“But now they make sport of me.
Those who are younger than I,
Whose fathers I would have disdained
To have them set with the dogs of my flock.
What could I gain from the strength of their hands?
All their vigor is gone.
Through want and hard hunger
They gnaw the dry and desolate ground.
They pick mallow and the leaves of bushes,
They pick the roots of the broom to warm themselves.
They are driven out from society.
People shout after them as after a thief.
They must live in the gullies of the Wadi torrents.
They must live in the holes of the earth.
They must live in the holds of the rocks.
Among the bushes they bray.
Under the nettles they huddle together.
A senseless, a disreputable brood,
They have been whipped out of the land.”
The difference between then and now is evident. Job instead of being a distinguished member of the community he was now derided. Now even the outcasts of society ridiculed him. Young people, whose fathers Job would have had them sit with his dogs watching his flock, are now making fun of him. Job was no longer strong. He then colorfully described the indigent homeless society of people who were making fun of him. These were the people who gnaw at the dry ground and eat in the salt marshes near the Dead Sea. They warm themselves with the roots of brooms, a shrub that grows in regions of that area. People shout after them as if they were thieves. They live along the river banks, the holes in the ground and in the caves. They huddle together like a senseless disreputable brood of people that have been sent away from the land.
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 