Albert Barnes Commentary Job 30

But now those who are younger than I - The margin reads, “of fewer days.” It is not probable that Job here refers to his three friends. It is not possible to determine their age with accuracy, but in Job 15:10, they claim that with them were old and very aged men, much older than Job’s father. Though that passage may possibly refer not to themselves but to those who held the same opinions as them, yet none of those who engaged in the discussion, except Elihu (Job 32:6), are represented as young men. They were Job’s contemporaries, men who are ranked as his friends, and men who showed that they had had opportunities for long and careful observation.

The reference here, therefore, is to the fact that while in the days of his prosperity even the aged and the honorable rose up to show him reverence, now he was the object of contempt even by the young and the worthless. People of the East would feel this deeply.

It was among the chief virtues for them to show respect to the aged, and their sensibilities were especially keen regarding any indignity shown to them by the young.

Whose fathers I would have disdained - These are the children of the lowest and most degraded members of the community. How deep the calamity to have fallen so low as to be the subject of derision by such men!

To have set with the dogs of my flock - To have associated with my dogs in guarding my flock. This means they were held in less esteem than his dogs. This was the lowest conceivable point of debasement. People of the East had no words that would express greater contempt for anyone than to call him a dog (1 Samuel 17:43; 1 Samuel 24:14; 2 Samuel 3:8; 2 Samuel 9:8; 2 Samuel 16:9; 2 Kings 8:13).

Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me - There has been much difference of opinion regarding the meaning of this passage. The general sense is clear. Job means to describe those who were reduced by poverty and want, who were without respectability or home, and who had no power in any way to affect him. He states that they were so abject and worthless as not to be worth his attention. But even this fact is intended to show how low he himself was reduced, since even the most degraded ranks in life did not show any respect to one who had been honored by princes.

The Vulgate renders this: “The strength—virtus—of whose hands is to me as nothing, and they are regarded as unworthy of life.” The Septuagint renders it: “And the strength of their hands what is it to me? Upon whom perfection—συντέλεια sunteleia—has perished.” Coverdale translates: “The power and strength of their hands might do me no good, and as for their age, it is spent and passed away without any profit.” The literal translation is: “Even the strength of their hands, what is it to me?” The meaning is that their power was not worth regarding. They were abject, feeble, and reduced by hunger—poor, emaciated creatures who could do him neither good nor evil. Yet this fact did not make him feel less the indignity of being treated by such vagrants with scorn.

In whom old age was perished - Or rather, in whom vigor, or the power of accomplishing anything, has ceased. The word כלח kelach—means “completion,” or the act or power of finishing or completing anything. Then it denotes old age—age as “finished” or “completed” (Job 5:26). Here it means the maturity or vigor that would enable a man to complete or accomplish anything, and the idea is that in these persons this had utterly perished. Reduced by hunger and want, they had no power of effecting anything and were unworthy of regard. The word used here occurs only in this book in Hebrew (Job 5:26; Job 30:2), but is common in Arabic, where it refers to the “wrinkles,” the “wanness,” and the “austere aspect” of the countenance, especially in age. See “Castell’s Lexicon.”

For want and famine—By hunger and poverty their strength is wholly exhausted, and they are among the miserable outcasts of society. To show the depth to which he himself had sunk in public estimation, Job describes the state of these miserable wretches. He says that he was treated with contempt by the very scum of society: by those who were reduced to the most abject wretchedness, who wandered in the deserts subsisting on roots, without clothing, shelter, or home, and who were chased away by the respectable part of the community as if they were thieves and robbers. The description is one of great power and presents a sad picture of his own condition.

They were solitary—The margin reads, or, “dark as the night.” The Hebrew word is galmûd. This word properly means “hard” and is applied to a dry, stony, barren soil. In Arabic, it means a hard rock (Umbreit). In Job 3:7, it is applied to a night in which no one is born.

Here it seems to denote a countenance that is dry, hard, and emaciated with hunger. Jerome renders it “steriles.” The Septuagint has agonos—“sterile.” Professor Lee suggests “Hardly beset.” The meaning is that they were greatly reduced—or dried up—by hunger and want. So Umbreit renders it, “gantz ausgedorrt—altogether dried up.”

Fleeing into the wilderness—This means into the desert or lonely wastes. That is, they “fled” there to obtain a scanty subsistence from what the desert produced. Such is the usual explanation of the word rendered “flee”—‛âraq.

However, the Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Arabic render it “gnawing,” and this interpretation is followed by Umbreit, Noyes, Schultens, and Good. According to this, the meaning is that they were “gnawers of the desert;” that is, they lived by gnawing the roots and shrubs they found in the desert. This idea is much more expressive and agrees with the connection.

The word occurs in Hebrew only in this verse and in Job 30:17, where it is rendered My sinews, but which may more appropriately be rendered My gnawing pains. In Syriac and Arabic, the word means to “gnaw” or “corrode” as the leading signification. Since the sense of the word cannot be determined by its usage in Hebrew, it is better to depend on the ancient versions and its use in the cognate languages.

