab, were equally mute, or only used for mournful ditties.

This chapter is full of the most painful and pathetic sorrow; but nevertheless tempered with a calmness and humiliation of spirit, which did not appear in Job's lamentations previously to the time in which he had that remarkable revelation mentioned in the nineteenth chapter. (Job 19:25) After he was assured that his Redeemer was the living God, he submitted to his dispensations, kissed the rod, and mourned not without hope, though in deep distress, occasioned by his unremitting sufferings. If the groaning of Job was great, his stroke was certainly heavy.

Younger - Whom both universal custom, and the light of nature, taught to reverence their elders and betters. Whose fathers - Whose condition was so mean, that in the opinion, of the world, they were unworthy to be my shepherds the companions of my dogs which watch my flocks.

Solitary - Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, that they shunned company, and for fear or shame fled into, and lived in desolate places.

Who cut - Bitter herbs, which shews their extreme necessity. Juniper - Possibly the word may signify some other plant, for the Hebrews themselves are at a loss for the signification of the names of plants.

Brayed - Like the wild asses, for hunger or thirst. Thorns - Under which they hide themselves, that they might not be discovered when they are sought out for justice.

Spit - Not literally, for they kept far from him, but figuratively, they use all manner of reproachful expressions, even to my face. Herein, also we see a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men, and despised of the people.

He - God. Cord - Hath slackened the string of my bow, and so rendered my bow and arrows useless; he hath deprived me of my strength or defence. Let loose - They cast off all former restraints of humanity, or modesty, and do those things before mine eyes, which formerly they trembled lest they should come to my ears.

Right hand - This was the place of adversaries or accusers in courts of justice. The youth - Heb. young striplings, who formerly hid themselves from my presence, chap.29:8. Push - Metaphorically, they endeavour to overwhelm me. Ways - Cause - ways, or banks: so it is a metaphor from soldiers, who cast up banks, against the city which they besiege. Destruction - To destroy me.

Mar - As I am in great misery, so they endeavour to stop all my ways out of it. Set forward - Increasing it by their invectives, and censures. Even they - Who are themselves in a forlorn and miserable condition.

Waste place - In the waste place; in that part of the bank which was broken down. They rolled - As the waters, come rolling in at the breach.

Terrors - If he endeavoured to shake them off, they turned furiously upon him: if he endeavoured to out run them, they pursued his soul, as swiftly and violently as the wind.

I stand - I pray importunately and continually.

Turned - As if thou hadst changed thy very nature, which is kind, and merciful, and gracious.

Thou - Thou exposest me, to all sorts of storms and calamities; so that I am like chaff or stubble lifted up to the wind, and violently tossed hither and thither in the air. Substance - By which, my body is almost consumed, and my heart is melted within me.

House appointed - The grave is a narrow, dark, cold house, but there we shall rest and be safe. It is our home, for it is our mother's lap, and in it we are gathered to our fathers. It is an house appointed for us, by him that has appointed the bounds of all our habitations. And it is appointed for all living. It is the common receptacle for rich and poor: we must all be brought thither, and that shortly.

To the grave - The hand of God's wrath will not follow me beyond death; I shall then be safe and easy: Tho' men cry in his destruction: tho' most men cry and are affrighted, while they are dying, while the body is sinking into destruction; yet I desire it, I have nothing to fear therein, since I know that my redeemer liveth.

Did not I - Have I now judgment without mercy, because I afforded no mercy to others in misery? No; my conscience acquits me from this inhumanity: I did mourn over others in their miseries.

Upon me - Yet trouble came upon myself, when I expected it not.

Affliction - Came upon me suddenly, and unexpectedly, when I promised myself peace and prosperity.

Without the sun - Heb. black, not by the sun. My very countenance became black, tho' not by the sun, but by the force of my disease.

A brother - By imitation of their cries: persons of like qualities are often called brethren. Dragon - Which howl and wail mournfully in the deserts.

1. BUT now they that are younger than I , have me in derision , whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock .

My Condition is sadly changed for the worse.

Whom both universal custom and the light of Nature taught to reverence their Elders and betters.

Make me the Object of their contempt and scoffs: Thus my glory is turned into shame.

Or rather, I might have disdained, i. e. Whose condition was so mean and vile, that in the opinion and according to the custom of the World, they were unworthy of such an employment.

To be my Shepherds, and the Companions of my Dogs which watch my Flocks. Dogs are every where mentioned with contempt as filthy, unprofitable, and accursed Creatures; as 2 Sam. 16. 9. 2 Kings 8. 13. Phil. 3. 2. Rev[illegible: 1+ letters]. 22. 15.

Marginal references: Heb. Of fewer days than I.

2. Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me , in whom old age was perished ?

Nor was it strange that I did, or would, or might refuse to take them into any of my meanest services, because they were utterly impotent, and therefore unserviceable.

Or, bost, either 1. because they never attain to it, but are consumed by their lusts, or cut off for their wickedness by the just hand of God or men in the midst of their days. Or 2. because they had so wasted their strength and spirits by their evil courses, that when they came to old age, they were feeble and decrepit▪ and useless for any labour. Or 3. because they had not that prudence and experience which is proper and usual in that age, by which they might have been useful if not for work, yet to oversee and direct others in their work. But the words may be thus rendred, In whom vigorous age was perished, i. e. who were grown impotent for service. For the word here rendred old age, is used only here, and Iob 5. 26. where also it may be so rendred, Thou shalt come to thy grave in a vigorous or mature age, having the vigour of youth even in thine old age and until thy death, as Moses had. And if this word do signifie old age, yet it signifies not every, but only a flourishing and vigorous old age; as the Hebrews note, and the word may seem to imply: Whence the seventy Interpreters also render it perfection, to wit, of age, and of the endowments belonging to age.

3. For want and famine th[illegible: 1+ letters] were solitary: fleeing into the wilderness, in former time desolate and wast:

Brought upon them either by their own sloth or wickedness, or by God's just judgment. Heb. In want and famine, which aggravates their following solitude. Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort and company for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, and contemptibleness, and hatefulness to all persons, that they shunned all company, and for fear or shame fled into and lived in desolate places.

Marginal references: Or, dark as th[illegible: 1+ letters] night.; Heb. yesternight.

4. Who cut up mallows by the bushes , and juniper roots for their meat.

Or, Purslain, or Salt, or bitter herbs, as the word seems to import, which shews their extream necessity.

Or, by the shrubs, nigh unto which they grew. Or, with the barks of trees, as the Vulgar Latine renders it.

Possibly the word may signifie some other Plant, for the Hebrews themselves are at a loss for the signification of the Names of Plants.

5. They were driven forth from among men , (they cried after them, as after a thief )

As unworthy of humane society, and for their beggery and dishonesty, suspected and avoided of all men.

Giving one another warning of their danger from them.

7. Among the bushes they brayed , under the nettles they were gathered together.

Like the wild Asses, Iob 6. 5. for hunger or thirst.

Which seem not proper [illegible: 1+ letters]or that use. This Hebrew word is used but twice in Scripture, and it is acknowledged both by Iewish and Christian Writers, that the signification of the Hebrew words which express Plants, or Beasts, or Stones, &c. is very uncertain; and therefore this is by others, and may well be understood of some kind of Thorns: And so this is the same thing with the bushes in the former Branch of the Verse, under which they hid themselves, that they might not be discovered when they were sought out for justice.

8. They were children of fools , yea, children of base men : they were viler than the earth .

Either 1. the genuine Children of foolish Parents, their Children not only by Birth, but by Imitation; as they onely are esteemed the children of Abraham, who do the works of Abraham, Iohn 8. 39. Or 2. Fools, by a common Hebraism, as the sons of men are put for men, and the children of wisdom, for wise men, &c.

Heb. men without name, i. e. without any degree of Credit or Reputation; as men of name is put for renowned persons, Gen. 6. 4.

Which we tread and spit upon, and are not willing to touch.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word] [illegible: 1 word].

9. And now am I their song , yea, I am their by-word.

The matter of their song and derision: They now rejoyce in my Calamities, because formerly I used my authority to punish such Vagrants and Miscreants.

Marginal references: Chap. 17. 6. Psal. 35. 15. & 69. 12. I am. 3. 14, [illegible: 1+ letters]3.

10. They abhor me, they flee far from me , and spare not to spit in my face .

In contempt of my person and loathing of my sores.

Not literally, for they kept far from him, as he now said; but figuratively, i. e. they use all manner of contemptuous and reproachful expressions and carriages towards me, not only behind my back, but even to my face.

Marginal references: Heb. [illegible: 1 word] wit[illegible: 1+ letters]old [illegible: 1 word] spittle from [illegible: 1 word] fac[illegible: 1+ letters].

11. Because he hath loosed my cord , and afflicted me , they have also let loose the bridle before me .

To wit, God, for it follows, He afflicted me, which was God's work.

Either 1. He hath slackned the string (as this word sometimes signifies) of my Bow, and so rendred my Bow and Arrows useless, either to offend others, or to defend my self; i. e. He hath deprived me of my strength or defence: So this is opposed to that expression, Chap. 29. 20. Or 2. He hath taken away from me that power and authority, wherewith as with a Cord, I bound them to the good behaviour, and kept them within their bounds. The like expression is used in the same sense, Iob 12. 18.

When they perceived that God who had been my faithful Friend and constant Defender had forsaken me, and was become mine Enemy, they presently took this advantage of shewing their malice against me.

They cast off all former restraints of law, or humanity, or modesty, and gave themselves full liberty to speak or act what they pleased against me.

They durst now do those things before mine eyes, which formerly they trembled lest they should come to my ears.

12. Upon my right hand rise the youth , they push away my feet , and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction .

This Circumstance is noted either because this was the place of Adversaries or Accusers in Courts of Justice, Psal 109. 6. Zach. 3. 1. Or to shew their boldness and contempt of him, that they durst oppose him even on that side where his chief strength lay.

To wit, in way of contempt and opposition, or to accuse and reproach me, as my Friends now do; as one who by my great but secret wickedness have brought these miseries upon my self.

Heb. Young striplings, who formerly hid themselves from my presence, Chap. 29. 8.

Either 1. properly, they trip up my heels. Or rather 2. Metaphorically, they endeavour utterly to overwhelm my goings, and to cast me down to the ground.

i. e. Cawseways, or Banks: So it is a Metaphor from Souldiers, who raise or cast up Banks against the City which they besiege. Or, they raise up a Level, or smooth the Path by continual treading it: they prepare, and contrive, and use several methods to destroy me.

Either 1. passively; so the sense is, they raise or heap upon me, i. e. impute to me, the ways, i. e. the causes of their ruine. They charge me to be the Author of their ruine. Or rather 2. actively, of that destruction which they design and carry on against me: Which best suits with the whole Context, wherein Iob is constantly represented as the Patient, and wicked men as the Agents.

13. They mar my path , they set forward my calamity , they have no helper .

As I am in great misery, so they endeavour to stop all my ways out of it, and to frustrate all my counsels and courses of obtaining relief or comfort. And although Iob had no hopes of a temporal deliverance or restitution, yet he could not but observe and resent the malice of those who did their utmost to hinder it. Or the sense is, They prevent all my ways, putting perverse and false constructions upon them, censuring all my conscientious discharges of my duty to God and men as nothing but craft and hypocrisie.

Increasing it by their bitter Taunts, and Invectives, and Censures. Or, they profit by, or are pleased and satisfied with my calamity. It doth them good at the heart to see me in misery.

This is added as an aggravation of their malice, they impudently persisted in their malicious designs against me, though none encouraged or assisted them therein. Or, even they who had no helper, who were themselves in a forlorn and miserable condition; and yet they could so far forget or over-look their own calamities as to take pleasure in mine.

14. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters ; in the desolation they rolled themselves upon me .

As fiercely and violently as a River doth when a great breach is made in the Bank which kept it in. Heb. as at a wide breach; as a besieging Army having made a breach in the Walls of the City, do suddenly and forcibly rush into it.

Or for, or instead of a desolation; i. e. that they might utterly destroy me and make me desolate. Or, in the wast place; i. e. in that part of the [illegible: 1+ letters]ank or Wall which was wasted or broken down.

As the [illegible: 1+ letters]aters, or Souldiers come rolling or tumbling in at the Breach.

15. Terrours are turned upon me : they pursue my soul as the wind : and my welfare passeth away as a cloud .

To wit, from God who sets himself against me, and in some sort joyns his Forces with these Miscreants.

Are directed against me to whom they seem not to belong, as being the portion of wicked men.

Heb. my principal or excellent one, i. e. my Soul, which is fitly so called, as being the chief part of man; as it is called a man's glory, Gen. 49. 6. and his onely One, Psalm 22. 20. and which is the proper seat and object of Divine Terrours, as his Body was of his outward Pains and Ulcers.

i. e. Speedily, vehemently, and irresistibly.

All the happiness and comfort of my life.

Which is quickly dissolved into Rain, or dissipated by the Sun, or driven away with the Wind.

Marginal references: [illegible: 1 span].

16. And now my soul is poured out upon me : the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

All the strength and powers of my Soul are melted, and fainting, and dying away, through my continued and insupportable sorrows and calamities.

Or, within me, as this Hebrew Particle is elsewhere used; as Psalm 42. 5, 6. Isa. 26. 9. Hosea 11. 8.

17. My bones are pierced in me , in the nightseason : and my sinews take no rest.

Heb. It; to wit, the Terrour or Affliction last mentioned: Or, He, i. e. God, hath pierced my bones. This is no slight and superficial, but a most deep wound that reacheth to my very heart and bones, and marrow. Nothing in me is so secret, but it reacheth it, nothing so hard and solid, but it feels the weight and burden of it.

Heb. from above me, by an Arrow shot from Heaven, whence my Calamities come, and that in a singular and eminent manner. Or, by that which is upon me: the sores which are upon my skin or outward flesh, do pierce and pain me even to the bones. For now he is come from describing the terrours of his Mind to express the torments of his Body.

When others do, and I should receive some rest and refreshment.

And the flesh of my body which covereth the Sinews, and is mixed with them, and may seem to be synecdochically expressed by the Sinews, which are the strength and support of the flesh. So he signifies that neither his bones nor his flesh resteth. Or, and my Veins or Arteries, which rest or move slowly when the Mind and Body are well composed; but in Iob did move vehemently and restlessly by reason of his great heat and pain, and passion.

18. By the great force of my disease is my garment changed : It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat .

My Disease is so strong and prevalent, that it breaks forth every where in my Body in such plenty of purulent and filthy matter, that it infects and discolours my very garments. Others, By the great power of God my garment is changed. In both these Translations the words, of my dis[illegible: 1+ letters]ase, and of God, are not in the Hebrew Text, but are supplied by the Translators. But the words are by some not untruly nor unfitly rendred thus, without any supplement, With great force my garment is changed; for so this Verb is used, 1 Kings 22. 30. So the sense is I cannot shift or put off my garment without great strength and difficulty, the reason whereof is rendred in the following words.

It cleaveth fast to me, being glewed by that filthy matter issuing from my Sores.

As my Collar girdeth in and cleaveth to my Neck. He alludes to the fashion of the Eastern outward Garments, which were seamless and all of a piece, and had a strait mouth at the top which was brought over the head, and contracted and fastned close about the Neck.

19, He hath cast me into the mire , and I am become like dust and ashes .

He hath made me contemptible, and filthy, and loathsom for my Sores, my whole body being a kind of Quagmire in regard of the filth breaking forth in all its parts.

Like one dead and turned to dust, more like a rotten Carkass, than a living Man.

20. I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me : I stand up , and thou regardest me not .

To wit, so as to answer or help me.

Or, I stand, to wit. before thee, i. e. I pray, as this phrase signifies, Ier. 15. 1. & 18. 20. this being a gesture of Prayer, Mat. 6. 5. And so the same thing is here repeated in other words after the manner: Or, I persist, or persevere in praying; I pray importunately and continually, as thou requirest.

so the Particle not is supplied out of the former Clause. Or, without the Negation, thou knowest or observest me, and all my Griefs and Cries, and yet doest not pity nor help me, but rather takest pleasure in the contemplation of my Calamities, as the following words imply. Or it may be taken Interrogatively, Dost thou regard me? i. e. thou doest not.

21. Thou art become cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thy self against me .

Heb. Turned to be cruel, as if thou hadst changed thy very Nature, which is kind, and merciful, and gracious; and such thou hast been formerly in thy carriage to me: but now thou art grown severe, and rigorous, and inexorable.

Thy power wherewith I hoped and expected that thou wouldst have supported me under my troubles thou usest against me.

Marginal references: Heb. turned to be cruel.; Heb. the strength of thy hand.

22. Thou liftest me up to the wind : thou causest me to ride upon it , and dissolvest my substance r.

Thou doest not suffer me to rest or lie still for a moment, but disquietest me and exposest me to all sorts of storms and calamities; so that I am like chaff or stubble lifted up to the wind, and violently tossed hither and thither in the air, without the least stop or hindrance.

i. e. To be carried and hurried about by it

y By this restlessness and the vehemency of these winds, my Body is almost consumed and wasted, and my heart is melted within me.

Marginal references: Or, wisdom▪

23. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death , and to the house appointed for all living .

I see nothing will satisfie thee but my death which thou a[illegible: 1+ letters]t bringing upon me in a lingering and dismal manner.

To the grave, to which all living men are coming and hastening.

