Job’s Final Appeal
1 Job’s honour is turned into extreme contempt. 15 His prosperity into calamity.
Job 30:1 “But now they mock me, men younger than I, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheep dogs. This is one of the most touching chapters in the book. In it Job pictures the contrast between his present and former condition. It seems that in Job’s district there lived a vile and debased people, regarded as thieves by their neighbors, who saw in Job’s calamities an opportunity to insult a member of a superior group.
These people were so inferior and corrupt that they were held in lower esteem than the sheep dogs. The Orientals could scarcely use language that would express greater contempt of anyone than to call him a dog (see Deut. 23:18; 1 Sam. 17:43; 24:14; 2 Sam 3:8; 9:8; 16:9; 2 Kings 8:13).
Job 30:2 Of what use was the strength of their hands to me, since their vigor had gone from them?
Job seems to be describing those who were reduced by degradation and poverty to the place where they were of no value to an employer. Now he himself, who once had been honored by princes and nobles (ch. 29:9, 10), was reduced to the place where people of the most degraded ranks of life showed no respect for him. Job 30:3 Haggard from want and hunger, they roamed the parched land in desolate wastelands at night.
To emphasize his own plight, Job goes into detail to show the wretchedness of these people who mock him. These people were literally “gnawers of the desert.” They were reduced to the place where they gnawed the roots and shrubs found in the desert.
Job 30:4 In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food was the root of the broom bush.
This plant was edible, but not desirable for food.
Job 30:5 They were banished from human society, shouted at as if they were thieves.
Job 30:6 They were forced to live in the dry stream beds, among the rocks and in holes in the ground.
Western Asia is full of rocky regions, seamed with deep gorges and clefts that are pierced with caves and cracks. The area about Petra is perhaps the most remarkable of these regions, but there are many others that closely resemble it. Job 30:7 They brayed among the bushes and huddled in the undergrowth.
The voices of these vagrants sounded like the braying of wild asses. These people were almost less than human in their manner of life, yet Job had sunk so low that he had become the object of their ridicule. That he is not unsympathetic toward these people is indicated by his description of apparently the same group in ch. 24:4–8.
He does not despise them, but he is confused and hurt by the fact that he has sunk lower than they.
8. Base men. Literally, “men of no name.” The entire description points to a reversion to the animal level of existence. They had no family heritage, they knew none of the better things of life, yet they were ready to mock a man who had once possessed such things.
Job 30:8 A base and nameless brood, they were driven out of the land.
Job 30:9 “And now those young men mock me in song; I have become a byword among them.
It is a pastime of degenerate men to make up ribald songs about those whom they despise. Job was the victim of such indignities (see Job 17:6; Ps. 69:12; Lam. 3:14).
Job 30:10 They detest me and keep their distance; they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
It is hard for Job to realize that the very people who were generally abhorred by humanity should abhor him. The lowest of men now considered themselves much higher than he.
Spit in my face. The Hebrew may mean either to spit in the face or to spit in the presence of. The former seems to be the more natural way to translate the Hebrew expression.
Job 30:11 Now that God has unstrung my bow and afflicted me, they throw off restraint in my presence.
The figure seems to be of a bow. The application is not entirely clear. Job may be saying that God has loosed his bowstring, that is, has taken away his vigor. He is now the victim of his weakest enemies, who rush upon him with unbridled ferocity. They cast off all restraint arising from respect to his rank, standing, and moral worth, and treat him with every kind of indignity.
Job 30:12 On my right the tribe attacks; they lay snares for my feet, they build their siege ramps against me.
Once the aged and honorable rose and stood in my presence, and the youth retired to the background; but now the rabble elbow me aside. They trip me, trample me, and overwhelm me.”
Job 30:13 They break up my road; they succeed in destroying me. ‘No one can help him,’ they say.
Job’s erstwhile friends did not prove to be friends in his hour of extremity. Instead, they were a disappointment to him. They made the burden of his suffering far greater by their lack of understanding. Instead of making his pathway more difficult they might have done the opposite. They were fair weather friends, and now that the tempests of life bore down upon his soul, they brought him no encouragement. “A friend in need is a friend indeed.”
No helper. This may mean that these people are so worthless and degraded that no one will help them.
Job 30:14 They advance as through a gaping breach; amid the ruins they come rolling in.
This may refer to a break made by an enemy in the walls of a city. When such a wall fell, the attacking army would pour in (see Isa. 30:13).
Job 30:15 Terrors overwhelm me; my dignity is driven away as by the wind, my safety vanishes like a cloud.
His misfortunes, his enemies, and even his friends conspire to fill Job’s soul with terror. The vivid contrast between the glorious past and the dismal present tends to accentuate that terror. As the wind. The figure reveals how ruthless was the pursuit. It is hard to find in the desert a hiding place from the wind. The dissolving of a cloud before the wind is a fit symbol of the disappearance of Job’s former prosperity and well-being.
Job 30:16 “And now my life ebbs away; days of suffering grip me.
Job seems to have experienced a disintegration of his life that is hard to express in words. His reverses have done something to him. He has been severely wounded, and he is not yet healed. He is crushed, battered, and worn.
Job 30:17 Night pierces my bones; my gnawing pains never rest.
Bones. Often represented in the Scriptures as the seat of acute pain (see Ps. 6:2; 22:14; 31:10; 38:3; 42:10; 14:30). Day and night Job suffered the ravages of unremitting pain.
Job 30:18 In his great power God becomes like clothing to me; he binds me like the neck of my garment.
Job 30:19 He throws me into the mud, and I am reduced to dust and ashes.
Job 30:20 “I cry out to you, God, but you do not answer; I stand up, but you merely look at me.
Job 30:21 You turn on me ruthlessly; with the might of your hand you attack me.
The ordinary interpretation of this passage is that, because of the nature of his malady, Job’s garment had become disfigured and filthy. It may also mean that instead of being clothed merely with an ordinary garment as heretofore, he is now clothed with a garment of loathsome ulcers—a painful garment that clings to him as closely as the collar of his tunic.
Job 30:22 You snatch me up and drive me before the wind; you toss me about in the storm.
This statement must be understood as reflecting the viewpoint of Job under the pressure of his suffering, and not the true character of God.
Before the wind. Job seems to say: “I am like stubble caught up by a whirlwind and borne hither and thither until it disappears.”
Job 30:23 I know you will bring me down to death, to the place appointed for all the living.
This is the language of despair. Job alternates between hope and despair.
Job 30:24 “Surely no one lays a hand on a broken man when he cries for help in his distress.
The LXX gives a very different sense: “Oh, then that I might lay hands upon myself, or at least ask another, and he should do this for me.”
Job 30:25 Have I not wept for those in trouble? Has not my soul grieved for the poor?
Again Job appeals on the basis of his former life. He feels justified in crying for help, because he was always compassionate toward others.
Job 30:26 Yet when I hoped for good, evil came; when I looked for light, then came darkness.
Job cannot understand why, when he was so sympathetic to others, he should be forced to cope with evil and darkness.
Job 30:27 The churning inside me never stops; days of suffering confront me.
Job 30:28 I go about blackened, but not by the sun; I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
Job 30:29 I have become a brother of jackals, a companion of owls.
Job’s mourning resembled the doleful noise made by the ostrich in the lonely desert.
Job 30:30 My skin grows black and peels; my body burns with fever.
From these and other symptoms some have tried to diagnose Job’s disease (see ch. 2:7).
Job 30:31 My lyre is tuned to mourning, and my pipe to the sound of wailing.
What formerly gave cheerful sounds now gives only notes of plaintiveness and lamentation. This is a poignant contrast between Job’s past and his present experience.