Job 30:1
XXX. (1) WHOSE FATHERS I WOULD HAVE DISDAINED. — Rather, _whose fathers I disdained to set._ The complaint is that the children of those who were so inferior to him should treat him thus.... [ Continue Reading ]
XXX. (1) WHOSE FATHERS I WOULD HAVE DISDAINED. — Rather, _whose fathers I disdained to set._ The complaint is that the children of those who were so inferior to him should treat him thus.... [ Continue Reading ]
WHERETO MIGHT THE STRENGTH OF THEIR HANDS PROFIT ME, is the description of the fathers; Job 30:3 _seqq._ describes their children. The people here spoken of seem to have been somewhat similar to those known to the ancients as Troglodytes (Herod. iv. 183, &c.), the inhabitants of caves, who lived an... [ Continue Reading ]
AMONG THE BUSHES THEY BRAYED. — Herodotus says their language was like the screeching of bats, others say it was like the whistling of birds. This whole description is of the mockers of Job, and therefore should be in the present tense in Job 30:5; Job 30:7, as it may be in the Authorised Version of... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY WERE VILER THAN THE EARTH. — Rather, _They are scourged out of the land,_ or _are outcasts from the land. _... [ Continue Reading ]
AND NOW AM I THEIR SONG. — See the references in the margin, which show that it is quite appropriate to give to the complaints of Job a Messianic interpretation.... [ Continue Reading ]
BECAUSE HE HATH LOOSED MY CORD. — Better, _his: i.e._, “God hath loosed the cord of his bow and they have cast off all restraint before me.”... [ Continue Reading ]
THE YOUTH — _i.e._, the young brood, rabble.... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY HAVE NO HELPER — _i.e.,_ probably without deriving therefrom any help or advantage themselves.... [ Continue Reading ]
AS A WIDE BREAKING IN OF WATERS. — Or, _as through a wide breach they come._ “In the midst of the crash they roll themselves upon me;” or, “instead of A tempest” (_I.E.,_ like a tempest) “they roll themselves upon me.”... [ Continue Reading ]
THEY PURSUE — _i.e._, “the terrors chase or pursue my honour:” _i.e., my soul;_ or it may be, “Thou (_i.e.,_ God) chasest.”... [ Continue Reading ]
MY GARMENT CHANGED. — Some render “By His (_i.e.,_ God’s) great power the garment (of my skin) is disfigured;” and others, “With great effort must my garment be changed because of the sores to which it clings? It bindeth me about as closely as the collar of my coat.”... [ Continue Reading ]
HE HATH CAST ME INTO THE MIRE. — He now turns more directly to God, having in Job 30:16 turned from man to his own condition — _dust and ashes._ This latter phrase is used but three times in Scripture: twice by Job (here and Job 42:6), and once by Abraham (Genesis 18:27).... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU REGARDEST ME NOT. — The Authorised Version understands that the negative of the first clause must be supplied in the second, as is the case in Psalms 9:18 : “The needy shall not always be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall _not_ perish for ever.” Others understand it, “I stand up (_i.... [ Continue Reading ]
THOU LIFTEST ME UP TO THE WIND. — Some render this verse, “Thou liftest me up to the wind, and causest me to ride upon it; Thou dissolvest me in thy blast;” others understand him to express the contrast between his former prosperous state and his present low condition: “Thou usedst to raise me and m... [ Continue Reading ]
THOUGH THEY CRY IN HIS DESTRUCTION. — This is a very obscure verse. Some render it, “Surely against a ruinous heap he will not put forth his hand; though it be in his destruction _one may utter_ a cry because of these things.” Others, understanding the word rendered “ruinous heap” otherwise, render... [ Continue Reading ]
DID NOT I WEEP FOR HIM? — Job declares that he has not withheld that sympathy with sorrow and suffering for which he himself has asked in vain.... [ Continue Reading ]
WHEN I LOOKED FOR GOOD. — Before, in Job 3:25, he had spoken as one who did not wish to be the _fool_ of prosperity, and so overtaken unawares by calamity, and who therefore looked at things on the darker side; now he speaks as one who hoped for the best, and yet, notwithstanding that hope, was disa... [ Continue Reading ]
MY BOWELS BOILED. — The sense is better expressed by the present, “My bowels boil, and rest not. Days of affliction have overtaken me unawares.” (See last verse.)... [ Continue Reading ]
I WENT MOURNING WITHOUT THE SUN. — Rather, _I go mourning without the sun;_ or, according to some, “blackened, but not by the sun.” We give the preference to the other. I STOOD UP, AND I CRIED IN THE CONGREGATION — _i.e.,_ not merely in secret, but in the face of all men.... [ Continue Reading ]
DRAGONS and OWLS are, according to some moderns, _jackals_ and _ostriches. _... [ Continue Reading ]
MY HARP ALSO IS TURNED TO MOURNING. — Or, _Therefore is my harp turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of them that weep._ The musical instruments here named, like those of Genesis 4:21, are respectively the stringed and wind instruments.... [ Continue Reading ]