24. Howbeit he will not stretch out his hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction

There is great variety and difficulty in the sense and connexion of these words: They may be joyned either 1. with the following Verse, as describing Iob's compassion to others in affliction, which by the Principles of Reason and Religion should have procured him some pity from God and men in his affliction. And to that purpose the words are or may be translated thus; But was not my prayers for them (which words may be understood out of the following Clause) when he stretched out his hand? (to wit, against them to destroy them) in his destruction or oppression (understand it actively, i. e. when God was about to destroy any other man or men) was not (the Negation being understood out of the former Branch of the Verse, as is usual) my cry for them? the Feminine Gender being put for the Masculine, as it is elsewhere; or for these things, the Feminine being put for the Neuter; that is, for those destructive Calamities which were upon them? Or 2. with the foregoing Verse. And so these words contain either 1. a Consolation against the evil last mentioned: So the sense is, Though God will undoubtedly bring me to the Grave by these Torments, yet this comforts me, that surely he will not stretch out his hand (to wit, to afflict or punish me further, as this phrase is used. Exod. 3. 20. Isa. 9. 12, 13.) in the grave, though they, i. e. the perishing persons cry or roar (i. e. be sorely pained and tormented) in his destruction, i. e. whilest God is destroying them. Or this last Clause may be read interrogatively, Is there any cry in his destruction? When a man is cut off or destroyed by death, doth he then cry and complain? No, there is an end of all these Miseries. Or rather 2 a Confirmation of what he last said. For the whole Context shews that Iob is not taking any comfort to himself, but rather aggravating his Sufferings. I know, saith he, that I am a dead man, and my Condition is desperate, for surely he, i. e. God, will not stretch out his hand (to wit, to save or rescue me, as this phrase is used, Psalm 18 17. & 144. 7. compared with Acts 4. 30.) to or in the grave (i. e. to a dead man, such as I am in effect, having not only one foot, but in a manner both feet in the grave, as being upon the very brink of the Pit) though they cry (to wit, unto God, i. e. though there be a great and a general Cry and Lamentation for him among his Friends or others, and an earnest desire of him, if possibly he might be restored to life again) in his destruction, i. e. when he is destroyed or dead; yet all these Cries would be in vain.

Marginal references: Heb. heap.

25. Did not I weep for him that was in trouble ? was not my soul grieved for the poor ?

Whence is it that neither God nor man shew any compassion to me, but both conspire to afflict me and encrease my torments? Doth God now mete out to me the same measure which I meted out to others? Have I now Judgment without Mercy, because I afforded no mercy nor pity to others in misery? No, my Conscience acquits me from this inhumanity: I did not sleightly resent, but bitterly mourn and weep over others in their miseries; and therefore I had reason to expect more Compassion than I find.

Even for him who was not capable of requiting my kindness in case of his recovery: which shews that my sympathy was real, and not seigned, as it is in some who pretend great sorrow for the rich in their troubles, hoping thereby to insinuate themselves into their favour and friendship, and thereby to procure some advantage to themselves.

Marginal references: Psal. 35. 13, 14. Rom. 12. 15.; Heb. for him that was hard of day.

26. When I looked for good, then evil came unto me : and when I waited for light, there came darkness.

Instead of the return of the like pity to me, which I might justly challenge and expect whensoever I should stand in need of it, I meet with a sad disappointment, and my pity is recompensed with others cruelty to me.

27. My bowels boiled and rested not : the days of affliction prevented me .

i. e. My inward parts boyled without ceasing. The Bowels are the seat of Passion and of Compassion; and therefore this may be understood, either 1. of his Compassionate and deep sense of others miseries; which is oft expressed by bowels, as Isa. 16. 11. Col. 3. 12. and elsewhere, of which he spake v. 25. to which he subjoyns the contrary usage which he met with, v. 26. And then in this first part of v. 27. he renews the mention of his compassion to others, and in the latter part he adds by way of Antithesis or Opposition, that his mercy was requited with cruel afflictions. Or 2. of the grievousness of his troubles, which is sometimes expressed by the troubling or boyling of the Bowels or inward parts; as Lam. 1. 20.

i. e. Came upon me suddenly and unexpectedly, when I promised to my self peace and prosperity, as the usual recompence which God promiseth and giveth to such as fear and please him, as I have done.

28. I went mourning without the Sun : I stood up , and I cried in the congregation .

Or, I walked hither and thither as I could. Or, I converse or appear among others.

Spending my days in mourning without any Sun-light or comfort; or so oppressed with sadness, that I did not care nor desire to see the light of the Sun. Heb. black not by the Sun. My very Countenance is changed and become black, but not by the Sun, which makes many other persons black; Cant. 1. 5. 6. but by the force of my Disease and deep Melancholy which oft-times makes a man's Visage black and dismal. See Psalm 119. 83. Lam. 5. 10. And this he repeats in plainer terms, v. 30. as an eminent token of his excessive grief and misery.

Either because my Disease and pain made me weary of other postures: Or that others might take notice of me and be moved with pity towards me.

With a loud and d[illegible: 1+ letters]eful clamour through great and sudden anguish

Where prudence and modesty taught me to forbear it, if extream necessity and misery had not forced me to it.

Marginal references: Psal. 38. 6. & 42. 9. & 43. 2.

29. I am a brother to dragons , and a companion to owls .

To wit, by imitation of their cries: Persons of like qualities are oft called brethren, as Gen. 49. 3. Prov. 18. 9.

Which howl and wail mournfully in the Deserts, Mich. 1. 8. either through hunger or thirst, or when he fights with and is beaten by the Elephant.

Whose sad and mournful noises are known. Or Ostriches, which also is noted to make lamentable out-cries.

Marginal references: Ps. 102. 6.; Or, Ostriches. Mic. 1. 8.

30. My skin is black upon me , and my bones are burnt with heat .

Either by his dark-coloured Scabs wherewith his Body was in a manner wholly overspread; or by grief, as before.

The effect of his Feaver and sorrow, which dried up all his moisture and caused great Inflammations and burning heats within him.

Marginal references: Ps. 119▪ [illegible: 1+ letters] Lam. 4. 8. [illegible: 1+ letters] 5. 10.

31. My harp also is turned to mourning , and my organ into the voice of them that weep.

Either 1. I have now nothing but bitter lamentations instead of my former expressions of joy. Or 2. Those very things which formerly were occasions and instruments of my delight, do now renew and aggravate my sorrows.

Job 30:1-4   1  And now they who are younger than I have me in derision,

Those whose fathers I disdained To set with the dogs of my flock.   2  Yea, the strength of their hands, what should it profit me?

They have lost vigour and strength.   3  They are benumbed from want and hunger,

They who gnaw the steppe,

The darkness of the wilderness and waste;   4  They who pluck mallows in the thicket,

And the root of the broom is their bread.

With ועתּה, which also elsewhere expresses the turning-point from the premises to the conclusion, from accusation to the threat of punishment, and such like, Job here begins to bewail the sad turn which his former prosperity has taken. The first line of the verse, which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach, is intentionally so disproportionately long, to form a deep and long breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun. Formerly, as he has related in the first part of the monologue, an object of reverential fear to the respectable youth of the city (Job 29:8), he is now an object of derision (שׂחק על, to laugh at, distinct from שׂחק אל, Job 29:24, to laugh to, smile upon) to the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men. They are just the same עניּי ארץ, whose sorrowful lot he reckons among the mysteries of divine providence, so difficulty of solution (Job 24:4-8). The less he belongs to the merciless ones, who take advantage of the calamities of the poor for their own selfish ends, instead of relieving their distress as far as is in their power, the more unjustifiable is the rude treatment which he now experiences from them, when they who meanly hated him before because he was rich, now rejoice at the destruction of his prosperity. Younger than he in days (לימים as Job 32:4, with ל of closer definition, instead of which the simple acc. was inadmissible here, comp. on Job 11:9) laugh at him, sons of those fathers who were so useless and abandoned that he scorned (מאס ל, comp. מאס מן,   1Sa 15:26) to entrust to them even a service so menial as that of the shepherd dogs. Schult., Rosenm., and Schlottm. take שׁית עם for שׁית על, praeficere, but that ought to be just simply שׁית על; שׁית עם signifies to range beside, i.e., to place alike, to associate; moreover, the oversight of the shepherd dogs is no such menial post, while Job intends to say that he did not once consider them fit to render such a subordinate service as is that of the dogs which help the shepherds.

And even the strength of their (these youths') hands (גּם is referable to the suff. of ידיהם: even; not: now entirely, completely, as Hahn translates), of what use should it be to him: (למּה not cur, but ad quid, quorsum, as Gen 25:32; Gen 27:46.) They are enervated, good-for-nothing fellows: כּלח is lost to them (עלימו trebly emphatic: it is placed in a prominent position, has a pathetic suff., and is על for ל, 1Sa 9:3). The signif. senectus, which suits Job 5:26, is here inapplicable, since it is not the aged that are spoken of, but the young; for that “old age is lost to them” would be a forced expression for the thought - which, moreover, does not accord with the connection - that they die off early. One does not here expect the idea of senectus or senectus vegeta, but vigor, as the Syriac (‛ushino) and Arabic also translate it. May not כּלח perhaps be related to כּח, as שׁלאנן to שׁאנן, the latter being a mixed form from שׁאנן and שׁלו, the former from כּח and לח, fresh juicy vigour, or as we say: pith and marrow (Saft and Kraft)? At all events, if this is somewhat the idea of the word, it may be derived from כּלח = כּלה (lxx συντέλεια), or some other way (vid., on Job 5:26): it signifies full strength or maturity.From the root Arab. kl (on its primary notion, vid., my review of Bernstein’s edition of Kirsch’s Syr. Chrestomathie, Ergänzungsblatt der A.L.Z. 1843, Nr. 16 and 17) other derivatives, as Arab. kl' , klb , klt , klṯ , klj , kld , klz , etc., develop in general the significations to bring, take, or hold together, enclose, and the like; but Arab. lkḥ in particular the signification to draw together, distort violently, viz., the muscles of the face in grinning and showing the teeth, or even sardonic laughing, and drawing the lips apart. The general signification of drawing together, Arab. šdd, resolves itself, however, from that special reference to the muscles of the face, and is manifest in the IV form Arab. kâlaḥa, to show one’s self strict and firm (against any one); also more sensuously: to remain firm in one’s place; of the moon, which remains as though motionless in one of its twenty-eight halting-places. Hence Arab. dahrun kâliḥun , a hard season, zmân šdı̂d and kulâḥun , kalâḥi (the latter as a kind of n. propr. invariably ending in i, and always without the article), a hard year, i.e., a year of failure of the crops, and of scarcity and want. If it is possible to apply this to כּלח without the hazardous comparison of Arab. qḥl , qlḥm , etc. so supra, p. 300], the primary signification might perhaps be that of hardness, unbroken strength; Job 5:26, “Thou wilt go to the grave with unbroken strength,” i.e., full of days indeed, but without having thyself experienced the infirmities and burdens of the aetas decrepita, as also a shock brought in “in its season” is at the highest point of ripeness; Job 30:2 : “What (should) the strength of their hands profit me? as for them, their vigour is departed.” - Fl.

With Job 30:3 begins a new clause. It is גּלמוּד, not גּלמוּדים, because the book of Job does not inflect this Hebraeo-Arabic word, which is peculiar to it (besides only Isa 49:21, גּלמוּדה). It is also in Arab. more a substantive (stone, a mass) than an adj. (hard as stone, massive, e.g., Hist. Tamerlani in Schultens: Arab. 'l - ṣchr 'l - jlmûd , the hardest rock); and, similar to the Greek χέρσος (vid., Passow), it denotes the condition or attribute of rigidity, i.e., sterility, Job 3:7; or stiff as death, Job 15:34; or, as here, extreme weakness and incapability of working. The subj.: such are they, is wanting; it is ranged line upon line in the manner of a mere sketch, participles with the demonstrative article follow the elliptical substantival clause. The part. הערקים is explained by lxx, Targ., Saad. (Arab. fârrı̂n), and most of the old expositors, after ערק, Arab. ‛araqa , fut. ya‛riq , fugere, abire, which, however, gives a tame and - since the desert is to be thought of as the proper habitation of these people, be they the Seir remnant of the displaced Horites, or the Hauran ”races of the clefts” - even an inappropriate sense. On the contrary, ‛rq in Arab. (also Pael ‛arreq in Syriac) signifies to gnaw; and this Arabic signification of a word exclusively peculiar to the book of Job (here and Job 30:17) is perfectly suitable. We do not, however, with Jerome, translate: qui rodebant in solitudine (which is doubly false), but qui rodunt solitudinem, they gnaw the sunburnt parched ground of the steppe, stretched out there more like beasts than men (what Gecatilia also means by his Arab. lâzmû , adhaerent), and derive from it their scanty food. אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה is added as an explanatory, or rather further descriptive, permutative to ציּה. The same alliterative union of substantives of the same root occurs in Job 38:27; Zep 1:15, and a similar one in Nah 2:11 (בוקה ומבוקה), Eze 6:14; Eze 33:29 (שׁמה ומשׁמה); on this expression of the superlative by heaping up similar words, comp. Ew. §313, c. The verb שׁאה has the primary notion of wild confused din (e.g., Isa 17:12.), which does not pass over to the idea of desolation and destruction by means of the intermediate notion of ruins that come together with a crash, but by the transfer of what is confusing to the ear to confusing impressions and conditions of all kinds; the desert is accordingly called also תּהוּ, Deu 32:10, from תּהה = שׁאה (vid., Genesis, S. 93).

The noun אמשׁ nuon  signifies elsewhere adverbially, in the past night, to grow night-like, and in general yesterday, according to which it is translated: the yesterday of waste and desolation; or, retaining the adverbial form: waste and desolation are of yesterday = long since. It is undeniable that מאתמוּל and אתמוּל, Isa 30:33; Mic 2:8, are used in the sense pridem (not only to-day, but even yesterday); but our poet uses תּמול, Job 8:9, in the opposite sense, non pridem (not long since, but only of yesterday); and it is more natural to ask whether אמשׁ then has not here the substantival signification from which it has become an adverb, in the signification nightly or yesterday. Since it originally signifies yesterday evening or night, then yesterday, it must have the primary signification darkness, as the Arab. ams is also traceable to the primary notion of the sinking of the sun towards the horizon; so that, consequently, although the usage of Arabic does not allow this sense,Arab. ams is manifestly connected with Arab. ms' , msy , first by means of the IV form Arab. 'msy ; it has, however, like this, nothing to do with “darkness.” Arab. mas'â' is, according to the original sources of information, properly the whole afternoon until sunset; and this time is so called, because in it the sun Arab. tamsû or tamsı̂, touches, i.e., sinks towards the horizon (from the root Arab. ms with the primary notion stringere, terere, tergere, trahere, prehendere, capere). Just so they say Arab. 'l - šmsu tadluk , properly the sun rubs; Arab. taṣı̂f, connects itself; Arab. tušaffir, goes to the brink (Arab. šufr , šafı̂r), all in the same signification. Used as a substantive, Arab. amsu followed by the genitive is la veille de..., the evening before ... , and then generally, the day before ... , the opposite of Arab. gadu with the same construction, le lendemain de - . It is absolutely impossible that it should refer to a far distant past. On the contrary, it is always used like our “yesterday,” in a general sense, for a comparatively near past, or a past time thought of as near, as Arab. gd is used of a comparatively near future, or a future time thought of as near. Zamachschari in the Kesschâf on Sur. xvii. 25: It is a duty of children to take care of their aged parents, “because they are so aged, and to-day (el - jauma) require those who even yesterday (bi - l - emsi) were the most dependent on them of all God’s creatures.” It never means absolutely evening or night. What Gesenius, Thes., cites as a proof for it from Vita Timuri, ii. 428 - a supposed Arab. amsı̂y , vespertinus - is falsely read and explained (as in general Manger’s translation of those verses abounds in mistakes); - both line 1 and line 9, Arab. 'msy, IV form of ms' , is rhetorically and poetically (as “sister of Arab. kân”) of like signification with the general Arab. kân or ṣâ r. An Arab would not be able to understand that אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה otherwise than: “on the eve of destruction and ruin,” i.e., at the breaking in of destruction and ruin which is just at hand or has actually followed rapidly upon something else. - Fl. it can be translated (comp. צלמות, Jer 2:6), “the evening darkness (gloominess) of the waste and wilderness” (אמשׁ as regens, Ew. §286, a). The Targ. also translated similarly, but take אמשׁ as a special attribute: חשׁוכא היך רוּמשׁא, “darkness like the late evening.” Olshausen’s conjecture of ארץ makes it easier, but puts a word that affirms nothing in the place of an expressive one.

Job 30:4 tells what the scanty nourishment is which the chill, desolate, and gloomy desert, with its steppes and gorges, furnishes them. מלּוּח (also Talmudic, Syriac, and Arabic) is the orach, and indeed the tall shrubby orach, the so-called sea-purslain, the buds and young leaves of which are gathered and eaten by the poor. That it is not merely a coast plant, but grows also in the desert, is manifest from the narrative b. Kidduschin, 66 a: “King Jannai approached כוחלית in the desert, and conquered sixty towns there Ges. translates wrongly, captis LX talentis; and on his return with great joy, he called all the orphans of Israel to him, and said: Our fathers ate מלוחים in their time when they were engaged with the building of the temple (according to Raschi: the second temple; according to Aruch: the tabernacle in the wilderness); we will also eat מלוחים in remembrance of our fathers! And מלוחים were served up on golden tables, and they ate.” The lxx translates, ἅλιμα (not: ἄλιμα); as in Athenaeus, poor Pythagoreans are once called ἅλιμα τρώγοντες καὶ κακὰ τοιαῦτα συλλέγοντες.Huldrich Zwingli, in the Greek Aldine of 1518 (edited by Andrea of Asola), which he has annotated throughout in the margin, one of the choicest treasures of the Zurich town library, explains ἅλιμα by θαλάσσια, which was natural by the side of the preceding περικυκλοῦντες. We shall mention these marginal notes of Zwingli now and again.

The place where they seek for and find this kind of edible plant is indicated by עלי־שׂיח. שׂיח is a shrub in general, but certainly pre-eminently the Arab. šı̂h, that perennial, branchy, woody plant of uncultivated ground, about two-thirds of a yard high, and the same in diameter, which is one of the greatest blessings of Syria and of the steppe, since, with the exception of cow and camel’s dung, it is often the only fuel of the peasants and nomads, - the principal, and often in a day’s journey the only, vegetation of the steppe, in the shade of which, then everything else is parched, a scanty vegetation is still preserved.Thus Wetzstein in his Reise in den beiden Trachonon und um das Haurangebirge.

