Job 30
The full text of Job 30 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.
1 But now they mock me,
men younger than I,
whose fathers I would have disdained
to set with the dogs of my flock.
2 What good was the strength of their hands to me,
men whose vigor was gone?
3 Through want and hard hunger they were gaunt;
they gnawed the dry ground,
desolate and waste.
4 They plucked mallow and the leaves of bushes
and made their meal the roots of the broom tree.
5 They were driven out from human company;
people shouted after them as after a thief.
6 In the gullies of the torrents they had to dwell,
in holes of the earth and in the rocks.
7 Among the bushes they brayed;
under the nettles they huddled together.
8 A senseless, nameless brood,
they were driven out of the land.
9 And now I have become their song;
I am a byword to them.
10 They abhor me; they keep aloof from me;
they do not hesitate to spit in my face.
11 Because God has loosed my cord and humbled me,
they have cast off restraint in my presence.
12 On my right the rabble rise;
they push away my feet;
they cast up their siege roads against me.
13 They tear up my path;
they promote my disaster;
no one restrains them.
14 As through a wide breach they come;
amid the crash they roll on.
15 Terrors are turned upon me;
my honor is pursued as by the wind,
and my prosperity has passed away like a cloud.
16 And now my soul is poured out within me;
days of affliction have taken hold of me.
17 The night racks my bones,
and the pain that gnaws me takes no rest.
18 With great force my garment is disfigured;
it binds me about like the collar of my tunic.
19 God has cast me into the mire,
and I have become like dust and ashes.
20 I cry to you for help and you do not answer me;
I stand, and you only look at me.
21 You have turned cruel to me;
with the might of your hand you persecute me.
22 You lift me up on the wind; you make me to ride on it,
and you toss me about in the roar of the storm.
23 For I know that you will bring me to death
and to the house appointed for all living.
24 Yet does not one in a heap of ruins stretch out his hand,
and in his disaster cry for help?
25 Did I not weep for him whose day was hard?
Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
26 But when I hoped for good, evil came,
and when I waited for light, darkness came.
27 My heart is in turmoil and cannot rest;
days of affliction come to meet me.
28 I go about darkened, but not by the sun;
I stand up in the assembly and cry for help.
29 I am a brother of jackals
and a companion of ostriches.
30 My skin turns black and falls from me,
and my bones burn with fever.
31 My lyre is turned to mourning,
and my flute to the sound of those who weep.
Translation notes (8)
- Job 30:1a Hebrew kelev, 'dog' (כֶּלֶב), commonly denoted a despised scavenger in ancient Israel, though dogs also served as flock guards. To be 'set with the dogs of my flock' evokes assignment to the lowest rung of household labor, intensifying Job's scorn.
- Job 30:3a The verb 'araq occurs in the Hebrew Bible only here and in Job 30:17. On the basis of Aramaic cognates it may mean either 'to gnaw' or 'to flee', so some understand the clause as 'they flee to the dry ground'. The rendering 'gnawed' fits the context of hunger and the eating of roots in the next verse.
- Job 30:4a Since the roots of the broom tree are bitter and scarcely edible, some interpreters repoint Hebrew lachmam, 'their food', to mean 'to warm themselves', broom wood being prized for charcoal (compare Psalm 120:4). The translation follows the Masoretic Text, reading the line as a picture of desperate hunger. Malluach, 'mallow', may denote saltwort, a plant of the salt marshes.
- Job 30:11a Hebrew yeter (יֶתֶר), 'bowstring' or 'cord'. The image may evoke either a slackened bow (loss of strength; compare Psalm 11:2, where yeter denotes a bowstring) or a loosened tent-rope (collapse of security). Rendered here as 'cord' to preserve the ambiguity.
- Job 30:12a Pirchach (פִּרְחָח), rendered here as 'rabble', occurs only in this verse of the Hebrew Bible. It appears to derive from parach, 'to sprout' or 'to bud', suggesting an upstart brood or young mob, which suits the contempt Job expresses in this chapter for those younger than himself.
- Job 30:18a The Hebrew verb yitchappes, literally 'it disguises itself', is obscure here; the rendering 'is disfigured' follows the Masoretic Text. The Septuagint reads 'he seized my garment', and many emend to yitpos, 'he seizes', making God the subject, in keeping with the accusation of the following verse.
- Job 30:24a The Hebrew of this verse is among the most obscure in Job, and the ancient versions already diverge widely. This rendering takes ʿi as 'heap of ruins' (compare Micah 1:6) and pid as 'disaster' (compare Job 12:5), understanding the sufferer to reach out and cry from the wreckage. The final word lahen resists certain analysis, and any translation here involves a measure of conjecture.
- Job 30:29a Hebrew tannim, 'jackals,' and benot ya'anah, 'female ostriches' (תנים; בנות יענה), denote characteristic desert dwellers and emblems of desolation in the ancient Near East; their eerie cries evoke lament (cf. Micah 1:8; Isaiah 13:21–22). The King James tradition's 'dragons' and 'owls' reflect older identifications of these terms.
About this translation
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