Albert Barnes Commentary Job 30:8

Albert Barnes Commentary

Job 30:8

1798–1870
Presbyterian
Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes Commentary

Job 30:8

1798–1870
Presbyterian
SCRIPTURE

"[They are] children of fools, yea, children of base men; They were scourged out of the land." — Job 30:8 (ASV)

They were children of fools – The word rendered “fools,” נבל (nâbâl), means:

  1. Stupid, foolish; and
  2. Abandoned, impious (compare 1 Samuel 25:3 and 1 Samuel 25:25).

Here it means the worthless, the refuse of society, the abandoned. They had no respectable parentage. Umbreit says, “A brood of infamy.” Coverdale translates it as, “Children of fools and villains.”

Children of base men – Margin, as in Hebrew, “men of no name.” They were men of no reputation, whose ancestors had in no way been distinguished, possibly also meaning that they herded together as beasts without even a name.

They were viler than the earth – Gesenius renders this, “They are frightened out of the land.” The Hebrew word (כאה) means “to chide, to upbraid,” and then in the Niphal “to be chided away,” or “to be driven off.” The sense is, as an impious and low-born race, they were driven out of the land.