The poor in search of the purslain surround this Arab. šı̂ḥ (shı̂h), and as Job 30:4 continues: the broom-root is their bread. Ges. understands לחמם according to Isa 47:14, where it is certainly the pausal form for לחמם (“there is not a coal to warm one’s self”), and that because the broom-root is not eatable. But why should broom-root and not broom brushwood be mentioned as fuel? The root of the steppe that serves as fuel, together with the shı̂h, is called gizl (from גזל, to tear out), not retem, which is the broom (and is extraordinarily frequent in the Belka). The Arabs, however, not only call Genista monosperma so, but also Chamaerops humilis, a degenerate kind of which produces a kind of arrow-root which the Indians in Florida use.The description of these eaters of the steppe plants corresponds exactly to the reality, especially if that race, bodily so inferior, is contrasted with the agricultural peasant, and some allowance is made for the figure of speech Arab. mubâlagat (i.e., a description in colours, strongly brought out), without which poetic diction would be flat and devoid of vividness in the eye of an Oriental. The peasant is large and strong, with a magnificent beard and an expressive countenance, while e.g., the Trachonites of the present day (i.e., the race of the W'ar, יער), both men and women, are a small, unpleasant-looking, weakly race. It is certain that bodily perfection is a plant that only thrives in a comfortable house, and needs good nourishment, viz., bread, which the Trachonite of the present day very rarely obtains, although he levies heavy contributions on the harvest of the villagers. Therefore the roots of plants often serve as food. Two such plants, the gahh (גח) and the rubbe halı̂le (רבּה חלילה), are described by my Reisebericht. A Beduin once told me that it should be properly called rubh lêle (רבח לילה), “the gain of a supper,” inasmuch as it often takes the place of this, the chief meal of the day. To the genus rubbe belongs also the holêwâ (חליוא); in like manner they eat the bulbous plant, qotên (קטין); of another, the mesha‛(משׁע), they eat leaves, stem, and root. I often saw the poor villagers (never Beduins) eat the broad thick fleshy leaves of a kind of thistle (the thistle is called Arab. šûk , shôk), the name of which is ‛aqqub (עקּוּב); these leaves are a handbreadth and a half in length, and half a handbreadth in width. They gather them before the thorns on the innumerable points of the serrated leaves become strong and woody; they boil them in salt and water, and serve them up with a little butter. Whole tribes of the people of the Ruwala live upon the small brown seed (resembling mustard-seed) of the semh (שׂמח). The seeds are boiled up a pulp. - Wetzst. לחמם in the signification cibus eorum is consequently not incomprehensible. lxx (which throws Job 30:4 into sad confusion): οἳ καὶ ῥΊζας ξύλων ἐμασσῶντο.Zwingli observes here: Sigma only once. Codd. Anex. and Sinait. have the reading εμασωντο, which he prefers.

All the ancient versions translate similarly. One is here reminded of what Agatharchides says in Strabo concerning the Egyptio-Ethiopian eaters of the rush root and herb.Vid., Meyer, Botanische Erläuterungen zu Strabons Geographie, S. 108ff.

Job 30:5-8   5  They are driven forth from society,

They cry after them as after a thief.   6  In the most dismal valleys they must dwell,

In holes of the earth and in rocks.   7  Among the bushes they croak,

Under nettles are they poured forth,   8  Sons of fools, yea sons of base men:

They are driven forth out of the land! -

If, coming forth from their lurking-places, they allow themselves to be seen in the villages of the plain or in the towns, they are driven forth from among men, e medio pelluntur (to use a Ciceronian phrase). גּו (Syr. gau , Arab. gaww , guww) is that which is internal, here the circle of social life, the organized human community. This expression also is Hebraeo-Arabic; for if one contrasts a house of district with what is outside, he says in Arabic, jûwâ wa - barrâ , guwwâ wa - berrâ , within and without, or Arab. 'l - jûwâ - nı̂ wa - 'l - brrâ - nı̂ , el - guwwâni wa'l - berrâni , the inside and the outside. In Job 30:5, כּגּנּב, like the thief, is equivalent to, as after the thief, or since this generic Art. is not usual with us Germ. and Engl.: after a thief; French, on crie après eux comme après le voleur. In Job 30:6, לשׁכּן is, according to Ges. §132, rem. 1 (comp. on Hab 1:17), equivalent to היוּ לשׁכּן, “they are to dwell” = they must dwell; it might also signify, according to the still more frequent usage of the language, habitaturi sunt; it here, however, signifies habitandum est eis, as לבלום, Psa 32:9, obturanda sunt. Instead of בּערוּץ with Shurek, the reading בּערוץ with Cholem (after the form סגור, Hos 13:8) is also found, but without support. ארוּץ is either a substantive after the form גּבוּל (Ges., as Kimchi), or the construct of ערוּץ = נערץ, feared = fearful, so that the connection of the words, which we prefer, is a superlative one: in horridissima vallium, in the most terrible valleys, as Job 41:22, acutissimae testarum (Ew., according to §313, c). The further description of the habitation of this race of men: in holes (חרי = בּחרי) of the earth (עפר, earth with respect to its constituent parts) and rocks (lxx τρῶγλαι πετρῶν), may seem to indicate the aborigines of the mountains of the district of Seir, who are called החרים, τρωγλοδύνται (vid., Genesis, S. 507); but why not, which is equally natural, חורן, Eze 47:16, Eze 47:18, the “district of caverns,” the broad country about Bosra, with the two Trachônes (τράχωνες), of which the smaller western, the Legâ, is the ancient Trachonitis, and with Ituraea (the mountains of the Druses)?Wetzstein also inclines to refer the description to the Ituraeans, who, according to Apuleius, were frugum pauperes, and according to others, freebooters, and are perhaps distinguished from the Arabes Trachonitae (if they were not these themselves), as the troglodytes are from the Arabs who dwell in tents (on the troglodytes in Eastern Hauran, vid., Reisebericht, S. 44, 126). “The troglodyte was very often able to go without nourishment and the necessaries of life. Their habitations are not unfrequently found where no cultivation of the land was possible, e.g., in Safa. They were therefore the rearers of cattle or marauders. The cattle-rearing troglodyte, because he cannot wander about from one pasture to another like the nomads who dwell in tents, often loses his herds by a failure of pasture, heavy falls of snow (which often produce great devastation, e.g., in Hauran), epidemics, etc. Losses may also arise from marauding attacks from the nomads. Still less is this marauding, which is at enmity with all the world, likely to make a race prosperous, which, like the troglodyte, being bound to a fixed habitation, cannot escape the revenge of those whom it has injured.” - Wetzst.

As Job 6:5 shows, there underlies Job 30:7 a comparison of this people with the wild ass. The פּרא, ferâ, goes about in herds under the guidance of a so-called leader (vid., on Job 39:5), with which the poet in Job 24:5 compares the bands that go forth for forage; here the point of comparison, according to Job 6:5, is their bitter want, which urges from them the cry of pain; for ינהקוּ, although not too strong, would nevertheless be an inadequate expression for their sermo barbarus (Pineda), in favour of which Schlottmann calls to mind Herodotus’ (iv. 183) comparison of the language of the Troglodyte Ethiopians with the screech of the night-owl (τετρίγασι κατάπερ αι ̓ νυκτερίδες). Among bushes (especially the bushes of the shih, which affords them some nourishment and shade, and a green resting-place) one hears them, and hears from their words, although he cannot understand them more closely, discontent and lamentation over their desperate condition: there, under nettles (חרוּל, root חר, Arab. ḥrr , as urtica from urere), i.e., useless weeds of the desert, they are poured forth, i.e., spread about in disorder. Thus most moderns take ספח = שׁפך, Arab. sfḥ, comp. סרוּח, profusus, Amo 6:4, Amo 6:7, although one might also abide by the usual Hebrew meaning of the verb ספח (hardened from ספה), adjungere, associare (vid., Habak. S. 88), and with Hahn explain: under nettles they are united together, i.e., they huddle together. But neither the fut. nor the Pual (instead of which one would expect the Niph. or Hithpa.) is favourable to the latter interpretation; wherefore we decide in favour of the former, and find sufficient support for a Hebr.-Arabic ספח in the signification effundere from a comparison of Job 14:19 and the present passage. Job 30:8, by dividing the hitherto latent subject, tells what sort of people they are: sons of fools, profane, insane persons (vid., on Psa 14:1); moreover, or of the like kind (גּם, not אף), sons of the nameless, ignobilium or infamium, since בלי־שׁם is here an adj. which stands in dependence, not filii infamiae = infames (Hirz. and others), by which the second בני is rendered unlike the first. The assertion Job 30:8 may be taken as an attributive clause: who are driven forth ... ; but the shortness of the line and the prominence of the verb are in favour of the independence of the clause like an exclamation in its abrupt and halting form. נכּאוּ is Niph. of נכא = נכה (נכי), root נך, to hew, pierce, strike.The root Arab. nk is developed in Hebr. נכה, הכּה, in Arab. naka'a and nakâ, first to the idea of outward injury by striking, hewing, etc.; but it is then also transferred to other modes of inflicting injury, and in Arab. nawika, to being injured in mind. The root shows itself in its most sensuous development in the reduplicated form Arab. naknaka, to strike one with repeated blows, fig. for: to press any one hard with claims. According to another phase, the obscene Arab. nâka , fut. i, and the decent Arab. nakaḥa, signify properly to pierce. - Fl.

On הארץ, of arable land in opposition to the steppe, vid., on Job 18:17.

Job 30:9-12   9  And now I am become their song,

And a by-word to them. 10  They avoid me, they flee far from me,

And spare not my face with spitting. 11  For my cord of life He hath loosed, and afflicted me,

Therefore they let loose the bridle recklessly. 12  The rabble presses upon my right hand,

They thrust my feet away,

And cast up against me their destructive ways.

The men of whom Job complains in this strophe are none other than those in the preceding strophe, described from the side of their coarse and degenerate behaviour, as Job 24:4-8 described them from the side of the wrong which was practised against them. This rabble, constitutionally as well as morally degraded, when it comes upon Job’s domain in its marauding expeditions, makes sport of the sufferer, whose former earnest admonitions, given from sympathizing anxiety for them, seemed to them as insults for which they revenge themselves. He is become their song of derision (נגינתם to be understood according to the dependent passage, Lam 3:14, and Psa 69:13), and is למלּה to them, their θρύλλημα (lxx), the subject of their foolish talk (מלּה - Arab. mille, not = melle, according to which Schultens interprets it, sum iis fastidio). Avoiding him, and standing at a distance from him, they make their remarks upon him; and if they come up to him, it is only for the sake of showing him still deeper scorn: a facie ejus non cohibent sputam. The expositors who explain that, contrary to all decent bearing, they spit in his presence (Eichh., Justi, Hirz., Vaih., Hlgst.), or with Fie! spit out before him (Umbr., Hahn, Schlottm.), overlook the fact of its being מפּני, not לפני. The expression as it stands can only affirm that they do not spare his face with spitting (Jer. correctly: conspuere non veruntur), so that consequently he is become, as he has complained in Job 17:6, a תּפת, an object of spitting (comp. also the declaration of the servant of Jehovah, Isa 50:6, which stands in close connection with this declaration of Job, according to previous explanations).

It now becomes a question, Who is the subj. in Job 30:11? The Chethib יתרו demands an attempt to retain the previous subj. Accordingly, most moderns explain: solvit unusquisque eorum funem suum, i.e., frenum suum, quo continebatur antea a me (Rosenm., Umbr., Stick., Vaih., Hlgst., and others), but it is to be doubted whether יתר can mean frenum; it signifies a cord, the string of a bow, and of a harp. The reconciliation of the signification redundantia, Job 22:20, and funis, is, in the idea of the root, to be stretched tight and long. The Arab. verb watara shows its sensuous primary signification in Arab. watarun, יתר, cord, bow-string, harp-string (Engl. string): to stretch tight, to extend, so that the thing continues in one line. Hence then Arab. watrun , witrun , separate, unequal, singulus, impar, opp. Arab. šaf‛un , bini, par, just as fard, single, separate, unequal (opp. zaug , a pair, equal number), is derived from farada, properly, so to strain or stretch out, that the thing has no bends or folds; Greek εξαπλοῦν (as in the Shepherd of Hermas: ἐπάνω λεντίου ἐξηπλωμένον λίνον καρπάσινον), an original transitive signification still retained in low Arabic (vid., Bocthor under Étendre and Déployer). Then from Arab. watara spring the secondary roots Arab. tatara and tarâ, which proceed from the VIII form (ittatara). The former (tatara) appears only in the Arab. adverb tatran and tatrâ , sigillatim, alii post alios, singly one after another, so that several persons or things form a row interrupted by intervals of space of time; the latter (tara) and its IV form (atra) are equivalent to wâtara, to be active at intervals, with pauses between, as the Arabs explain: ”We say Arab. atrâ of a man when he so performs several acts which do not directly follow one another, that there is always a [Arab.] fatrat , intermissio, between two acts.” Hence also תּרין, תּרתּין, duals of an assumed sing. תּר, singulus (um), תּרתּ singula, therefore prop. duo singuli (a), duae singulae, altogether parallel to the like meaning thinâni (ithnâni', thinaini (ithnaini), שׁנים; fem. thintâni (ithnatâni), thintaini (ithnataini), שׁתּים instead of שׁנתּים, from an assumed sing. thin - un (ithn - un), thint - un (ithnat - un), from Arab. tanâ, שׁנה, like bin (ibn), bint (ibnat), בּן, בּת (= בּנת, hence בּתּי from Arab. banâ, בּנה.

The significations of watara which Freytag arranges under 1, 2, 3, 4, proceed from the transitive application of יתר, as the Italian soperchiare, soverchiare, from supra, to offend, insult; oltraggiare, outrager, from ultra; ὑβρίζειν from ὑπέρ. Similarly, Arab. tṭâwl ‛lı̂h and ‛stṭâl ‛lı̂h (form VI and X from ṭâl), to act haughtily towards any one, to make him feel one’s superiority, properly to stretch one’s self out over or against any one.

But in another direction the signif. to be stretched out goes into: overhanging, surpassing, projecting, to be superfluous, and to be left over, περιττὸν εἶναι, to exceed a number or bulk, superare (comp. Italian soperchiare as intrans.), περιεῖναι, ὑπερεῖναι; to prove, as result, gain, etc., περιεῖναι, etc. Similar is the development of the meaning of Arab. faḍala and of ṭâ'l, gain, use, from Arab. ṭâl, to be stretched out. In like manner, the German reich, reichlich rich, abundant, comes from the root reichen, recken to stretch, extend. - Fl.

Hirz. therefore imagines the loosing of the cord round the body, which served them as a girdle, in order to strike Job with it. But whether one decides in favour of the Chethib יתרו or of the Keri יתרי, the persons who insult Job cannot in any case be intended. The isolated sing. form of the assertion, while the rabble is everywhere spoken of in the plur., is against it; and also the כּי, which introduces it, and after which Job here allows the reason to come in, why he is abandoned without any means of defence to such brutal misconduct. The subj. of Job 30:11 is God. If יתרו is read, it may not be interpreted: He hath opened = taken off the covering of His string (= bow) (Ew., Hahn, and similarly even lxx, Jer.), for יתר does not dignify the bow, but the string (Arab. muwattar‛ , stretched, of a bow); and while פּתח, Ezek. 21:33 (usually שׁלף or הריק), can certainly be said of drawing a sword from its sheath, ערה is the appropriate and usual word (vid., Hab. S. 164) for making bare the bow and shield. Used of the bow-string, פּתּח signifies to loose what is strained, by sending the arrow swiftly forth from it, according to which, e.g., Elizabeth Smith translates: Because He hath let go His bow-string and afflicted me. One cannot, however, avoid feeling that ויּענּני is not a right description of the effect of shooting with arrows, whereas an idea is easily gained from the Keri יתרי, to which the description of the effect corresponds. It has been interpreted: He has loosed my rein or bridle, by means of which I hitherto bound them and held them in check; but יתר in the signification rein or bridle, is as already observed, not practicable. Better Capellus: metaphora ducta est ab exarmato milite, cujus arcûs solvitur nervus sicque inermis redditur; but it is more secure, and still more appropriate to the ויענני which follows, when it is interpreted according to Job 4:21 : He has untied (loosened) my cord of life, i.e., the cord which stretched out and held up my tent (the body) (Targ. similarly: my chain and the threads of my cord, i.e., surely: my outward and inward stay of life), and bowled me down, i.e., deprived me of strength (comp. Psa 102:24); or also: humbled me. Even in this his feebleness he is the butt of unbridled arrogance: and they let go the bridle before me (not לפני, in my presence, but מפּני, before me, before whom previously they had respect; מפני the same as Lev 19:32), they cast or shake it off (שׁלּח as Job 39:3, synon. of השׁליך; comp. 1Ki 9:7 with 2Ch 7:20).

