Job 30:11

_BECAUSE HE HATH LOOSED MY CORD, AND AFFLICTED ME, THEY HAVE ALSO LET LOOSE THE BRIDLE BEFORE ME._ He - i:e., God; antithetical to they: the English version here follows the marginal reading (Qeri'), "my cord;" image from a bow unstrung; opposed to Job 29:20. "My how was renewed in my hand." The text (Kethibh), 'his cord,' or 'reins,' is better, because of the parallelism to "they have let loose the bridle:" 'yea, each lets loose his reins' (Umbreit). But the parallelism is good in the English version also....

1-14 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....

Verse Job 30:11. _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_

BECAUSE HE HATH LOOSED MY CORD - According to this translation, the reference here is to God, and the sense is, that the reason why he was thus derided and contemned by such a worthless race was, that God had unloosened his cord. That is, God had rendered him incapable of vindicating himself, or of inflicting punishment. The figure, according to this interpretation, is taken from a bow, and Job means to say that his bow was relaxed, his vigor was gone, and they now felt that they might insult him with impunity. But instead of the usual reading in the Hebrew text יתרי _yithriy_ - “my nerve,” another reading יתרוּ _yithriv_ - “his nerve,” is found in the qeri (margin). This reading has been adopted in the text by Jahn, and is regarded as genuine by Rosenmuller, Umbreit, and Noyes. According to this, the meaning is, that the worthless rabble that now treated him with so much contemp

EXPOSITION JOB 30:1 The contrast is now completed. Having drawn the portrait of himself as he was, rich, honoured, blessed with children, flourishing, in favour with both God and man, Job now presents himself to us as he is, despised of men (verses 1-10), afflicted of God (verse 11), a prey to vague terrors (verse 15), tortured with bodily pains (verses 17, 18), cast off by God (verses 19, 20), with nothing but death to look for (verses 23-31). The chapter is the most touching in the whole book. JOB 30:1 BUT NOW THEY THAT ARE YOUNGER THAN I HAVE ME IN DERISION. As Job had been speaking last of the honour in which he was once held, he beans his contrast by chewing how at present he is disgraced and derided. Men who are outcasts and solitar

BECAUSE HE HATH LOOSED MY CORD,.... Not his silver cord, for then he must have died immediately, Ecclesiastes 12:6; though it may be understood of the loosening of his nerves through the force of his disease, and the afflictions he endured from God and man, see Job 30:17; or rather of the shattered state and condition of his family and substance; which, while he enjoyed, he had respect and reverence from men; but now all being loosed, scattered, and destroyed, he was treated with derision and scorn; or, better still, of his power and authority as a civil magistrate, by which, as with a cord, he bound many to subjection and obedience to him, and which commanded reverence of him; but this being now loosed and removed from him, persons of the baser sort behaved in an insolent manner towards him

CHAPTER 30 _ 1. His present humiliation and shame (Job 30:1)_ 2. No answer from God: completely forsaken (Job 30:20) Job 30:1. He had spoken of his past greatness and now he describes his present misery. Ah! the bitterness if it--those younger than I have me in derision! Alas! through it all we hear nothing but pride. He scorns those who were so much beneath him. And those who were scourged out of the land, these children of fools and base men, mock him, the former prince among men. “I am become their song; I am a byword to them; they abhor me; they spit in my face.” Then he describes his affliction. “Days of affliction have taken hold upon me--the pains that gnaw me take no rest.” He is in the mire and has become

JOB 30. JOB'S PRESENT MISERY. As the text stands at present, Job begins by complaining that the very abjects of society now despise him. Many scholars, however, detach Job 30:2 as a misplaced section of the description of the outcasts, which we have already met in Job 24:5 f. When we look at the passage apart from Job 30:1, the impression it makes is not one of contempt for their abject condition, but of pity for their misery. Hence the greater part would have been better suited to one of Job's delineations of human wretchedness than to the picture he is painting of his own distress, from which he is diverted at a surprisingly early point (Peake). Duhm, followed by Strahan, treats...

Job 30:11 is very variously understood; it may mean, For they have loosed their rein and humbled me, They have cast off the bridle before me. So taken, the two clauses have much the same meaning, each being a figurative manner of saying that the low rabble have cast off all restraint, and subject the sufferer to painful humiliations. The verb in the first clause is _sing_., but may distribute to each the conduct of the whole. Others, however, make the subject to be _God_, rendering: Because he has loosed his rein and humbled me, they also have cast off the bridle before me (A. V.). There is nothing, however, to indicate such an antithesis between two different subjects in the two clauses. Another reading gives _my_rein or cord (A. V.), but no help comes from adopting this....

2. Sorrowful description of his present sad estate (Job 30:1-31) a. The contempt he has from men of lowest class (Job 30:1-15) TEXT 30:1-15 1 BUT NOW THEY THAT ARE YOUNGER THAN I HAVE ME IN DERISION, Whose fathers I disdained to set with the dogs of my flock 2 Yea, the strength of their hands, whereto should it profit me? Men in whom ripe age is perished. 3 They are gaunt with want and famine; They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of wasteness and desolation. 4 They pluck salt-wort by the bushes; And the roots of the broom are their food. 5 They are driven forth from the midst _of men;_ They cry after them as after a thief; 6 So that they dwell in frightful valleys, In holes of the earth and of the rocks. 7 Among