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<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "//www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"><html xmlns="//www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8" /><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width; initial-scale=1.0;"/><title>Job 30 Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers</title><link rel="canonical" href="https://biblehub.com/commentaries/expositors/job/30.htm" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/5001com.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="../spec.css" type="text/css" media="Screen" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 4800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 4800px)" href="/4801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1550px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1550px)" href="/1551.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1250px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1250px)" href="/1251.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 1050px), only screen and (max-device-width: 1050px)" href="/1051.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 900px), only screen and (max-device-width: 900px)" href="/901.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 800px), only screen and (max-device-width: 800px)" href="/801.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-width: 575px), only screen and (max-device-width: 575px)" href="/501.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link media="handheld, only screen and (max-height: 450px), only screen and (max-device-height: 450px)" href="/h451.css" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet" /><link rel="stylesheet" href="/print.css" type="text/css" media="Print" /><script type="application/javascript" src="https://scripts.webcontentassessor.com/scripts/8a2459b64f9cac8122fc7f2eac4409c8555fac9383016db59c4c26e3d5b8b157"></script><script src='https://qd.admetricspro.com/js/biblehub/biblehub-layout-loader-revcatch.js'></script><script id='HyDgbd_1s' src='https://prebidads.revcatch.com/ads.js' type='text/javascript' async></script><script>(function(w,d,b,s,i){var cts=d.createElement(s);cts.async=true;cts.id='catchscript'; 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<a href="/job/30-3.htm" title="For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.">Job 30:3</a> <span class= "ital">seqq. </span>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 outcast life and had manners and customs of their own. They are desolate with want and famine. They flee into the wilderness on the eve of wasteness and desolation, or when all is dark (yester night), waste, and desolate. It is evident that Job must have been familiar with a people of this kind, an alien and proscribed race living in the way he mentions.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-7.htm">Job 30:7</a></div><div class="verse">Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.</div>(7) <span class= "bld">Among the bushes they brayed.</span>—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 <a href="/job/30-5.htm" title="They were driven forth from among men, (they cried after them as after a thief;)">Job 30:5</a>; <a href="/context/job/30-7.htm" title="Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.">Job 30:7-8</a>, as it may be in the Authorised Version of <a href="/job/30-4.htm" title="Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.">Job 30:4</a>.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-8.htm">Job 30:8</a></div><div class="verse"><i>They were</i> children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.</div>(8) <span class= "bld">They were viler than the earth.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">They are scourged out of the land, </span>or <span class= "ital">are outcasts from the land.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-9.htm">Job 30:9</a></div><div class="verse">And now am I their song, yea, I am their byword.</div>(9) <span class= "bld">And now am I their song.</span>—See the references in the margin, which show that it is quite appropriate to give to the complaints of Job a Messianic interpretation.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-11.htm">Job 30:11</a></div><div class="verse">Because he hath loosed my cord, and afflicted me, they have also let loose the bridle before me.</div>(11) <span class= "bld">Because he hath loosed my cord.</span>—Better, <span class= "ital">his: i.e.</span>, “God hath loosed the cord of his bow and they have cast off all restraint before me.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-12.htm">Job 30:12</a></div><div class="verse">Upon <i>my</i> right <i>hand</i> rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ways of their destruction.</div>(12) <span class= "bld">The youth</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, the young brood, rabble.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-13.htm">Job 30:13</a></div><div class="verse">They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.</div>(13) <span class= "bld">They have no helper</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> probably without deriving therefrom any help or advantage themselves.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-14.htm">Job 30:14</a></div><div class="verse">They came <i>upon me</i> as a wide breaking in <i>of waters</i>: in the desolation they rolled themselves <i>upon me</i>.</div>(14) <span class= "bld">As a wide breaking in of waters.</span>—Or, <span class= "ital">as through a wide breach they come. </span>“In the midst of the crash they roll themselves upon me;” or, “instead of <span class= "bld">a </span>tempest” (<span class= "ital"><span class= "bld">i.e., </span></span>like a tempest) “they roll themselves upon me.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-15.htm">Job 30:15</a></div><div class="verse">Terrors are turned upon me: they pursue my soul as the wind: and my welfare passeth away as a cloud.</div>(15) <span class= "bld">They pursue</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, “the terrors chase or pursue<p>my honour:” <span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, <span class= "ital">my soul;</span> or it may be, “Thou (<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> God) chasest.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-18.htm">Job 30:18</a></div><div class="verse">By the great force <i>of my disease</i> is my garment changed: it bindeth me about as the collar of my coat.</div>(18) <span class= "bld">My garment changed.</span>—Some render “By His (<span class= "ital">i.e.,</span> 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.”<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-19.htm">Job 30:19</a></div><div class="verse">He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.