Is it now possible that in this connection פּרחח can denote any else but the rabble of these good-for-nothing fellows? Ewald nevertheless understands by it Job’s sufferings, which as a rank evil swarm rise up out of the ground to seize upon him; Hahn follows Ew., and makes these sufferings the subj., as even in Job 30:11. But if we consider how Ew. translates: “they hung a bridle from my head;” and Hahn: “they have cast a bit before my face,” this might make us tired of all taste for this allegorical mode of interpretation. The stump over which they must stumble is Job 30:13, where all climax must be abandoned in order to make the words לא עזר למו intelligible in this allegorical connection. No indeed; פּרחח (instead of which פרחח might be expected, as supra, Job 3:5, כמרירי for כמרירי) is the offspring or rabble of those fathers devoid of morals and honour, those צעירים of Job 30:1, whose laughing-stock Job is now, as the children of priests are called in Talmudic פּרחי כהנּה, and in Arabic farch denotes not only the young of animals, but also a rascal or vagabond. This young rabble rises על־ימין, on Job’s right hand, which is the place of an accuser (Psa 109:6), and generally one who follows him up closely and oppresses him, and they press him continually further and further, contending one foot's-breadth after another with him: רגלי שׁלּחוּ, my feet thrust them forth, protrudunt (שׁלּח the same as Job 14:20). By this pressing from one place to another, a way is prepared for the description of their hostile conduct, which begins in Job 30:12 under the figure of a siege. The fut. consec. ויּסלּוּ, Job 30:12, is not meant retrospectively like ויענני, but places present with present in the connection of cause and effect (comp. Ew. 343, a). We must be misled by the fact that ויסלו, Job 19:12 (which see), was said of the host of sufferings which come against Job; here it is those young people who cast up the ramparts of misfortune or burdensome suffering (איד) against Job, which they wish to make him feel. The tradition, supported by the lxx, that Job had his seat outside his domain ἐπὶ τῆς κοπρίας, i.e., upon the mezbele, is excellently suited to this and the following figures. Before each village in Hauran there is a place where the households heap up the sweepings of their stalls, and it gradually reaches a great circumference, and a height which rises above the highest buildings of the village.One ought to have a correct idea of a Hauranitish mezbele. The dung which is heaped up there is not mixed with straw, because in warm, dry countries no litter is required for the cattle, and comes mostly from single-hoofed animals, since small cattle and oxen often pass the nights on the pastures. It is brought in a dry state in baskets to the place before the village, and is generally burnt once every month. Moreover, they choose days on which the wind if favourable, i.e., does not cast the smoke over the village. The ashes remain. The fertile volcanic ground does not need manure, for it would make the seed in rainy years too luxuriant at the expense of the grain, and when rain fails, burnt it up. If a village has been inhabited for a century, the mezbele reaches a height which far surpasses it. The winter rains make the ash-heaps into a compact mass, and gradually change the mezbele into a firm mound of earth in the interior of which those remarkable granaries, biâr el - ghalle, are laid out, in which the wheat can be completely preserved against heat and mice, garnered up for years. The mezbele serves the inhabitants of the district as a watch-tower, and on close oppressive evenings as a place of assembly, because there is a current of air on the height. There the children play about the whole day long; there the forsaken one lies, how, having been seized by some horrible malady, is not allowed to enter the dwellings of men, by day asking alms of the passers-by, and at night hiding himself among the ashes which the sun has warmed. There the dogs of the village lie, perhaps gnawing at a decaying carcase that is frequently thrown there. Many a village of Hauran has lost its original name, and is called umm el - mezâbil from the greatness and number of these mounds, which always indicate a primitive and extensive cultivation for the villages. And many a more modern village is built upon an ancient mezbele, because there is then a stronger current of air, which renders the position more healthy. The Arabic signification of the root זבל seems to be similarly related to the Hebrew as that of the old Beduin seken (שכן), “ashes,” to the Hebrew and Arabic משכן, “a dwelling.” - Wetzst.

Notwithstanding, everything is intelligible without this thoroughly Hauranitish conception of the scene of the history. Bereft of the protection of his children and servants, become an object of disgust to his wife, and an abhorrence to his brethren, forsaken by every attention of true affection, Job 19:13-19, Job lies out of doors; and in this condition, shelterless and defenceless, he is abandoned to the hideous malignant joy of those gipsy hordes which wander hither and thither.

Job 30:13-15 13  They tear down my path,

They minister to my overthrow,

They who themselves are helpless. 14  As through a wide breach they approach,

Under the crash they roll onwards. 15  Terrors are turned against me,

They pursue my nobility like the wind,

And like a cloud my prosperity passed away. -

They make all freedom of motion and any escape impossible to him, by pulling down, diruunt, the way which he might go. Thus is נתסוּ (cogn. form of נתץ, נתע, נתשׁ) to be translated, not: they tear open (proscindunt), which is contrary to the primary signification and the usage of the language. They, who have no helper, who themselves are so miserable and despised, and yet so feelingless and overbearing, contribute to his ruin. הועיל, to be useful, to do any good,to furnish anything effective (e.g., Isa 47:12), is here united with ל of the purpose; comp. עזר ל, to help towards anything, Zec 1:15. היה (for which the Keri substitutes the primary form הוּה), as was already said on Job 6:2, is prop. hiatus, and then barathrum, pernicies, like הוּה in the signification cupiditas, prop. inhiatio. The verb הוה, Arab. hwy, also signifies delabi, whence it may be extended (vid., on Job 37:6) in like manner to the signification abyss (rapid downfall); but a suitable medium for the two significations, strong passion (Arab. hawa) and abyss (Arab. hâwije , huwwe , mahwa), is offered only by the signification of the root flare (whence hawâ, air). לא עזר למו is a genuine Arabic description of these Idumaean or Hauranite pariahs. Schultens compares a passage of the Hamâsa: “We behold you ignoble, poor, laisa lakum min sâir - in - nâsi nasirun , i.e., without a helper among the rest of men.” The interpretations of those who take למו for לו, and this again for לי (Eichh., Justi), condemn themselves. It might more readily be explained, with Stick.: without any one helping them, i.e., with their own strong hand; but the thought thus obtained is not only aimless and tame, but also halting and even untrue (vid., Job 19:13).

Job 30:16-19 16  And now my soul is poured out within me,

Days of suffering hold me fast. 17  The night rendeth my bones from me,

And my gnawers sleep not. 18  By great force my garment is distorted,

As the collar of my shirt it encompasseth me. 19  He hath cast me into the mire,

And I am in appearance as dust and ashes.

With this third ועתּה (Job 30:1, Job 30:9) the elegiac lament over the harsh contrast between the present and the past begins for the third time. The dash after our translation of the second and fourth strophes will indicate that a division of the elegy ends there, after which it begins as it were anew. The soul is poured out within a man (עלי as Job 10:1, Psychol. S. 152), when, “yielding itself without resistance to sadness, it is dejected to the very bottom, and all its organization flows together, and it is dissolved in the one condition of sorrow” - a figure which is not, however, come about by water being regarded as the symbol of the soul (thus Hitzig on Psa 42:5), but rather by the intimate resemblance of the representation of a flood of tears (Lam 2:19): the life of the soul flows in the blood, and the anguish of the soul in tears and lamentations; and since the outward man is as it were dissolved in the gently flowing tears (Isa 15:3), his soul flows away as it were in itself, for the outward incident is but the manifestation and result of an inward action. ימי־עני we have translated days of suffering, for עני, with its verb and the rest of its derivatives, is the proper word for suffering, and especially the passion of the Servant of Jehovah. Days of suffering - Job complains - hold him fast; עחז unites in itself, like החזיק, the significations prehendere and prehensum tenere. In Job 30:17 we must not, with Arnh. and others, translate: by night it (affliction) pierces ... , for עני does not stand sufficiently in the foreground to be the subject of what follows; it might sooner be rendered: by night it is pierced through (Targ., Rosenm., Hahn); but why is not לילה to be the subject, and נקּר consequently Piel (not Niph.)? The night has been personified already, Job 3:2; and in general, as Herder once said, Job is the brother of Ossian for personifications: Night (the restless night, Job 7:3, in which every malady, or at least the painful feeling of it, increases) pierces his bones from him, i.e., roots out his limbs (synon. בּדּים, Job 18:13) so inwardly and completely. The lepra Arabica (Arab. 'l - brṣ , el - baras) terminates, like syphilis, with an eating away of the limbs, and the disease has its name Arab. juḏâm from jḏm , truncare, mutilare: it feeds on the bones, and destroys the body in such a manner that single limbs are completely detached.

In Job 30:17, lxx (νεῦρα), Parchon, Kimchi, and others translate ערקי according to the Targum. ערקין (= גּידים), and the Arab. ‛rûq , veins, after which Blumenf.: my veins are in constant motion. But ערקי in the sense of Job 30:3 : my gnawers (Jer. qui me comedunt, Targ. דּמעסּן יתי, qui me conculcant, conterunt), is far more in accordance with the predicate and the parallelism, whether it be gnawing pains that are thought of - pains are unnatural to man, they come upon him against his will, he separates them from himself as wild beasts - or, which we prefer, those worms (רמּה, Job 7:5) which were formed in Job’s ulcers (comp. Aruch, ערקא, a leech, plur. ערקתא, worms, e.g., in the liver), and which in the extra-biblical tradition of Job’s decease are such a standing feature, that the pilgrims to Job’s monastery even now-a-days take away with them thence these supposedly petrified worms of Job. In Mugir ed-dîn’s large history of Jerusalem and Hebron (kitâb el - ins el - gelı̂l), in an article on Job, we read: God had so visited him in his body, that he got the disease that devours the limbs (tegedhdhem), and worms were produced (dawwad) in the wounds, while he lay on a dunghill (mezbele), and except his wife, who tended him, no one ventured to come too near him. In a beautiful Kurdic ballad “on the basket dealer” (zembilfrosh), which I have obtained from the Kurds in Salihîje, are these words:Veki Gergis beshara beri Jusuf veki abdan keri Bikesr' Ejub kurman deri toh anin ser sultaneti to men chalaski 'j zahmeti . 

“When they divided Gergîs with a saw

And sold Joseph like a slave,

When worms fed themselves in Job’s body,

Then Thou didst guide them by a sure way:

Thou wilt also deliver me from need.”

More concerning these worms of Job in the description of the monastery of Job. - Wetzst.) Job 30:18 would be closely and naturally connected with what precedes if לבוּשׁי could be understood of the skin and explained: By omnipotence (viz., divine, as Job 23:6, Ew. §270 a) the covering of my body is distorted, as even Raschi: משׁתנה גלד אחר גלד, it is changed, by one skin or crust being formed after another. But even Schultens rightly thinks it remarkable that לבושׁ, Job 30:18, is not meant to signify the proper upper garment but the covering of the skin, but כּתּנת, Job 30:18, the under garment in a proper sense. The astonishment is increased by the fact that התהפּשׂ signifies to disguise one’s self, and thereby render one’s self unrecognisable, which leads to the proper idea of לבושׁ, to a clothing which looks like a disguise. It cannot be cited in favour of this unusual meaning that לבושׁ is used in Job 41:5 of the scaly skin of the crocodile: an animal has no other לבושׁ but its skin. Therefore, with Ew., Hirz., and Hlgst., we take לבושׁ strictly: “by (divine) omnipotence my garment is distorted (becomes unlike itself), like the collar of my shirt it fits close to me.” It is unnecessary to take כּפי as a compound praep.: according to (comp. Zec 2:4; Mal 2:9 : ”according as”), in the sense of כּמו, as Job 33:6, since פּי כּתּנת is, according to the nature of the thing mentioned, a designation of the upper opening, by means of which the shirt, otherwise only provided with armholes (distinct from the Beduin shirt thôb, which has wide and long sleeves), is put on. Also, Psa 133:2, פּי מדּותיו signifies not the lower edge, but the opening at the head פּי הראשׁע, Exo 28:32) or the collar of the high priest’s vestment (vid., the passage cited). Thus even lxx ὥσπερ τὸ περιστόμιον τοῦ χιτῶνός μου, and Jer.: velut capitio tunicae meae. True, Schlottm. observes against this rendering of Job 30:18, that it is unnatural according to substance, since on a wasted body it is not the outer garment that assumes the appearance of a narrow under one, but on the contrary the under garment assumes the appearance of a wide outer one. But this objection is not to the point. If the body is wasted away to a skeleton, there is an end to the rich appearance and beautiful flow which the outer garment gains by the full and rounded forms of the limbs: it falls down straight and in perpendicular folds upon the wasted body, and contributes in no small degree to make him whom one formerly saw in all the fulness of health still less recognisable than he otherwise is. יאזרני, cingit me, is not merely the falling together of the outer garment which was formerly filled out by the members of the body, but its appearance when the sick man wraps himself in it: then it girds him, fits close to him like his shirt-collar, lying round about the shrivelled figure like the other about a thin neck. On the terrible wasting away which is combined with hypertrophical formations in elephantiasis, vid., Job 7:15, and especially Job 19:20. The subject of Job 30:19 is God, whom Job 30:18 also describes as efficient cause: He has cast me into, or daubed The reading wavers between הרני and הרני, for the latter form of writing is sometimes found even out of pause by conjunctive accents, e.g., 1Sa 28:15; Psa 118:5. me with, mud, and I am become as (כּ instead of the dat., Ew. §221, a) dust and ashes. This is also intended pathologically: the skin of the sufferer with elephantiasis becomes first an intense red, then assumes a black colour; scales like fishes’ scales are formed upon it, and the brittle, dark-coloured surface of the body is like a lump of earth.

Job 30:20-23 20  I cry to Thee for help, and Thou answerest not;

I stand there, and Thou lookest fixedly at me. 21  Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me,

With the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me. 22  Thou raisest me upon the stormy wind,

Thou causest me to drive along And vanish in the roaring of the storm. 23  For I know: Thou wilt bring me back to death,

Into the house of assembly for all living.

If he cries for help, his cry remains unanswered; if he stands there looking up reverentially to God (perhaps עמד, with משּׁוּע to be supplied, has the sense of desisting or restraining, as Gen 29:35; Gen 30:9), the troubling, fixed look of God, who looks fixedly and hostilely upon him, anything but ready to help (comp. Job 7:20; Job 16:9), meets his upturned eye. התבּנן, to look consideringly upon anything, is elsewhere joined with אל, על, עד, or even with the acc; here, where a motionless fixed look is intended, with בּ (= fi). It is impossible to draw the לא, Job 30:20, over to ותּתבּנן (Jer., Saad., Umbr., Welte, and others), both on account of the Waw consec. (Ew. §351 a), and on account of the separation by the new antecedent עמדתּי. On the reading of two Codd. ותתכנן (“Thou settest Thyself against me”), which Houbigant and Ew. prefer, Rosenm. has correctly pronounced judgment: est potius pro mendo habenda. Instead of consolingly answering his prayer, and instead of showing Himself willing to help, God, who was formerly so kind towards him, changes towards him, His creature, into a cruel being, saevum (אכזר in the book of Job only here and Job 41:2, where it signifies “foolhardy;” comp. לאויב in the dependent passage, Isa 63:10), and makes war upon him (שׂטם as Job 16:9) by causing him to feel the strength of His omnipotent hand (עצם יד as Deu 8:17, synon. חזק).

It is not necessary in Job 30:22 to forsake the accentuation, and to translate: Thou raisest me up, Thou causest me go in the wind (Ew., Hirz., and others); the accentuation of רוח is indeed not a disjunctive Dechî, but a conjunctive Tarcha, but preceded by Munach, which, according to the rule, Psalter ii. 500, §5, here, where two conjunctives come together, has a smaller conjunctive value. Therefore: elevas me in ventum, equitare facis me, viz., super ventum (Dachselt), for one does not only say הרכּיב על,   1Ch 13:7, or ל, Psa 66:12, but also אל, 2Sa 6:3; and accordingly תּשּׂאני אל־רוּח is also not to be translated: Thou snatchest me into the wind or storm (Hahn, Schlottm.), but: Thou raisest me up to the wind or storm, as upon an animal for riding (Umbr., Olsh.). According to Oriental tradition, Solomon rode upon the east wind, and in Arabic they say of one who hurried rapidly by, racab al - genâhai er - rih , he rides upon the wings of the wind; in the present passage, the point of comparison is the being absolutely passively hurried forth from the enjoyment of a healthy and happy life to a dizzy height, whence a sudden overthrow threatens him who is unwillingly removed (comp. Psa 102:11, Thou hast lifted me up and hurled me forth).

The lot which threatens him from this painful suspense Job expresses (Job 30:22) in the puzzling words: וּתמגגני תשׁיּה. Thus the Keri, after which lxx transl. (if it has not read מישׁוּעה), καὶ ἀπέῤῥηιψάς με ἀπὸ σωτηρίας. The modern expositors who follow the Keri, by taking ותמגגני for ותמגג לי (according to Ges. §121, 4), translate: Thou causest counsel and understanding (Welte), happiness (Blumenf.), and the like, to vanish from me; continuance, existence, duration would be better (vid., Job 6:13, and especially on Job 26:3). The thought it appropriate, but the expression is halting. Jerome, who translates valide, points to the correct thing, and Buxtorf (Lex. col. 2342f.) by interpreting the not less puzzling Targum translation in fundamento = funditus or in essentia = essentialiter, has, without intending it, hit upon the idea of the Hebr. Keri; תשׁיּה is intended as a closer defining, or adverbial, accusative: Thou causest me to vanish as to existence, ita ut tota essentia pereat h.e. totaliter et omnino. Perhaps this was really the meaning of the poet: most completely, most thoroughly, altogether, like the Arab. ḥaqqan . But it is unfavourable to this Keri, that תושׁיה (from the verb ושׁי), as might be expected, is always written plene elsewhere; the correction of the תשׁוה is violent, and moreover this form, correctly read, gives a sense far more consistent with the figure, Job 30:22. Ges., Umbr., and Carey falsely read תּשׁוּה, terres me; this verb is unknown in Hebr., and even in Chaldee is only used in Ithpeal, אשׁתּוי (= Hebr. חרד); for a similar reason Böttcher’s תּשׁוה (which is intended to mean: in despair) is also not to be used. Even Stuhlmann perceived that תשׁוה is equivalent to תּשׁוּאה; it is, with Ew. and Olsh., to be read תּשׁוּה (not with Pareau and Hirz. תּשׁוה without the Dag.), and this form signifies, as תשׁואה, Job 36:29, from שׁוא = שׁאה, from which it is derived by change of consonants, the crash of thunder, or even the rumbling or roar as of a storm or a falling in (procellae sive ruinae). The meaning is hardly, that he who rides away upon the stormy wind melts and trickles down like drops of rain among the pealing of the thunder, when the thunder-storm, whose harbinger is the stormy wind, gathers; but that in the storm itself, which increases in fury to the howling of a tempest, he dissolves away. תּשׁוּה for בּתּשׁוּה, comp. Psa 107:26 : their soul melted away (dissolved) בּרעה. The compulsory journey in the air, therefore, passes into nothing or nearly nothing, as Job is well aware, Job 30:23 : “for I know: (without כּי, as Job 19:25; Ps. 9:21) Thou wilt bring me back to death” (acc. of the goal, or locative without any sign). If תּשׁיבני is taken in its most natural signification reduces, death is represented as essentially one with the dust of death (comp. Job 1:21 with Gen 3:19), or even with non-existence, out of which man is come into being; nevertheless השׁיב can also, by obliterating the notion of return, like redigere, have only the signification of the turn of destiny and change of condition that is effected. The assertion that שׁוּב always includes an “again,” and retains it inexorably (vid., Köhler on Zec 13:7, S. 239), is untenable. In post-biblical Hebrew, at least, it is certain that שׁוּב signifies not only ”to become again,” but also “to become,” as Arab. ‛âd is used as synon. of jâ'in , devenir.Vid., my Anekdota der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen, S. 347.

With מות, the designation of the condition, is coupled the designation of the place: Hades (under the notion of which that of the grave is included) is the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.