According to this, the idea is that they picked up what scanty subsistence they could find by gnawing roots and shrubs in the deserts.

In the former time—The margin reads “yesternight.” The Hebrew word ('emesh) properly means last night, the latter part of the preceding day; it is then used to denote night or darkness in general.

Gesenius supposes that this refers to “the night of desolation,” as the pathless desert is strikingly compared by Orientals with darkness. According to this, the idea is not that they had gone into the desert only yesterday, but that they went into the shades and solitudes of the wilderness, far from the homes of men. The sense, then, is, “They fled into the night of desolate wastes.”

Desolate and waste—In Hebrew, the same word occurs in different forms, designed to give emphasis and to describe the gloom and solitariness of the desert in the most impressive manner. We would express the same idea by saying that they hid themselves in the “shades” of the wilderness.

Who cut up mallows - For the purpose of eating. Mallows are common medicinal plants, famous for their emollient or softening properties, and the size and brilliancy of their flowers. It is not probable, however, that Job referred to what we commonly understand by the word mallows. It has been commonly supposed that he meant a species of plant, called by the Greeks Hallimus (a type of sea-purslane or “saltwort”), which commonly grows in deserts and poor land and is eaten as a salad. The Vulgate renders it simply “herbas;” the Septuagint, ἄλιμα alima. The Hebrew word, according to Umbreit, means a common salad with a salty taste, whose young leaves, when cooked, served as food for the poorer classes. The Hebrew word מלוח mallûach is from מלח mâlach—meaning “salt”—and properly refers to a marine plant or vegetable.

By the bushes - Or among the bushes; that is, what grew among the bushes of the desert. They wandered about in the desert so that they might obtain this very humble fare.

And juniper-roots - The word translated here as “juniper,” רתם rethem, occurs only in this passage and in 1 Kings 19:4–5 and Psalm 120:4. In each place, it is translated as “juniper.” In 1 Kings, it is mentioned as the tree under which Elijah sat down when he fled into the wilderness for his life. In Psalm 120:4, it is mentioned as a material for making coals: Sharp arrows of the mighty, with coals of juniper.

It is translated as “juniper” by Jerome and by the rabbis. The verb (רתם râqab) occurs in Micah 1:13, where it is translated “bind,” and means to bind on, to make fast. Probably the plant referred to here received its name in some way from the idea of “binding”—perhaps because its long, flexible, and slender twigs were used for binding or for “withes.”

There is no evidence, however, that “juniper” is intended in any case. It denotes a species of “broom”—Spartium junceum of Linnaeus—which grows abundantly in the deserts of Arabia. It is the “Genista raetam” of Forsskål (Flora Aegyptiaco-Arabica, p. 214).

This plant has small, variegated blossoms and grows in the watercourses of the wadis. Dr. Robinson (Biblical Researches, 1:299) says, “The Retem is the largest and most conspicuous shrub of these deserts, growing thickly in the watercourses and valleys. Our Arabs always selected the place of encampment (if possible) where it grew, to be sheltered by it at night from the wind. During the day, when they often went on ahead of the camels, we not infrequently found them sitting or sleeping under a bush of Retem to protect them from the sun.

It was in this very desert, a day’s journey from Beersheba, that the prophet Elijah lay down and slept beneath the same shrub. The roots are very bitter and are regarded by the Arabs as yielding the best charcoal. The Hebrew name רתם rethem—is the same as the present Arabic name.”

Burckhardt remarks that he found several Bedouins in the Wady Genne collecting brushwood, which they burned into charcoal for the Egyptian market. He adds that they preferred the thick roots of the shrub Retem for this purpose, which grew there in abundance (Travels in Syria, p. 483).

Only those reduced to extreme poverty and want could have used the roots of this shrub for food, and this is undoubtedly the idea Job intends to convey. It is said to have been occasionally used for food by the poor (see Gesenius, Lexicon; Umbreit, in loc.; and Schultens).

A description of the condition of the poor, remarkably similar to this, occurs in Lucan, Book 7:

Cernit miserabile vulgus
In pecudum cecidisse cibos, et carpere dumos
Et morsu spoliare nemus.

Biddulph (in the collection of Voyages from the Library of the Earl of Oxford, p. 807) says he had seen many poor people in Syria gather mallows and clover. When he asked them what they intended to do with it, they answered that it was for food.

They cooked and ate them. Herodotus (Book 8, section 115) says that the army of Xerxes, after their defeat and when they had consumed all the grain of the inhabitants in Thessaly, “fed on the natural produce of the earth, stripping wild and cultivated trees alike of their bark and leaves, to such an extremity of famine were they come.”

They were driven forth from among men - As vagabonds and outcasts. They were regarded as unfit to live among the civilized and the orderly, and were expelled as nuisances.

(They cried after them as after a thief.) - The inhabitants of the place where they lived drove them out with a loud outcry, as if they were thieves and robbers. A class of people is described here who were mere vagrants and plunderers, and who were not allowed to dwell in civilized society. It was one of the greatest aggravations of Job's calamities that he was now treated with derision by such outcasts.