</div>(19) <span class= "bld">He hath cast me into the mire.</span>—He now turns more directly to God, having in <a href="/job/30-16.htm" title="And now my soul is poured out on me; the days of affliction have taken hold on me.">Job 30:16</a> turned from man to his own condition—<span class= "ital">dust and ashes. </span>This latter phrase is used but three times in Scripture: twice by Job (here and <a href="/job/42-6.htm" title="Why I abhor myself, and repent in dust and ashes.">Job 42:6</a>), and once by Abraham (<a href="/genesis/18-27.htm" title="And Abraham answered and said, Behold now, I have taken on me to speak to the LORD, which am but dust and ashes:">Genesis 18:27</a>).<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-20.htm">Job 30:20</a></div><div class="verse">I cry unto thee, and thou dost not hear me: I stand up, and thou regardest me <i>not</i>.</div>(20) <span class= "bld">Thou regardest me not.</span>—The Authorised Version understands that the negative of the first clause must be supplied in the second, as is the case in <a href="/psalms/9-18.htm" title="For the needy shall not always be forgotten: the expectation of the poor shall not perish for ever.">Psalm 9:18</a> : “The needy shall not always be forgotten; the expectation of the poor shall <span class= "ital">not </span>perish for ever.” Others understand it, “I stand up (<span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, to pray) in the attitude of prayer, and Thou lookest at me,” <span class= "ital">i.e.</span>, and doest no more with mute indifference.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-22.htm">Job 30:22</a></div><div class="verse">Thou liftest me up to the wind; thou causest me to ride <i>upon it</i>, and dissolvest my substance.</div>(22) <span class= "bld">Thou liftest me up to the wind.</span>—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 make me ride upon the wind, and now Thou dissolvest my substance, my very being.” (Comp. <a href="/psalms/102-10.htm" title="Because of your indignation and your wrath: for you have lifted me up, and cast me down.">Psalm 102:10</a> : “Thou hast lifted me up and cast me down.”)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-24.htm">Job 30:24</a></div><div class="verse">Howbeit he will not stretch out <i>his</i> hand to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.</div>(24) <span class= "bld">Though they cry in his destruction.</span>—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 <span class= "ital">one may utter </span>a cry because of these things.” Others, understanding the word rendered “ruinous heap” otherwise, render “Howbeit, God will not put forth His hand to bring man to death and the grave when there is earnest prayer for them, nor even when in calamity proceeding from Him there is a loud cry for them:” that is to say, “I know that Thou wilt dissolve and destroy me, and bring me to the grave, though Thou wilt not do so when I pray unto Thee to release me by death from my sufferings. Thou wilt surely do so, but not in my time or according to my will, but only in Thine own appointed time, and as Thou seest fit.” This is one of those passages that may be regarded as hopelessly uncertain. Each reader will make the best sense he can of it, according to his judgment. That Job should speak of himself as a <span class= "ital">ruinous heap </span>seems very strange; neither is it at all clear what “these things” are because of which a cry is uttered. Certainly the <span class= "ital">significance </span>given by the other rendering is much greater. “His destruction” must mean, at all events, <span class= "ital">the destruction that cometh from Him; </span>and if this is so, the sense given is virtually that of the Authorised Version.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-25.htm">Job 30:25</a></div><div class="verse">Did not I weep for him that was in trouble? was <i>not</i> my soul grieved for the poor?</div>(25) <span class= "bld">Did not I weep for him?</span>—Job declares that he has not withheld that sympathy with sorrow and suffering for which he himself has asked in vain.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-26.htm">Job 30:26</a></div><div class="verse">When I looked for good, then evil came <i>unto me</i>: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.</div>(26) <span class= "bld">When I looked for good.</span>—Before, in <a href="/context/job/3-25.htm" title="For the thing which I greatly feared is come on me, and that which I was afraid of is come to me.">Job 3:25-26</a>, he had spoken as one who did not wish to be the <span class= "ital">fool </span>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 disappointed and deceived.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-27.htm">Job 30:27</a></div><div class="verse">My bowels boiled, and rested not: the days of affliction prevented me.</div>(27) <span class= "bld">My bowels boiled.</span>—The sense is better expressed by the present, “My bowels boil, and rest not. Days of affliction have overtaken me unawares.” (See last verse.)<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-28.htm">Job 30:28</a></div><div class="verse">I went mourning without the sun: I stood up, <i>and</i> I cried in the congregation.</div>(28) <span class= "bld">I went mourning without the sun.</span>—Rather, <span class= "ital">I go mourning without the sun; </span>or, according to some, “blackened, but not by the sun.” We give the preference to the other.<p><span class= "bld">I stood up, and I cried in the congregation</span>—<span class= "ital">i.e., </span>not merely in secret, but in the face of all men.<p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-29.htm">Job 30:29</a></div><div class="verse">I am a brother to dragons, and a companion to owls.</div>(29) <span class= "bld">Dragons </span>and <span class= "bld">owls </span>are, according to some moderns, <span class= "ital">jackals </span>and <span class= "ital">ostriches.</span><p> <div class="versenum"><a href="/job/30-31.htm">Job 30:31</a></div><div class="verse">My harp also is <i>turned</i> to mourning, and my organ into the voice of them that weep.</div>(31) <span class= "bld">My harp also is turned to mourning.</span>—Or, <span class= "ital">Therefore is my harp turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of them that weep. </span>The musical instruments here named, like those of <a href="/genesis/4-21.htm" title="And his brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp and organ.">Genesis 4:21</a>, are respectively the stringed and wind instruments.<p><div id="botbox"><div class="padbot"><div align="center">Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers<br /><br />Text Courtesy of <a href="//biblesupport.com" target="_top">BibleSupport.com</a>. 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