Job 30:24-27 24  Doth one not, however, stretch out the hand in falling,

Doth he not raise a cry for help on that account in his ruin? 25  Or have I not wept for him that was in trouble,

Hath not my soul grieved for the needy? - 26  For I hoped for good, then evil came;

I waited for light, and darkness came. 27  My bowels boiled without ceasing,

Days of misery met me.

Most of the ancient versions indulge themselves in strange fancies respecting Job 30:24 to make a translatable text, or find their fancies in the text before them. The translation of the Targum follows the fancies of the Midrash, and places itself beyond the range of criticism. The lxx reads בי instead of בעי, and finds in Job 30:24 a longing for suicide, or death by the hand of another. The Syriac likewise reads בי, although it avoids this absurdity. Jerome makes an address of the assertion, and, moreover, also moulds the text under the influence of the Midrash. Aq., Symm., and Theod. strive after a better rendering than the lxx, but (to judge from the fragment in the Hexapla) without success. Saadia and Gecatilia wring a sense out of Job 30:24, but at the expense of the syntax, and by dragging Job 30:24 after it, contrary to the tenor of the words. The old expositors also advance nothing available. They mostly interpret it as though it were not להן, but להם (a reading which has been forced into the Midrash texts and some Codd. instead of the reading of the text that is handed down to us). Even Rosenm. thinks להן might, like the Ara. להון, be equivalent to להם; and Carey explains the enallage generis from the perhaps existing secondary idea of womanly fear, as 2Sa 4:6, הנּה instead of המּה is used of the two assassins to describe them as cowards. But the Hebr. להן is fem.; and often as the enallage masc. pro fem. occurs, the enallage fem. pro masc. is unknown; הנּה, 2Sa 4:6, is an adv. of place (vid., moreover, Thenius in loc.). It is just as absolutely inadmissible when the old expositors combine שׁוּע with ושׁע (ושׁע), or as e.g., Raschi with שׁעשׁע, and translate, "welfare” or “exhilaration” (refreshing). The signif. “wealth” would be more readily admissible, so that שׁוּע, as Aben-Ezra observes, would be the subst. to שׁוע, Job 34:19; but in Job 36:19 (which see), שׁוּע (as שׁוע Isa 22:5) signifies a cry of distress (= שׁוע), and an attempt must be made here with this meaning before every other.

On the other hand comes the question whether בעי is not perhaps to be referred to the verb בּעה, whether it be as subst. after the form מרי (Ralbag after the Targ.) or as part. pass. (Saad. Arab. gı̂r ‛nnh lı̂s 'l - mbtgan , “only that it is not desired”). The verb does not, indeed, occur elsewhere in the book of Job, but is very consistent with its style, which so abounds in Aramaisms, and is at the same time so coloured with Arabic that we should almost say, its Hauranitish style.The Arab. verb bg' is still extensively used in Syria, and that in two forms: Arab. bg' ybgy and bg' ybg'. In Damascus the fut. i is alone used; whereas in Hauran and the steppe I have only found fut. a. Thus e.g., the Hauranite poet Kâsim el-Chinn says: “The gracious God encompass thee with His favour and whatever thy soul desires (wa - l - nefsu ma tebghâ), it must obtain its desire” (tanûlu munâhû, in connection with which it is to be observed that Arab. bâl , fut. u is used here in the signification adipisci, comp. Fleischer on Job 15:29 [supra i. 270, note]). - Wetzst.

Thus taking בעי as one word, Ralbag transl.: prayer stretched not forth the hand, which is intended to mean: is not able to do anything, cannot cause the will of God to miscarry. This meaning is only obtained by great violence; but when Renan (together with Böckel and Carey, after Rosenm.) translates: Vaines prières!..il étend sa main; à quoi bon protester contre ses coups? the one may be measured with the other. If בעי is to be derived from בעי, it must be translated either: shall He, however, without prayer (sine imploratione), or: shall He, however, unimplored (non imploratus), stretch out His hand? The thought remains the same by both renderings of בעי, and suits as a vindication of the cry for help in the context. But בּעה, in the specific signification implorare, deprecari, is indeed the usage of the Targum, although strange to the Hebr., which is here so rich in synonyms; then, in the former case, לא for בלא is harsh, and in the other, בעי as part. pass. is too strong an Aramaism. We must therefore consider whether בעי as עי with the praep. בּ gives a suitable sense. Since שׁלח יד בּ, e.g., Job 28:9 and elsewhere, most commonly means “to lay the hand on anything, stretch out the hand to anything,” it is most natural to take בעי in dependence upon ישׁלח ידו, and we really gain an impressive thought, if we translate: Only may He not stretch out His hand (to continue His work of destruction) to a heap of rubbish (which I am already become); but by this translation of Job 30:24, Job 30:24 remains a glaring puzzle, insoluble in itself and in respect of the further course of the thought, for Schlottmann’s interpretation, “Only one does not touch ruins, or the ruin of one is the salvation of another,” which is itself puzzling, is no solution. The reproach against the friends which is said to lie in Job 30:24 is contrary to the character of this monologue, which is turned away from his human opponents; then שׁוּע does not signify salvation, and there is no ”one” and “another” to be found in the text. We must therefore, against our inclination, give up this dependent relation of בעי, so that בעי signifies either, upon a heap of rubbish, or, since this ought to be על־עי: by the falling in; עי (from עוה = ‛iwj) can mean both: a falling in or overthrow (bouleversement) as an event, and ruins or rubbish as its result.

Accordingly Hirz. translates: Only upon the ruins (more correctly at least: upon ruins) one will not stretch out his hand, and Ew.: Only - does not one stretch out one’s hand by one’s overthrow? But this “only” is awkward. Hahn is of opinion that אך לא may be taken in the signification not once, and translates: may one not for once raise one’s hand by one’s downfall; but even this is lame, because then all connection with what precedes is wanting; besides, אך לא does not signify ne quidem. The originally affirmative אך has certainly for the most part a restrictive signification, which, as we observed on Job 18:21, is blended with the affirmative in Hebr., but it is also, as more frequently אכן, used adversatively, e.g., Job 16:7, and in the combination אך לא this adversative signification coincides with the restrictive, for this double particle signifies everywhere else: only not, however not, Gen 20:12; 1Ki 11:39; 2Ki 12:14; 2Ki 13:6; 2Ki 23:9, 2Ki 23:26. It would be more natural to translate, as we have stated above: only may be not, etc., but Job 30:24 puts in its veto against this. If, as Hirz., Ew., and Hahn also suppose, לא, Job 30:24, is equivalent to הלא, so that the sentence is to be spoken with an interrogative accent, we must translate אך as Jer. has done, by verumtamen. He knows that he is being hurried forth to meet death; he knows it, and has also already made himself so familiar with this thought, that the sooner he sees an end put to this his sorrowful life the better - nevertheless does one not stretch out one’s hand when one is falling? This involuntary reaction against destruction is the inevitable result of man’s instinct of self-preservation. It needs no proof that שׁלח יד can signify “to stretch out one’s hand for help;” ישׁלח is used with a general subj.: one stretches out, as Job 17:5; Job 21:22. With this determination of the idea of Job 30:24, Job 30:24 is now also naturally connected with what precedes. It is not, however, to be translated, as Ew. and Hirz.: if one is in distress, is not a cry for help heard on account of it? If אם were intended hypothetically, a continuation of the power of the interrogative לא from Job 30:24 would be altogether impossible. Hahn and Loch-Reischl rightly take אם in the sense of an. It introduces another turn of the question: Does one, however, not stretch out one’s hand to hasten the fall, or in his downfall (raise) a cry for help, or a wail, on that account? Döderlein’s conjecture, לחן for להן (praying “for favour”), deserves respectful mention, but it is not needed: להן signifies neutrally: in (under) such circumstances (comp. בּהם, Job 22:21; Isa 64:5), or is directly equivalent to להן, which (Rth 1:13) signifies propterea, and even in biblical Chaldee, beside the Chaldee signif. sed , nisi , retains this Hebrew signif. (Dan 2:6, Dan 2:9; Dan 4:24). פּיד, which signifies dying and destruction (Talmud. in the peculiar signif.: that which is hewn or pecked open), synon. of איד, has been already discussed on Job 12:5.

Job 30:28-31 28  I wandered about in mourning without the sun;

I rose in the assembly, I gave free course to my complaint. 29  I am become a brother of the jackals

And a companion of ostriches. 30  My skin having become black, peels off from me,

And my bones are parched with dryness. 31  My harp was turned to mourning,

And my pipe to tones of sorrow.

Several expositors (Umbr., Vaih., Hlgst.) understand קדר of the dirty-black skin of the leper, but contrary to the usage of the language, according to which, in similar utterances (Psa 35:14; Psa 38:7; Psa 42:10; Psa 43:2, comp. supra, Job 5:11), it rather denotes the dirty-black dress of mourners (comp. Arab. qḏḏr , conspurcare vestem); to understand it of the dirty-black skin as quasi sordida veste (Welte) is inadmissible, since this distortion of the skin which Job bewails in Job 30:30 would hardly be spoken of thus tautologically. קדר therefore means in the black of the שׂק, or mourning-linen, Job 16:15, by which, however, also the interpretation of בּלא חמּה, “without sunburn” (Ew., Hirz.), which has gained ground since Raschi’s day (לא שׁשׁזפתני השׁמשׁ), is disposed of; for “one can perhaps say of the blackness of the skin that it does not proceed from the sun, but not of the blackness of mourning attire” (Hahn). קדר also refutes the reading בלא חמה in lxx Complut. (ἄνευ θυμοῦ),Whereas Codd. Alex., Vat., and Sinait., ἄνευ φιμοῦ, which is correctly explained by κημοῦ in Zwingli’s Aldine, but gives no sense.

Syr., Jer. (sine furore), which ought to be understood of the deposition of the gall-pigment on the skin, and therefore of jaundice, which turns it (especially in tropical regions) not merely yellow, but a dark-brown. Hahn and a few others render בלא חמה correctly in the sense of בחשׁך, "without the sun having shone on him.” Bereft of all his possessions, and finally also of his children, he wanders about in mourning (הלּך as Job 24:10; Psa 38:7), and even the sun had clothed itself in black to him (which is what קדר השׁמשׁ means, Joe 2:10 and freq.); the celestial light, which otherwise brightened his path, Job 29:3, was become invisible. We must not forget that Job here reviews the whole chain of afflictions which have come upon him, so that by Job 30:28 we have not to think exclusively, and also not prominently, of the leprosy, since הלכתי indeed represents him as still able to move about freely.

In Job 30:28 the accentuation wavers between Dechî, Munach, Silluk, according to which בּקּהל אשׁוּע belong together, which is favoured by the Dagesh in the Beth, and Tarcha, Munach, Silluk, according to which (because Munach, according to Psalter ii. 503, §2, is a transformation of Rebia mugrasch) קמתּי בּקּהל belong together. The latter mode of accentuation, according to which בקהל must be written without the Dag. instead of בּקהל (vid., Norzi), is the only correct one (because Dechî cannot come in the last member of the sentence before Silluk), and is also more pleasing as to matter: I rose (and stood) in the assembly, crying for help, or more generally: wailing. The assembly is not to be thought of as an assembly of the people, or even tribunal (Ew.: ”before the tribunal seeking a judge, with lamentations”), but as the public; for the thought that Job sought help against his unmerited sufferings before a human tribunal is absurd; and, moreover, the thought that he cried for help before an assembly of the people called together to take counsel and pronounce decisions is equally absurd. Welte, however, who interprets: I was as one who, before an assembled tribunal, etc., introduces a quasi of which there is no trace in the text. בּקּהל must therefore, without pressing it further, be taken in the sense of publice, before all the world (Hirz.: comp. בקהל, ἐν φανερῷ, Pro 26:26); אשׁוּע, however, is a circumstantial clause declaring the purpose (Ew. §337, b; comp. De Sacy, Gramm. Arabe ii. §357), as is frequently the case after קום, Job 16:8; Psa 88:11; Psa 102:14 : surrexi in publico ut lamentarer, or lamentaturus, or lamentando. In this lament, extorted by the most intense pain, which he cannot hold back, however many may surround him, he is become a brother of those תּנּים, jackals (canes aurei), whose dolorous howling produces dejection and shuddering in all who hear it, and a companion of בּנות יענה, whose shrill cry is varied by wailing tones of deep melancholy.It is worth while to cite a passage from Shaw’s Travels in Barbary, ii. 348 (transl.), here: “When the ostriches are running and fighting, they sometimes make a wild, hideous, hissing noise with their throats distended and beaks open; at another time, if they meet with a slight opposition, they have a clucking or cackling voice like our domestic fowls: they seem to rejoice and laugh at the terror of their adversary. During the loneliness of the night however, as if their voice had a totally different tone, they often set up a dolorous, hideous moan, which at one time resembles the roar of the lion, and at another is more like the hoarser voice of other quadrupeds, especially the bull and cow. I have often heard them groan as if they were in the greatest agonies.” In General Doumas’ book on the Horse of the Sahara, I have read that the male ostrich (delı̂m), when it is killed, especially if its young ones are near, sends forth a dolorous note, wile the female (remda), on the other hand, does not utter a sound; and so, when the ostrich digs out its nest, one hears a languishing and dolorous tone all day long, and when it has laid its egg, its usual cry is again heard, only about three o'clock in the afternoon.

The point of comparison is not the insensibility of the hearers (Sforno), but the fellowship of wailing and howling together with the accompanying idea of the desert in which it is heard, which is connected with the idea itself (comp. Mic 1:8).

Job's Humbled Condition. (b. c. 1520.)

1 But now they that are younger 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; 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 caves 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.

Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint of the great disgrace he had fallen into, from the height of honour and reputation, which was exceedingly grievous and cutting to such an ingenuous spirit as Job's was. Two things he insists upon as greatly aggravating his affliction:—

I. The meanness of the persons that affronted him. As it added much to his honour, in the day of his prosperity, that princes and nobles showed him respect and paid a deference to him, so it added no less to his disgrace in his adversity that he was spurned by the footmen, and trampled upon by those that were not only every way his inferiors, but were the meanest and most contemptible of all mankind. None can be represented as more base than those are here represented who insulted Job, upon all accounts. 1. They were young, younger than he (v. 1), the youth (v. 12), who ought to have behaved themselves respectfully towards him for his age and gravity. Even the children, in their play, played upon him, as the children of Bethel upon the prophet, Go up, thou bald-head. Children soon learn to be scornful when they see their parents so. 2. They were of a mean extraction. Their fathers were so very despicable that such a man as Job would have disdained to take them into the lowest service about his house, as that of tending the sheep and attending the shepherds with the dogs of his flock, v. 1. They were so shabby that they were not fit to be seen among his servants, so silly that they were not fit to be employed, and so false that they were not fit to be trusted in the meanest post. Job here speaks of what he might have done, not of what he did: he was not of such a spirit as to set any of the children of men with the dogs of his flock; he knew the dignity of human nature better than to do so. 3. They and their families were the unprofitable burdens of the earth, and good for nothing. Job himself, with all his prudence and patience, could make nothing of them, v. 2. The young were not fit for labour, they were so lazy, and went about their work so awkwardly: Whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? The old were not to be advised with in the smallest matters, for in them was old age indeed, but their old age was perished, they were twice children. 4. They were extremely poor, v. 3. They were ready to starve, for they would not dig, and to beg they were ashamed. Had they been brought to necessity by the providence of God, their neighbours would have sought them out as proper objects of charity and would have relieved them; but, being brought into straits by their own slothfulness and wastefulness, nobody was forward to relieve them. Hence they were forced to flee into the deserts both for shelter and sustenance, and were put to sorry shifts indeed, when they cut up mallows by the bushes, and were glad to eat them, for want of food that was fit for them, v. 4. See what hunger will bring men to: one half of the world does not know how the other half lives; yet those that have abundance ought to think sometimes of those whose fare is very coarse and who are brought to a short allowance of that too. But we must own the righteousness of God, and not think it strange, if slothfulness clothe men with rags and the idle soul be made to suffer hunger. This beggarly world is full of the devil's poor. 5. They were very scandalous wicked people, not only the burdens, but the plagues, of the places where they lived, arrant scoundrels, the scum of the country: They were driven forth from among men, v. 5. They were such lying, thieving, lurking, mischievous people, that the best service the magistrates could do was to rid the country of them, while the very mob cried after them as after a thief. Away with such fellows from the earth; it is not fit they should live. They were lazy and would not work, and therefore they were exclaimed against as thieves, and justly; for those that do not earn their own bread by honest labour do, in effect, steal the bread out of other people's mouths. An idle fellow is a public nuisance; but it is better to drive such into a workhouse than, as here, into a wilderness, which will punish them indeed, but never reform them. They were forced to dwell in caves of the earth, and they brayed like asses among the bushes, v. 6, 7. See what is the lot of those that have the cry of the country, the cry of their own conscience, against them; they cannot but be in a continual terror and confusion. They groan among the trees (so Broughton) and smart among the nettles; they are stung and scratched there, where they hoped to be sheltered and protected. See what miseries wicked people bring themselves to in this world; yet this is nothing to what is in reserve for them in the other world. 8. They had nothing at all in them to recommend them to any man's esteem. They were a vile kind; yea, a kind without fame, people that nobody could give a good word to nor had a good wish for; they were banished from the earth as being viler than the earth. One would not think it possible that ever the human nature should sink so low, and degenerate so far, as it did in these people. When we thank God that we are men we have reason to thank him that we are not such men. But such as these were abusive to Job, (1.) In revenge, because when he was in prosperity and power, like a good magistrate, he put in execution the laws which were in force against vagabonds, and rogues, and sturdy beggars, which these base people now remembered against him. (2.) In triumph over him, because they thought he had now become like one of them. Isa. xiv. 10, 11. The abjects, men of mean spirits, insult over the miserable, Ps. xxxv. 15.

II. The greatness of the affronts that were given him. It cannot be imagined how abusive they were.

1. They made ballads on him, with which they made themselves and their companions merry (v. 9): I am their song and their byword. Those have a very base spirit that turn the calamities of their honest neighbours into a jest, and can sport themselves with their griefs.

