Job 30
Big idea: The exact reverse of chapter 29, line for line: the men who now sing songs about him are the sons of people he would not have put with his sheepdogs, and the God whose lamp shone on his head does not answer when he stands up and cries.
The pairing is deliberate — 29 and 30 are one speech, and 'but now' at 30:1 is the hinge.
30:1–15 — Now I have become their song
The reversal is announced in two words — but now — and the people it names are the lowest in the society: those younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with my sheepdogs. The description of them that follows is not flattering and it is not meant to be: gaunt from want and famine, gnawing the dry ground in the gloom of waste and desolation, plucking salt herbs by the bushes with broom-tree roots for food, driven out from among men who shout after them as after a thief, living in frightful valleys and holes in the ground, braying among the bushes and huddling under nettles. Job is describing outcasts with contempt, and the book does not clean it up.
1 “But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs. 2 Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished? 3 They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation. 4 They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food. 5 They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief, 6 so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks. 7 They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles. 8 They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land. 9 “Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them. 10 They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face. 11 For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me. 12 On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me. 13 They mar my path. They promote my destruction without anyone’s help. 14 As through a wide breach they come. They roll themselves in amid the ruin. 15 Terrors have turned on me. They chase my honor as the wind. My welfare has passed away as a cloud.
30:16–31 — I cry to you, and you do not answer me
The pain is described in the night, when it is worst: now my soul is poured out within me, and days of affliction have taken hold of me. In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest. And then the sentence that is the centre of the chapter and perhaps of the book: I cry to you, and you do not answer me; I stand up, and you gaze at me. Not absence — attention without response. He has been asking for God's notice since chapter 7, and here he says he has it, and it changes nothing.
16 “Now my soul is poured out within me. Days of affliction have taken hold of me. 17 In the night season my bones are pierced in me, and the pains that gnaw me take no rest. 18 My garment is disfigured by great force. It binds me about as the collar of my tunic. 19 He has cast me into the mire. I have become like dust and ashes. 20 I cry to you, and you do not answer me. I stand up, and you gaze at me. 21 You have turned to be cruel to me. With the might of your hand you persecute me. 22 You lift me up to the wind, and drive me with it. You dissolve me in the storm. 23 For I know that you will bring me to death, to the house appointed for all living. 24 “However doesn’t one stretch out a hand in his fall? Or in his calamity therefore cry for help? 25 Didn’t I weep for him who was in trouble? Wasn’t my soul grieved for the needy? 26 When I looked for good, then evil came. When I waited for light, darkness came. 27 My heart is troubled, and doesn’t rest. Days of affliction have come on me. 28 I go mourning without the sun. I stand up in the assembly, and cry for help. 29 I am a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches. 30 My skin grows black and peels from me. My bones are burned with heat. 31 Therefore my harp has turned to mourning, and my pipe into the voice of those who weep.
Scripture text: World English Bible (public domain).