2. They shunned him as a loathsome spectacle, abhorred him, fled far from him, (v. 10), as an ugly monster or as one infected. Those that were themselves driven out from among men would have had him driven out. For,

3. They expressed the greatest scorn and indignation against him. They spat in his face, or were ready to do so; they tripped up his heels, pushed away his feet (v. 12), kicked him, either in wrath, because they hated him, or in sport, to make themselves merry with him, as they did with their companions at foot-ball. The best of saints have sometimes received the worst of injuries and indignities from a spiteful, scornful, wicked world, and must not think it strange; our Master himself was thus abused.

4. They were very malicious against him, and not only made a jest of him, but made a prey of him—not only affronted him, but set themselves to do him all the real mischief they could devise: They raise up against me the ways of their destruction; or (as some read it), They cast upon me the cause of their woe; that is, "They lay the blame of their being driven out upon me;" and it is common for criminals to hate the judges and laws by which they are punished. But under this pretence, (1.) They accused him falsely, and misrepresented his former conversation, which is here called marring his path. They reflected upon him as a tyrant and an oppressor because he had done justice upon them; and perhaps Job's friends grounded their uncharitable censures of him (ch. xxii. 6, &c.) upon the unjust and unreasonable clamours of these sorry people; and it was an instance of their great weakness and inconsideration, for who can be innocent if the accusations of such persons may be heeded? (2.) They not only triumphed in his calamity, but set it forward, and did all they could to add to his miseries and make them more grievous to him. It is a great sin to forward the calamity of any, especially of good people. In this they have no helper, nobody to set them on or to countenance them in it, nobody to bear them out or to protect them, but they do it of their own accord; they are fools in other things, but wise enough to do mischief, and need no help in inventing that. Some read it thus, They hold my heaviness a profit, though they be never the better. Wicked people, though they get nothing by the calamities of others, yet rejoice in them.

5. Those that did him all this mischief were numerous, unanimous, and violent (v. 14): They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, when the dam is broken; or, "They came as soldiers into a broad breach which they have made in the wall of a besieged city, pouring in upon me with the utmost fury;" and in this they took a pride and a pleasure: They rolled themselves in the desolation as a man rolls himself in a soft and easy bed, and they rolled themselves upon him with all the weight of their malice.

III. All this contempt put upon him was caused by the troubles he was in (v. 11): "Because he has loosed my cord, has taken away the honour and power with which I was girded (ch. xii. 18), has scattered what I had got together and untwisted all my affairs—because he has afflicted me, therefore they have let loose the bridle before me," that is, "have given themselves a liberty to say and do what they please against me." Those that by Providence are stripped of their honour may expect to be loaded with contempt by inconsiderate ill-natured people. "Because he hath loosed his cord" (the original has that reading also), that is, "because he has taken off his bridle of restraint from off their malice, they cast away the bridle from me," that is, "they make no account of my authority, nor stand in any awe of me." It is owing to the hold God has of the consciences even of bad men, and the restraints he lays upon them, that we are not continually thus insulted and abused; and, if at any time we meet with such ill treatment, we must acknowledge the hand of God in taking off those restraints, as David did when Shimei cursed him: So let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. Now in all this, 1. We may see the uncertainty of worldly honour, and particularly of popular applause, how suddenly a man may fall from the height of dignity into the depth of disgrace. What little cause therefore have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! Those that to-day cry Hosannah may to-morrow cry Crucify. But there is an honour which comes from God, which if we secure, we shall find it not thus changeable and loseable. 2. We may see that it has often been the lot of very wise and good men to be trampled upon and abused. And, 3. That those who look only at the things that are seen despise those whom the world frowns upon, though they are ever so much the favourites of Heaven. Nothing is more grievous in poverty than that it renders men contemptible. Turba Remi sequitur fortunam, ut semper odit damnatos—The Roman populace, faithful to the turns of fortune, still persecute the fallen. 4. We may see in Job a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men and despised of the people (Ps. xxii. 6; Isa. liii. 3), and who hid not his face from shame and spitting, but bore the indignity better than Job did.

Job Complains of His Affliction. (b. c. 1520.)

15 Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul 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 become 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. 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, 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. 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.

In this second part of Job's complaint, which is very bitter, and has a great many sorrowful accents in it, we may observe a great deal that he complains of and some little that he comforts himself with.

I. Here is much that he complains of.

1. In general, it was a day of great affliction and sorrow. (1.) Affliction seized him, and surprised him. It seized him (v. 16): The days of affliction have taken hold upon me, have caught me (so some); they have arrested me, as the bailiff arrests the debtor, claps him on the back, and secures him. When trouble comes with commission it will take fast hold, and not lose its hold. It surprised him (v. 27): "The days of affliction prevented me," that is, "they came upon me without giving me any previous warning. I did not expect them, nor make any provision for such an evil day." Observe, He reckons his affliction by days, which will soon be numbered and finished, and are nothing to the ages of eternity, 2 Cor. iv. 17. (2.) He was in great sorrow by reason of it. His bowels boiled with grief, and rested not, v. 27. The sense of his calamities was continually preying upon his spirits without any intermission. He went mourning from day to day, always sighing, always weeping; and such cloud was constantly upon his mind that he went, in effect, without the sun, v. 28. He had nothing that he could take any comfort in. He abandoned himself to perpetual sorrow, as one that, like Jacob, resolved to go to the grave mourning. He walked out of the sun (so some) in dark shady places, as melancholy people use to do. If he went into the congregation, to join with them in solemn worship, instead of standing up calmly to desire their prayers, he stood up and cried aloud, through pain of body, or anguish of mind, like one half distracted. If he appeared in public, to receive visits, when the fit came upon him he could not contain himself, nor preserve due decorum, but stood up and shrieked aloud. Thus he was a brother to dragons and owls (v. 29), both in choosing solitude and retirement, as they do (Isa. xxxiv. 13), and in making a fearful hideous noise as they do; his inconsiderate complaints were fitly compared to their inarticulate ones.

2. The terror and trouble that seized his soul were the sorest part of his calamity, v. 15, 16. (1.) If he looked forward, he saw every thing frightful before him: if he endeavoured to shake off his terrors, they turned furiously upon him: if he endeavoured to escape from them, they pursued his soul as swiftly and violently as the wind. He complained, at first, of the terrors of God setting themselves in array against him, ch. vi. 4. And still, which way soever he looked, they turned upon him; which way soever he fled, they pursued him. My soul (Heb., my principal one, my princess); the soul is the principal part of the man; it is our glory; it is every way more excellent than the body, and therefore that which pursues the soul, and threatens that, should be most dreaded. (2.) If he looked back, he saw all the good he had formerly enjoyed removed from him, and nothing left him but the bitter remembrance of it: My welfare and prosperity pass away, as suddenly, swiftly, and irrecoverably, as a cloud. (3.) If he looked within, he found his spirit quite sunk and unable to bear his infirmity, not only wounded, but poured out upon him, v. 16. He was not only weak as water, but, in his own apprehension, lost as water spilt upon the ground. Compare Ps. xxii. 14, My heart is melted like wax.

3. His bodily diseases were very grievous; for, (1.) He was full of pain, piercing pain, pain that went to the bone, to all his bones, v. 17. It was a sword in his bones, which pierced him in the night season, when he should have been refreshed with sleep. His nerves were affected with strong convulsions; his sinews took no rest. By reason of his pain, he could take no rest, but sleep departed from his eyes. His bones were burnt with heat, v. 30. He was in a constant fever, which dried up the radical moisture and even consumed the marrow in his bones. See how frail our bodies are, which carry in themselves the seeds of our own disease and death. (2.) He was full of sores. Some that are pained in their bones, yet sleep in a whole skin, but, Satan's commission against Job extending both to his bone and to his flesh, he spared neither. His skin was black upon him, v. 30. The blood settled, and the sores suppurated and by degrees scabbed over, which made his skin look black. Even his garment had its colour changed with the continual running of his boils, and the soft clothing he used to wear had now grown so stiff that all his garments were like his collar, v. 18. It would be noisome to describe what a condition poor Job was in for want of clean linen and good attendance, and what filthy rags all his clothes were. Some think that, among other diseases, Job was ill of a quinsy or swelling in his throat, and that it was this which bound him about like a stiff collar. Thus was he cast into the mire (v. 19), compared to mire (so some); his body looked more like a heap of dirt than any thing else. Let none be proud of their clothing nor proud of their cleanness; they know not but some disease or other may change their garments, and even throw them into the mire, and make them noisome both to themselves and others. Instead of sweet smell, there shall be a stench, Isa. iii. 24. We are but dust and ashes at the best, and our bodies are vile bodies; but we are apt to forget it, till God, by some sore disease, makes us sensibly to feel and own what we are. "I have become already like that dust and ashes into which I must shortly be resolved: wherever I go I carry my grave about with me."

4. That which afflicted him most of all was that God seemed to be his enemy and to fight against him. It was he that cast him into the mire (v. 19), and seemed to trample on him when he had him there. This cut him to the heart more than any thing else, (1.) That God did not appear for him. He addressed himself to him, but gained no grant—appealed to him, but gained no sentence; he was very importunate in his applications, but in vain (v. 20): "I cry unto thee, as one in earnest, I stand up, and cry, as one waiting for an answer, but thou hearest not, thou regardest not, for any thing I can perceive." If our most fervent prayers bring not in speedy and sensible returns, we must not think it strange. Though the seed of Jacob did never seek in vain, yet they have often thought that they did and that God has not only been deaf, but angry, at the prayers of his people, Ps. lxxx. 4. (2.) That God did appear against him. That which he here says of God is one of the worst words that ever Job spoke (v. 21): Thou hast become cruel to me. Far be it from the God of mercy and grace that he should be cruel to any (his compassions fail not), but especially that he should be so to his own children. Job was unjust and ungrateful when he said so of him: but harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset him. Here, [1.] He thought God fought against him and stirred up his whole strength to ruin him: With thy strong hand thou opposest thyself, or art an adversary against me. He had better thoughts of God (ch. xxiii. 6) when he concluded he would not plead against him with his great power. God has an absolute sovereignty and an irresistible strength, but he never uses either the one or the other for the crushing or oppressing of any. [2.] He thought he insulted over him (v. 22): Thou lifted me up to the wind, as a feather or the chaff which the wind plays with; so unequal a match did Job think himself for Omnipotence, and so unable was he to help himself when he was made to ride, not in triumph, but in terror, upon the wings of the wind, and the judgments of God did even dissolve his substance, as a cloud is dissolved and dispersed by the wind. Man's substance, take him in his best estate, is nothing before the power of God; it is soon dissolved.

5. He expected no other now than that God, by these troubles, would shortly make an end of him: "If I be made to ride upon the wind, I can count upon no other than to break my neck shortly;" and he speaks as if God had no other design upon him than that in all his dealings with him: "I know that thou wilt bring me, with so much the more terror, to death, though I might have been brought thither without all this ado, for it is the house appointed for all living," v. 23. The grave is a house, a narrow, dark, cold, ill-furnished house, but it will be our residence, where we shall rest and be safe. It is our long home, our own home; for it is our mother's lap, and in it we are gathered to our fathers. It is a house appointed for us by him that has appointed us the bounds of all our habitations. It is appointed for all the living. It is the common receptacle, where rich and poor meet; it is appointed for the general rendezvous. We must all be brought thither shortly. It is God that brings us to it, for the keys of death and the grave are in his hand, and we may all know that, sooner or later, he will bring us thither. It would be well for us if we would duly consider it. The living know that they shall die; let us, each of us, know it with application.

6. There were two things that aggravated his trouble, and made it the less tolerable:—(1.) That it was a very great disappointment to his expectation (v. 26): "When I looked for good, for more good, or at least for the continuance of what I had, then evil came"—such uncertain things are all our worldly enjoyments, and such a folly is it to feed ourselves with great expectations from them. Those that wait for light from the sparks of their creature comforts will be wretchedly disappointed and will make their bed in the darkness. (2.) That is was a very great change in his condition (v. 31): "My harp is not only laid by, and hung upon the willow-trees, but it is turned to mourning, and my organ into the voice of those that weep." Job, in his prosperity, had taken the timbrel and harp, and rejoiced at the sound of the organ, ch. xxi. 12. Notwithstanding his gravity and grace, he had found time to be cheerful; but now his tune was altered. Let those therefore that rejoice be as though they rejoiced not, for they know not how soon their laughter will be turned into mourning and their joy into heaviness. Thus we see how much Job complains of; but,

II. Here is something in the midst of all with which he comforts himself, and it is but a little. 1. He foresees, with comfort, that death will be the period of all his calamities (v. 24): Though God now, with a strong hand, opposed himself against him, "yet," says he, "he will not stretch out his hand to the grave." The hand of God's wrath would bring him to death, but would not follow him beyond death; his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits, his body safe and easy in the dust. Though men cry in his destruction (though, when they are dying, there is a great deal of agony and out-cry, many a sigh, and groan, and complaint), yet in the grave they feel nothing, they fear nothing, but all is quiet there. "Though in hell, which is called destruction, they cry, yet not in the grave; and, being delivered from the second death, the first to me will be an effectual relief." Therefore he wished he might be hidden in the grave, ch. xiv. 13. 2. He reflects with comfort upon the concern he always had for the calamities of others when he was himself at ease (v. 25): Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? Some think he herein complains of God, thinking it very hard that he who had shown mercy to others should not himself find mercy. I would rather take it as a quieting consideration to himself; his conscience witnessed for him that he had always sympathized with persons in misery and done what he could to help them, and therefore he had reason to expect that, at length, both God and his friends would pity him. Those who mourn with them that mourn will bear their own sorrows the better when it comes to their turn to drink of the bitter cup. Did not my soul burn for the poor? so some read it, comparing it with that of St. Paul, 2 Cor. xi. 29, Who is offended, and I burn not? As those who have been unmerciful and hard-hearted to others may expect to hear of it from their own consciences, when they are themselves in trouble, so those who have considered the poor and succoured them shall have the remembrance thereof to make their bed easy in their sickness, Ps. xli. 1, 3.

CHAP. XXX. Verſe 1 But now they that are younger than I, have me in deriſion]

ID quod ei morbo ſuo longè gravius fuerit, ſicut & Hebraei teſtantur, ſaith Mercer. This troubled him much more than all his ſores and ſickneſſes; that every young ſhackrag ſlighted him, and laughed him to ſcorn. In this caſe eſpecially, —Faciles motus mens generoſa capit.Ovid. You ſhall finde ſome, ſaith Eraſmus, that if death be threatned, can deſpiſe it: but to be deſpiſed or belyed, they cannot brook; but leaſt of all by baſe perſons: Qui[illegible: 1 letter]zbet ab aquila quam corvo diſcerpi mavnl[illegible: 1 letter]. Job was now grown ancient,Cognate ſunt [non-Latin text not transcribed] and had been honorable, as he had ſet forth chap. 29. Old-age and Honour, in the Greek tongue, are near a kin: and, Summa fuit quondam capitis reverentia cani: Inque ſuo precio ruga ſenilis erat. But it is a ſigne of gaſping devotion, and that things are far out of order, when the Child behaveth himſelf proudly againſt the ancient, and the baſe againſt the honourable, Eſa. 3.5. as at Bethel, where thoſe ill-bred Children derided the old Prophet, and petulantly cryed after him. Go up thou baldhead, go up thou baldhead, 2 King. 2.23. If the like unworthy uſuage befal us, let it ſuffice us that our betters, Job. David. Chriſt himſelf have ſped no better. Art not thou glad to fare as Phocion? ſaid he to a meaner man, that was to die with him.

Whoſe fathers I would have diſdained to have ſet with the dogs of my ſtock] i.e. To have made my dog-keepers, that they might feed with them as the prodigal ſon did with the ſwine. Dogs are commonly looked upon as paltery carrion Creatures: only ſome, for their minds ſake, and others for certain neceſſary uſes, as ſhepherds, and hunters, make ſome reckoning of them: It was not permitted to a dog to [illegible: 1 word] into the Acropolis, or tower of Athens, for his libidinouſneſs and ill-favour. [non-Latin text not transcribed] Plut. [non-Latin text not transcribed] p. 175. At Rome they crucified a dog yearly, in deteſtation of thoſe dogs in the Capitol that gave not warning of the approach of an Enemy. Job, it ſeems, had his dog-feeders; men of meaneſt account. Now theſe mens ſons, a beggarly breed, and very raſcals, inſulted and trampled opon this precious man, dealt as baſely and courſely with him, haply, as thoſe fictious fellows in Geneva did with reverend Calvin; whom they not only in contempt called Cain (as Athanaſius was ſomtimes by his enemies called Sathanaſius: and Cyprian, Cyprian; that is, a dunghil-fellow) but alſo named their Dogs Calvin, as Beza in his life reporteth.

Verſe 2. Yea, whereto might the ſtrength of their hands profit me?] For, to ſay the truth, (thus Beza here paraphraſeth) the ſtrength of thoſe young ſtriplings could not have ſtood me in any ſtead at all: and as for the old-age of their fathers, it were ſuch, that having ſpent the greateſt and beſt part of their life partly in idleneſs, and partly in divers wicked & lewd pranks, they might worthily ſeem to have lived in vain, all that while: Thus he. The Greeks ſay, [non-Latin text not transcribed], and the Latines Juniorès ad labores, young men are fit for hard labour, becauſe ſtrong and luſty. But theſe Sanniones in the text were, through idleneſs, meat nullities in the world, ſuperfluities in the earth, Jeremies rotten girdle, good for nothing but to devour victuals: vermine, apes, monkeys, their whole life was to eat and drink (when they could come by it) and ſleep, and ſport, and flear, and jear at Gods afflicted, with words as full of ſcorn as profane wit or rancour'd malice can make them. [non-Latin text not transcribed] ſettuag. Theſe are excrements in humane ſociety Peſts, the ſcripture ſtileth them, Pſal. 1.1.

In whom old age was periſhed] Their fathers alſo were old dottrels, in ipſa ſenectute ſenectute carentes, old, but not wiſe; like the Brabanti, Noriae Encom. who are ſaid to be the elder the fooliſher. Some men live long, but are good for little. Non ille din vixit, ſed din fuit, ſaith Seneca of ſomebody; He hath not lived long, but only been long: as a ſhip in a ſtorm, he hath been toſſed much, but ſailed nothing. Thoſe old men who have not gotten wiſdom by long experience, are not worthy of their years, their old age is periſhed, and their honour forfeited: The vulgar rendreth it, They were reckoned unworthy of life it ſelf: Depontani.

Verſe 3. For want and famine, they were ſolitary] Miſerably poor they were, and nittily needy: ſcarce having a rag to their backs, and therefore aſhamed to ſhew themſelves in company of others, propter penuriam, & propter eſuriem, they lurked in by-corners, and ſeldom came abroad, unleſs it were when hard hunger drove the Wolf out of the wood. Slow-bellies they had ever been, and evil beaſts, fitter therefore to live in the Wilderneſs, in former time deſolate and waſte, than in a civil ſociety: or if in any place, at Poneropolis, a City built by Philip King of Macedony, for varlets and vagrants, and with ſuch kind of perſons peopled; that they might not peſter other places. Job would have none ſuch about him: and was therefore, haply, now in his low condition, ſo much hated and affronted by them.

In former time deſolate and waſte] And ſo perhaps haunted by the Devil, as Iſa. 13.20, 21. Brentius rendreth it, Heſternam preſſuram & conſternationem, yeſterdayes preſſures, and fright; that is, ſaith he, The Creditors eagerneſs to be ſatisfied, which frighteth theſe caytiffs, and putteth them to their ſhifts.

Verſe 4. Who cut up Mallows by the buſhes] Pitiful poor fare they are glad of: not ſo good as that of the Baptiſt, Locuſts and wild Honey. Mat. 3. but Mallows, which, together with Aſphodelus, Heſiod mentioneth as poor folks fare. Tremellius rendreth it, Herbas è ſalſilagine cum ſtirpibus, ſalt, and bitter herbs and ſtalks a Brentius rendreth it, Nettles: Some take it for Samphire, which is a kind of Sea-mallows or Sea-purſlain. The Hebrew word comes from another, that ſignifieth ſalt; and ſounds like the Latine Malva, Ut famem qu[illegible: 1 letter] quo modo ſedarent. Merc. and the Engliſh Mallows. Courſe and homely Proviſion the wretches were glad to make uſe of, to appeaſe the cruel hunger that devoured them. And this hath been ſometimes the caſe of better men; as of thoſe Worthies, who wandered in deſarts, and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, Heb. 11.38. The Duke of Lorraine had proſcribed ſome thouſands of his Proteſtant ſubjects, who were thereby forced to ſeed upon leaves of trees and graſs of the fields, till the Senat of Straſbrough, overcome by the importunity of their Divines, took them in,Sculset. Annal. and relieved them, till they could be otherwiſe provided for. In the late Wars of Germany, people were found dead in the high-wayes with graſs in their mouths, periſhing for want of better food.

And Juniper roots for their meat] Theſe, though they ſurpaſs all other in bitterneſs, were their ordinary food. Our forefathers, as they coloured their bodies with Woad, (and were therefore called Picts) this was their fine clothes: ſo their food was barks of trees, and roots, ſay our Chroniclers. Is not the matter well amended with us? and ſhould we not ſerve the Lord with joyfulneſs in the abundance of all things, Deut. 28.47. Lavater thinks, That theſe poor people for a living digged up Juniper-roots, and ſold them to others for the uſe of perfuming.

Verſe 5. They were driven forth from amongſt men] E corpore, ſaith Tremellius, out of the Body; that is, out of the Community, as not fit to live in a Common-wealth. The Jews are, for their inexpiable guilt, baniſhed out of the world, as it were by a common conſent of Nations. Out of England they were exiled for ever by King Edward the Firſt, anno 1290. Out of France, 1307. Out of Spain, 1492. Portugal, 1597. Naples and Sicily, 1539. In Turkey they pay for the very heads they wear: but in Cyprus if a Jew be taken (though driven thither by tempeſt) he is put to death immediately. Countrey they have none, nor Reſtingplace any where. In Jeruſalem there are not to be found, at this time, as hundred houſhoulds of them: Indeed in Conſtantinople and Theſſalonica, there are eſteemed to be about 160000.Breerwoods enquiries. Jewes; who yet are exceedingly contemned and hated there: and at every Eaſter in danger of being ſtoned by the Chriſtians, becauſe at that time, they crucified our Saviour,Biddulph. derided, and buffetted him. All this, and more they ſuffer; and yet they continue, by a juſt judgement of God, upon them, wofully hard-hearted, blood-thirſty, theeviſh, treacherous, flagitious. Howbeit there is a remnant according to the Election of Grace, Rom. 11.5. Anno Dom. 1536. at Weiſſenſten in Germany, a Jew for theft (they had cryed after him with Hue and cry, as after a thief) was in this cruel manner to be executed: He was hanged by the feet with his head downward, betwixt two dogs, which conſtantly ſnatcht and bit at him. The ſtrangeneſs of the torment moved Jacob Andreas (a grave Divine) to go to behold it: Coming thither, he found the poor wretch, as he hung, repeating verſes out of the Hebrew pſalms, wherein he cryed out to God for mercy. Andreas hereupon took occaſion to counſel him to truſt in Jeſus Chriſt,Melch. Adam in viz. the true Saviour of mankind. The Jew embracing the Chriſtian Faith, requeſted but this one thing, That he might be taken down, and be baptized, though preſently after he were hang'd again, (but by the neck, as Chriſtian malefactors ſuffered) which was accordingly granted him.

They cryed after them, as after a thief] Preſuming that, by doing nothing, they had learned to do naughtily: and that having nothing of their own, and not willing to work, they lived by rapin and robbery. Such therefore as theſe they ſerved as Philip of Macedony did a couple of his idle (and therfore evil) ſubjects; he made the one of them run out of the Countrey, and the other drive him. Solon made a law at Athens, that every man once a year ſhould ſhew the Magiſtrates by what Art or Trade he maintained his Family. This if he could not do to their good liking,Melanct. he was preſently expelled the City. At Corinth alſo, Periander ordained, That if any man ſpent freely, and could not make it appear that he got it honeſtly, he ſhould without further proceſs of law, be truſſed up for a thief.

Verſe 6. To dwell in the clifts of the vallies] Like wilde beaſts and Serpents: which theſe idle perſons will rather chuſe to do, and ſuffer any hardſhip, then labour for their livings, and do good in their places; earning it before they eate, and contributing ſomething to the weal-publick, as Bees bring their honey to the common hive: This, thoſe that will not do, are worthily caſt-out, and made to dwell in the clifts, &c. In the time of Cato Cenſorius. when any one would be a Citizen of Rome, they took his hand betwixt theirs; and if it felt ſmooth and ſoft, they preſently as an idle vagabond, gave him his Mi[illegible: 1 letter]timus: but if hard and knotty, they forth with admitted him to dwell in their City. And if a malefactor were apprehended whoſe hands were labouring hands, his puniſhment ſhould be mitigated, though his Crime were grievous: as if otherwiſe, a ſevere puniſhment was inflicted for a light offence.

Verſe 7. Among the buſhes they brayed] Through grief and diſcontent at their low condition and many miſeries; which yet they would rather bootleſly bewayle, than take a right courſe to remedy. They luſt and have not, they kill (themſelves through idleneſs,) and deſire to have (if it would come without labour) but cannot obtain, Jam. 4.2. And hence they bray like the wild-Aſs when empty, and roar as the Lion when hunger-bit.

Ʋnder the Nettlès were gathered together] Or they were pricked, whealed, (as we call it) Ʋrti[illegible: 1 letter]a ab urendo, they were nettle-ſtung, whileſt they got under thoſe weeds for ſhelter and warmth. All this Job relateth of thoſe that derided him: not to be even with them, or out of a deſire to diſparage them, but to aggravate the indignity of his miſuſage, and to comfort himſelf, as Seneca in like caſe did; Malè de me loquuntur, ſed mate; They ſpeak evil of me: But who are they? baſe perſons, and wicked above meaſure: and, oh how eaſie a thing it is to wagge a wicked tongue! eſpecially when the devil hath the doing of it, as he hath in this kind of men,Lavat. qui revera as aperiunt, & atabolum loqui ſinunt; whoſe mouth the Devil borroweth to vent the language of hell by.

Verſe 8. They were children of fools, yea, children of baſe men] Homines flagitioſiſſimi, etiam homines ignominioſiſſimi afflictiſſimi erant, extorres, ſo Tremellius tranſlateth; Naught all over they were, and nought eſteemed: what wonder therefore if heavily afflicted, and relegated? Their poverty was ſelf-procured, and therefore unpitied; they had brought themſelves into the briars, and alſo in their fathers iniquities they were pining away with them, Levit. 26.39. Evil eggs they were of evil birds, [illegible: 1 letter]ihili homuncimes & ingloris, as the Tigurines tranſlate, fellows of no faſhion, and as little account, terrae filii, earth-ſprung Muſhromes, men in whom all true wiſdom was faded and decayed, ſapleſs perſons Nabals, Nebulones.

They were viler then the earth] Terrâ quam ferimus, terrâ etiam quam terimus: Or, they were ſmitten out of the earth, driven out of the land, ſc. by me when I was in power: but now theſe vile varlets ſhew themſelves again, and trample upon me with the feet of pride and petulancy: Leoni mortuo vel mus inſultat.

Verſe 9. And now I am their ſong] They compoſe Comedies out of my Tragedies, and make themſelves merry in my miſery; they not only make Balads and Sonnets of my ſufferings, but alſo play them upon their Inſtruments, as the Hebrew word importeth.

Yea, I am their by-word] Sermonis argumentum, the matter of their Diſcourſe; I am all their talk,De me confabulantur & contemptim loquuntur. Diſc. neither have they any thing elſe whereof to chat and babble, but only of me, yea to make my diſgraces to paſſe into a Proverb, they call all miſerable men by my name. 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 by-word, Pſal. 69.12. The whole Church complaineth of the like contempt, Pſal. 79.4. Lam. 3.14, 63. Ezek. 33.32. Thus when the invincible Armada, as they called it, was coming for England, Don Bernardino Mendoza, the Spaniſh Embaſſadour in France, Cambd. Eliz. ſolaced himſelf with a vain and falſe Poem or Song of Englands miſeries: which as a tryumph before the victory, he abſurdly printed. The Gunpowder-Traytors alſo did the like in their ſevenfold Pſalmodie, as they called it; that divelliſh ditty, which ſecretly the Papiſts paſſed from hand to hand with Tunes ſet to be ſung or plaid.Spec. Bell. Sacr. The matter conſiſted of railing upon King Edward 6, Q. Elizabeth, K. James, and others; of Petition, Imprecation, Propheſie, and praiſe.

Verſe 10. They abhor me, they flee far from me] As if I were a Leper or a Bugbear, or that my breath were infectious; like that maid ſpoken of by Avicen, who feeding upon poyſon, was her ſelf healthy, yet infected others with her venemous breath. Job was wont to be honoured; now he is as much abhorred. People were uſed to hang upon his lips for learned counſel, but they ſtand aloof off, and keep at a diſtance. They looked upon that face of his as the face of an Angel, which now with utmoſt deſpight and deteſtation, they ſpit upon and ſpare not. At vertutes evertere non poſſunt, as Demetrius Phalereus ſaid, when the Athenians threw down the many Statues they had once erected in honour of him, But they cannot throw down my vertues and valiant acts, whereby I deſerved thoſe Statues. Job was not without his cordial in this ſad and ſudden change of his condition. For firſt, the Bird in his own boſom ſang ſweetly ſtill, as birds in the Spring tune moſt melodiouſly, when it raines moſt ſadly. And ſecondly, What if theſe miſcreants prate againſt Job with malicious words, as Diotrephes did againſt Demetrius, 3 John 10. Yet it is enough for Job or Demetrius that they have a good report of all men; that is, of all good men, who indeed are the only men (as a good name only is a name, Eccleſ 7.1. and a good wife only a wife, Prov. 18.22.) to be reckoned on; and of the truth it ſelf, that's more, ver. 12.

And ſpare not to ſpit in my face] In ſignum videlicet maximi contemptus & indignationes; Junius In token of greateſt contempt and indignation, as Numb. 12.14. Iſai. 50.6. Deut. 25.9. The face is the table of beauty or comelineſſe: and when it is ſpit upon, it is made the ſeat of ſhame. Their words were, likely, ſuch as the Engliſh Barons here ſaid of the Popes that excommunicated them, Fye on ſuch raſcal ribaulds &c.Marcidi. ribauldi Mat. Pariſ. Our Lord Chriſt alſo was ſpit upon in like manner, that he might cleanſe our faces from the filth of ſin, and make them ſhine with his beames, 1 Job. 3.2.

Verſe 11. Becauſe he hath looſed my cord] i.e. God hath taken away mine Authority, whereby I heretofore kept them in order, and made them more obſequious, ſo that now like head-ſtrong horſes, having gotten the bit between their teeth, they run whitherſoever they liſt; and riſe up againſt their Rider. It is God who caſteth contempt upon Princes, Pſal. 107.40 Job 12.21. as he did upon Solomon in his old age, upon his ſon Rehoboam, upon Ephraim, Hoſ. 13.1. (ſee the Note there) upon out Edward 2, and Henry 6. Some render it, He hath looſed my Bow ſtring, in reference to chap. 29.20. So that I cannot now ſhoot at thoſe that ſlight me. Job was diſarmed and diſabled to do as he deſired, as Philip King of France, was in the battle between him and Edw. Dan. Hiſt. f 237 3. King of England, at the inſtant whereof there fell ſuch a piercing ſhowr of rain, as diſſolved the ſtrings of his Archers, and made their Bowe unuſeful.

And afflicted me] When a tree is felled, each man pulleth off a branch, ſaith the Great Proverb. When a dog is worried, every Curr will fall on him, and have a fling at him. When a Deer is wounded, the whole Herd will ſet againſt him, and thruſt him out of their company: So when God hath afflicted Job, every baſe beggerly fellow ſate heavy upon his skirts. This was an addition to his affliction.

They have alſo let looſe the Bridle upon me] Thoſe. Inſolents; having pulled their heads out of the halter, lay the raines in the neck, and run riot; yea,Effraenare in [illegible: 2 letters] in[illegible: 1 letter]ecti ſunt, Jun. they run at tilt againſt me, as it were, beyond all reaſon and meaſure, without fear, ſhame or manners. For, Ʋpon me, ſome read, Before me; q.d. Now they dare do any thing even in my preſence, who formerly ſtood in aw of me.

Verſe 12. Ʋpon the right hand riſe the youth] Brought on readeth, The Springals. The Hebrew hath it, The bloſſom, or the young birds the youngſters, Vix puberes, Such as are ſcarce out of the ſhel. the boyes ſcoffed and abuſed Job. The lawleſs rout, riding without raines, took a licentious boldneſſe to deſpiſe and deſpite him, becauſe he was ever moſt ſevere againſt their unruly practiſes.

They puſh away my feet] They trip up my heeles, as we phraſe it, and lay me along. Vide admirandam humanae ſortis varietatem, faith Brentius here: i.e. See the ſtrange turnes of humane condition. Job was wont to have the chief Seats in the Temple, and Salutations in the Market-place; now he cannot have a room my where to ſtand in, but every paltry boy is puſhing him down. May it not be ſaid of Job, as it was of that Emperour, that he was fortunae pila & luſus? But he ſaw God in all.

And they raiſe up againſt me the waie of their deſtruction] Allegoria [illegible: 1 letter]aſtr[illegible: 1 letter]nſi, Job borroweth this expreſſion from the Camp, as he doth many more from other things, whenſoever he ſpeaketh of his great afflictions, and the contempt that was caſt upon him. Ʋpon me they tread the paths of their unhappineſſe, ſo Beza; that is, they make a path in which they may practiſe that their malapert boldneſſe in doing miſchiefe. They beat their paths by running up and downe therein, to undo me, ſo Vatablus: They caſt upon me the cauſes of their wa[illegible: 1 letter]; ſo Broughton.

Verſe 13. They marre my path] That is, all my ſtudies and endeavours; they obſtruct all paſſages whereby I might hope for help, as if they were reſolved upon my ruine.

They ſet forward my calamity] See Zach. 1.15. ſee the Note there. Or they count it profitable to them to vex me: So great is there malice againſt me. And though it do them no good yet if they may do me hurt, they have enough.

They have no helper] Neither need they any to animate them, [non-Latin text not transcribed] or egg them on to miſchief, who of themſelves are over forward, though but ſmall and young, as Vajezatha, Hamans youngeſt ſon was. See the Note on Eſth. 9.9.

Verſe 14. They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters] Quaſi irruptione latâ in vedunt me. As Souldiers when they have made a breach in a wall, come tumbling in upon the Town, and ſack and ranſack it, yea, raze it, and harraſſe it; ſo have theſe dealt with me.

They rolled themſelves upon me] Labouring wholly to ſuppreſſe me, Gen. 43.28. Taking occaſion by this my downfal, which they ought rather to have lamented and pitied▪ they unmercifully fell upon me, as if themſelves had lived out of the reach of Gods rod.

Verſe 15. Terrors are turned upon me] I am horribly afraid of thy judgements as David expreſſeth it; and this was it that pointed and put a ſting into all other ſufferings, for a wounded conſcience who can bear? If the ſhoulder be galled, the burden wil be very tedious and irkſom. Be not thou a terror unto me, Lord, ſaith J[illegible: 3 letters] and then I care not much what elſe ſoever befalleth me. But why were theſe terrours ſo troubleſome?

They purſue my ſoul as the wind] Brentius rendreth [illegible: 1 span] my liberality or, They take away from me all the chearfulneſſe [illegible: 1 span] of my mind; whereby heretofore I ſuffered ſo many calamities, and ſhrank not; for the joy of the Lord was my ſtrength, and ther[illegible: 1 letter] nothing [illegible: 1 word] amiſſe to me. Thou hath ſtrengthned [illegible: 1 word] with ſtrength in my ſoul, Ps;al. 38.3 and uphold me with thy noble ſpirit, Pſal. 5[illegible: 1 letter].12. The Chaldee hath it, Kingly Spirit, and it is the ſame word in the Original that is here rendred,Animaem meam nobilem & inc[illegible: 1 letter]tam. Vat. My ſoul: It is, my Princeſs, or, my Nobility, for ſo the ſoul is the more noble part. David calleth it his Glory, Pſal. 16.9. and his Darling, Pſal. 22.21. Some of the Jew-Doctors make it the ſame with welfare, in the words following: but that's not likely.

And my welfare paſſeth away as a cloud] i.e. Totally, as before; irreſiſtibly like the wind: Job aboundeth with ſimilitudes, [illegible: 2 letters]rorum vim ſimi[illegible: 2 letters] a vent illuſtrat, & ſatutem à ſe abcunt in ſimilitudine nubis. Merl. which do notably illuſtrate. He would ſay, I am utterly deprived of all means of avoiding this miſery.

Verſe 16. And now my ſoul is powred out upon me] Now that I am under theſe inward terrors, I am become ſtrengthleſſe, even weak as water, my ſoul doth melt away for grief, as Pſal. 42.4. and I am as an hollow tree, wherein there is not any heart of Oak: I am utterly diſpirited.

The dares of affliction have taken hold upon me] And ſo hard hold, that I deſpair of ever getting looſe whiles alive.

Verſe 17. My bones are pierced in me in the night ſeaſon] Sleep is the Nurſe of Natura and the ſweet parentheſis of mens griefs and cares. But Job had ſo many aches and ailements in his body, (over and above the terrours and troubles of his mind) that reſt he could take none at all in the night ſeaſon, when all creatures are wont to be at quiet. For why? the very marrow of his bones raged through intolerable paine: as if it had been run through with a Tuck. Nay ni[illegible: 2 letters]e,

And my ſinewes (or, My Pulſes) take no reſt.] Heb. Sleep not; My ſinewes or arteries are rackt with the Cramp; and my pulſes, by the force of a Feaver, beat exceſſively,Vatabl. and pant without intermiſſion: Qui tamen minui deberent, qui[illegible: 1 letter] cal[illegible: 2 letters] retrabitur in partem interiorem; which yet ſhould move more ſlowly by night, becauſe then the heat is drawne into the internal parts.

Verſe 18. By the great force of my Diſeaſe is my garment changed] ſoil. ſudore, cru[illegible: 1 letter]te, ſanit, ſanguine; By the matter that my Diſeaſe forceth outward in Boils and Botches, is my garment (which once was decoru & Magiſtratus inſigne. the Enſign of my Authority) utterly ſtained and ſpoiled, loathſom to my ſelf, and noyſom to others.Merlin. Totum cruentem & ſordidatum. Merc. Every one (ſay ſome Chymicks) hath his own Balſom within him: his own bane it is ſure he hath. Phyſicians hold, that in every two years there is ſuch ſtore of ill humours and excrements ingendred in the body, that a veſſel of one hundred ounces will ſcarce contain them. Now if theſe, by Gods appointment (for he is the great Centurion, Matth. 8.9. who hath all diſeaſes at his beck and check) break outward, what an ulcerous Leper and Lazar muſt that man needs be? This was Jobs caſe, and Munſters, (who called his ſores, Gemmas, & precioſa Dei ornamenta, Gods Gems and Jewels,Job. Manl. loc. c[illegible: 2 letters]. p. 127 where with he decketh thoſe whom he loveth) and King Philips of Spain who, beſides many other diſeaſes, had ingentem puris ex ulceribus reaundantiam, qua binas indies ſcutellas diuits paedore impleret; Abundance of filthy matter iſſuing out of his ſores,Carol Scriban. Inſtit. Princep. cap. 20 inſomuch as that no change of cloathes, or Art of Phyſicians could keep him from being devoured by Lice and Vermine thereby ingendred.

It bindeth me about as the collar of my coat] It is become ſo ſtiff and ſtarky, that it wrings me and hurts me, as an uneaſie collar girds and gripes a mans neck: As the edge of my coat in gards me, ſo Broughton readeth it. Beza rendreth this latter part of the verſe thus He (God) comp[illegible: 1 letter]ſſeth me about as the collar of my coat. Piſcato[illegible: 1 letter] the whole, thus: By the greatneſſe of his (Gods) ſtrength, (which he putteth forth in ſcourging me with diſeaſes) my garment changeth it ſelf, (putteth on, as it were, another [illegible: 1 word] of ſcab[illegible: 1 letter] and ſcurf,) As the mouth of my coat he (God) girdeth me; [illegible: 1 span], he pincheth my body with diſeaſes. But the former [illegible: 3 letters]ding is better.

Verſe 19. He [illegible: 1 word] caſt me into the mire] My Diſeaſe hath ſo Vatablus ſenſeth it. Others, God hath as it were trampled me to dirt, thrown me into the kernel, and ſo done me the greateſt diſgrade that can be.

And I am become like duſt and aſhes] Like a duſt-heap behind the door, cad[illegible: 1 letter]vei[illegible: 4 letters] [illegible: 1 span] ſaith Merca[illegible: 1 letter]: Being covered all even (ſaith Beza) with the [illegible: 1 word] and [illegible: 1 span] that full from my [illegible: 1 word]; I am become more unlike unto the unprofitable duſt and aſhes, then unto a living man. Duſt and aſhes are not more like, one another, then their names are in the Original: ſic [non-Latin text not transcribed], cinis, See Gen. 3.19. and 18.17.

Verſe 20 I cry unto thee, and thou doſt not hear me] This was a ſore trial, that God ſhould caſt him into ſtraits, and there leave him. His enemies indeed he uſually dealeth ſo by, Ezek. 22.20. and 29.5. but not by his ſervants, Heb. 13.5. Or if he do leave them, yet he will not forſake them. The mother leaves her child ſometimes, but when he ſetteth up his note and cryeth luſtily, ſhe haſteneth to help him. So doth God: But now Job cryed unto him, and was not heard or anſwered, to his thinking at leaſt, and that was a great cut to him, as Pſalm 22.2.

I ſtand up] ſcil. To make ſupplication to my Judg, as Haman ſtood up to make requeſt for his life, Eſth. 7.7. as the Publican ſtood and prayed, Luke. 18.13. and as Moſes and Samuel are ſuppoſed to ſtand before God in prayer for their people, Jerem. 15.1. Hence that Proverb amongſt the Jewes, Abſque ſtationibus, non ſtaret mundus. Did not the Saints ſtand in prayer, the world could not ſtand.

And thou regardeſt me not] This was but a Miſtake in Job, for the eyes of the Lord are upon the righteous, and his eares are open to their prayers. Only God anſwereth our prayer, non ſecundum voluntatem, tamen ad utilitatem: Not alwayes or as ſoon as we would, but doth that which is better for us, and takes it ill to be miſconſtrued, as he was by Job, witneſſe the next words, bloody words indeed,Accuſat ergo Job Dominum mendacii. Brent. Contumelioſus videriſpoteſt. Merl. and not far from Blaſphemy.

Verſe 21 Thou art become cruel to me] Mutatus es mihi in tyrannum. thou art turned Tyrant towards me, ſo Brentius rendreth it: and the like he had ſaid before, chap. 16.13. and 19.8, 9, 10. out of the vehemency of his pain, and he ſenſe of his fleſh, which ſhould have been ſilenced, and faith exalted; the property whereof, is to pick one contrary out of another (as life out of death, aſſurance of deliverance out of deepeſt diſtreſſes, Deut. 32.36.) and to perſwade the heart that God concealeth his love, out of increaſement of love, and in very faithfulneſs afflicteth his darlings, that he may be true to their ſouls, Pſal. 1.19.75.

With thy ſtrong hand thou oppoſeſt thy ſelf againſt me] Heb. Thou bateſt me, Satanically hateſt me; Inteſtinum odium exerces adverſum me; Tremell. and accordingly thou doſt practiſe all thy might upon me. Thus Job in his heat, and that he may not ſeem to rage without reaſon, he ſubjoyneth

Verſe 22. Thou lifteſt me up to the wind] Thou whiffleſt and wherrieſt me about as chaff, or thiſtle-down. Pro libidine tractas me, thou uſeſt me at thy pleaſure.Brent.

Thou cauſeſt me to ride upon it] Upon the wings of the wind, lifting me up aloft that I may fall with the greater poiſe, as the Eagle is ſaid to do the Tortoiſe; Ʋt lapſu graviore ruam.—

Thou diſſolveſt my ſubſtance] Or, Thou melteſt my wiſdome: I have neither fleſh nor reaſon remaining. The iſſue that he expecteth of all theſe his forementioned miſeries, followeth,

Verſe 23. For I know that thou wilt bring me to death] Such hard thoughts had Job of God, and ſuch heavy thoughts of himſelf. Nam experior, mors avocat me. ſo Tremellius: For I feel it, death calleth me away. Sic ludis mecum, ut facilè conjiciam mihi moriendum eſſe ſaith Brentius: Thou ſo dallieſt with me. that I plainly perceive I muſt ſhortly dye, there's no avoiding of it.2 Cor. 1.8.9, 10 Thus good Job was preſſed out of meaſure; above ſtrength, inſomuch as be deſpaired even of life, and had the ſentence (or denunciation) of death in himſelf, &c. But God was better to him then his fears, and delivered him from ſo great a death: this is uſual.

Qui nil ſper are poteſt, deſperet nihil.

And to the houſe appointed for all living] That is, the grave, Pſal 49.14. [non-Latin text not transcribed] and 89.48. that Congregation houſe of all living, (as heaven is called, the Congregation houſe of the firſt born, Heb. 12.23.) the publick or common meeting place, as Iſai. 14.13. the houſe of conſtitution or aſſignation to all living (as the Hebrew here hath it) that is, to all men, who are by an excellency called, every creature, Mark 16.15 as being the beſt living creatures upon earth.

Verſe 24 Howbeit he will out ſtretch not his hand to the grave] He will not dig up the dead (as the Papiſts dealt by Bucer and others) to afflict them any more. Quid facere poterunt? Occident? Nunquid, reſuſcitabunt ut iterum occidant! What can they do? (ſaid Luther concerning his enemies who threatned him) Will they kill me? but what then? Will they raiſe me up to life again, that they may kill me again? No: Charles the Fifth Emperour, when he might have done that, and was moved to do it, would not. Mors requies aerumnarum. Dead men are at reſt, was Chaucers Motto. There, (in the grave) the wicked ceaſe from troubling, and there the weary be at reſt, chap. 3.17. Thus Job ſpeaketh, going no further then the afflictions of the body, as being for his own part fearleſſe of eternal puniſhment. But as for the wicked, when they dye out of bodily miſery, it is but as the mans flying from a Lion, and a more ſavage Bear meeteth him: or going from it into the houſe (this houſe mentioned in verſe 23.) and that more venemous Serpent, (the Divel, who hath the power of death, Heb. 2.14.) there biteth him, Amos 5.19.

Though they cry in his deſtruction] i.e. Whiles God is cruſhing or killing of them. Or, Is there any cry in his deſtruction? It was never yet known that dead men made moane; what ever the Popiſh Legenders tell us of one that cryed out, I am dead, I am judged, I am damned; which gave occaſion to Bruno to found the Carthuſian Order.

Verſe 25. Did I not weep for him that was in trouble?] Rurſum, per pathos, excandeſcit. Here Job wondreth,Mercer. and is much moved again at his unpitied condition, ſith himſelf was ſo pitiful to the afflicted. He could ſafely ſay with Cyprian, Cum ſingulis pectus meum copulo, moeroris & funeris pendera luctuoſa participo, cum plangentibus plango, cum deſtentibus deſteo. He had teares ready for the afflicted, and wept with thoſe that weep: not for a Complement, as the Braſilians, who Ʋt flerent, oculos erudière ſuos. Nor out of melch-heartedneſſe,Ovid. as Gordian the Emperour, who would weep for the beating of a boy at School. But out of hearty compaſſion and commiſeration, as good Nehemiah, chap. 2.2. and thoſe Chriſtian Hebrewes, chap. 10.33, 34. Now for as much as the merciful have the promiſes of mercy made unto them, Matth. 5.7. James. 2.13. And all men ſay, Ab alio expectes, alteri quod feceris, Job marvelleth at others hard heartedneſſe toward him, and expoſtulateth the unkindneſſe.

Was not my ſoul grieved for the poor?] Into whoſe caſe good Job put himſelf, and ſo became mendicorum maximus (as Salvian ſaith of Chriſt,Ad Eccleſ. Carbol. l. 4 becauſe he ſhareth with his Saints in all their neceſſities) he drew out not only his ſheaf, but his ſoul to the hungry, (Iſai. 58.7, 10) and ſatisfied the afflicted ſoul; this was right. Contriſtata eſt anima mea ſuper egenum. Some render it, Restagnavis lachrymis anima mea, My ſoul ſtood with tears, like a ſtanding pool. Others ustulatur, [non-Latin text not transcribed], My ſoul burneth; which is agreeable to that of the Apoſtle, 1 Cor. 11.29. Who is weak, and I am not weak? Who is offended, and I burn not?

Verſe 26 When I looked for good] According to that general rule, and the common courſe of Gods proceedings, With what meaſure ye mete, it ſhall be meaſured to you again, Matth. 7.2. With the merciful thou wilt ſhew thy ſelf merciful, Pſal. 18.16. Middah cenegedh middah, ſay the Hebrewes; Men ſhall have meaſure for meaſure, like for like. Hence Job expected to have all things at will, but it fell out ſomewhat otherwiſe; and this puzled him, he could not unriddle theſe croſs occurrences. He could almoſt find in his heart to think, that he was therefore ſo little pitied by others, becauſe he had been ſo pitiful to others.

When I waited for light, then came darkneſſe] Things grew every day worſe and worſe with me, mending like ſowre Ale in Summer, as we ſay. Thus it fates many times with Gods beſt ſervants; theſe children of light walk in darkneſſe, nevertheleſſe let them truſt in the Name of the Lord, and ſtay upon their God, in the faile of all outward comforts, Iſai. [illegible: 1 letter]0.10. Habak 3.17, 18. This is the tryumph of faith, which tells the ſoul, that things muſt go backward before they can come forward, and when matters are at worſt they will mend.

Verſe 27 My bowels boyled, and reſted not,] Being toſſed and tumbled with continual boyling and bubbling,Ollae more inſonuerunt. Merc. rumbling and making a rattle (as the word ſignifieth) whether through paſſion or compaſſion. With moſt compaſſionate ſympathy (ſaith one learned Paraphraſt) did my bowels yearn over the afflicted, ſo that I could have no quiet in my ſelf, for grieving and taking thought for them: I was ſeldome or never without ſorrow for ſome one or others affliction.

The dayes of affliction prevented me] Previſion ſhould have hindred this prevention: Evils fore ſeen come no whit the ſooner, but far the eaſier. It is a labour well loſt if they befall us not; well ſpent if they do: whereas coming on the ſudden, they find weak minds ſecure, make them miſerable, leave them deſperate. Expect them therefore and prepare for them: Darts foreſeen are dintleſs.

Verſe 28 I went mourning without the Sun] Ater ambulo, ſed non ob Solem; I am not Sun-burnt, but heart burnt; black and diſcoloured without, becauſe parched and dryed up within by the force of my diſeaſe and my griefe, wherewith I am pained, pined, and even periſhed.

I ſtood up and cryed in the Congregation] Which was not very handſome, but I could not hold. Riſe I did, and roar I muſt amidſt the preaſs of people, whatever they ſhould think of me. So Mordecai went out into the midſt of the City, and cryed with a loud and a bitter cry, and came even before the Kings gate, &c. Eſth. 4.1, 2. In extreme heavineſſe men care not to keep decorums.

Verſe 29. I am a brother to Dragons, &c.] i.e. I utter a very lamentable voice, or rather noiſe, like Dragons, which ſucking the Elephants blood till he fall down dead upon them, and quell them with his huge bulk, make an horrible howling;Plin. Solin. ſo horrible and hideous ſay ſome, that they amaze, yea, kill thoſe that hear it.

And a companion to Owles] I give forth rude and confuſed cryes, as if I howled with Owles, or grunted with Oſtriches. We uſe to ſay of ſuch, that they roar like Beares, and bellow like Bulls, filling the air with their Out-cryes. Young Oſtriches caſt off by their Dams, Job 39.14. Lam. 4.3. make pittiful moan; ſo do the young Ravens for like cauſe, Pſal. 147.9. Job cryed out more like a beaſt then a man, in his pain and miſery. This the Stoicks cenſured as effeminate, and would not allow a wiſe or valiant man to ſigh, or cry, or ſhew any token of grief whatever befel him. But this was to deſtroy nature, and to transform men into ſtocks and ſtones void of ſenſe. The Patriarks bewailed their deceaſed friends. David, likely, was not ignorant of the Gentiles proverb, Weeping becometh not a King; yet he wept abundantly, yea,Eurip. —[non-Latin text not transcribed] he out-wept Jonathan: As the better any one is the more inclined to weeping and lamentation, which yet muſt be duly moderated.

Verſe 30 My skin is black upon me] Through the violence of the Feaver, and aduſt matter, his skin was as black and mud-coloured as the waters of the River Nilus. which hath its name Sihor in the Hebrew, from this root, Jer. 2.18. The Ethiopians skin is black, but that's natural to them, and they think it beſt ſo, and therefore paint the divel white, &c.

And my bones are burnt with heat] In the Feaver they call Epialis, the heat is all inward, and dryeth up the radical moiſture. Job complaineth of ſuch a diſtemper, and ſo doth David, Pſal. 32.3, 4. and Solomon telleth us, that a heavy heart dryeth up the bones. Beza expoundeth it of the Jaw-bone, dryed and pined away for want of moiſture.

Verſe 31. My harp alſo is turned to mourning] All the dayes of the afflicted are evil, Prov. 15.15. his Harps are hanged up,Intempeſtivae [illegible: 1 word] in luctu Muſic Eccluſ 22.6. [non-Latin text not transcribed] Sophoc[illegible: 1 letter] Val. Max. Chr[illegible: 1 letter] pag. 262 his Lute no longer [illegible: 1 word] but for melancholy airs; his Song nothing but Lachrymae, doleful ditties: his Organs, and all thoſe Inſtruments that were wont to divert him, are condemned either to ſigh or to be ſilent. Gillimer, overcome and beſieged by Belliſarius, ſent to requeſt of him three things; 1. a loaf to eaſe his hunger, 2. a harp to eaſe his grief, 3. a ſponge to dry up his tears. Such mournful Muſick was Jobs, if any at all.