darkness--By His safeguard I passed secure through dangers. Perhaps alluding to the lights carried before caravans in nightly travels through deserts [Noyes].
4. youth--literally, "autumn"; the time of the ripe fruits of my prosperity. Applied to youth, as the Orientalists began their year with autumn, the most temperate season in the East.
secret--when the intimate friendship of God rested on my tent ([Pr 3:32]; [Psa 31:20]; [Ge 18:17]; [Joh 15:15]). The Hebrew often means a divan for deliberation.
6. butter--rather, "cream," literally, "thick milk." Wherever I turned my steps, the richest milk and oil flowed in to me abundantly. Image from pastoral life.
When I washed my steps--Literal washing of the feet in milk is not meant, as the second clause shows; Margin, "with me," that is, "near" my path, wherever I walked ([De 32:13]). Olives amidst rocks yield the best oil. Oil in the East is used for food, light, anointing, and medicine.
7-10. The great influence Job had over young and old, and noblemen.
through ... street!--rather, When I went out of my house, in the country (see [Job 1:1], prologue) to the gate (ascending), up to the city (which was on elevated ground), and when I prepared my (judicial) seat in the market place. The market place was the place of judgment, at the gate or propylæa of the city, such as is found in the remains of Nineveh and Persepolis ([Is 59:14]; [Psa 55:11]; ).
11. blessed--extolled my virtues ([Pr 31:28]). Omit "me" after "heard"; whoever heard of me (in general, not in the market place, [Job 29:7-10]) praised me.
gave witness--to my honorable character. Image from a court of justice ([Lu 4:22]).
the eye--that is, "face to face"; antithesis to
ear--that is, report of me.
12-17. The grounds on which Job was praised ([Job 29:11]), his helping the afflicted ([Psa 72:12]) who cried to him for help, as a judge, or as one possessed of means of charity. Translate: "The fatherless who had none to help him."
18. I said--in my heart ([Psa 30:6]).
in--rather, "with my nest"; as the second clause refers to long life. Instead of my family dying before me, as now, I shall live so long as to die with them: proverbial for long life. Job did realize his hope ([Job 42:16]). However, in the bosom of my family, gives a good sense ([Nu 24:21]; Ob 4). Use "nest" for a secure dwelling.
sand--([Ge 22:17]; [Ha 1:9]). But the Septuagint and Vulgate, and Jewish interpreters, favor the translation, "the phoenix bird." "Nest" in the parallel clause supports the reference to a bird. "Sand" for multitude, applies to men, rather than to years. The myth was, that the phoenix sprang from a nest of myrrh, made by his father before death, and that he then came from Arabia (Job's country) to Heliopolis (the city of the Sun) in Egypt, once in every five hundred years, and there burnt his father [Herodotus, 2:73]. Modern research has shown that this was the Egyptian mode of representing hieroglyphically a particular chronological era or cycle. The death and revival every five hundred years, and the reference to the sun, implies such a grand cycle commencing afresh from the same point in relation to the sun from which the previous one started. Job probably refers to this.
19. Literally, "opened to the waters." Opposed to [Job 18:16]. Vigorous health.
20. My renown, like my bodily health, was continually fresh.
bow--Metaphor from war, for, my strength, which gains me "renown," was ever renewed ([Jr 49:35]).
21. Job reverts with peculiar pleasure to his former dignity in assemblies ([Job 29:7-10]).
22. not again--did not contradict me.
dropped--affected their minds, as the genial rain does the soil on which it gently drops ([Am 7:16]; [De 32:2]; [So 4:11]).
23. Image of [Job 29:22] continued. They waited for my salutary counsel, as the dry soil does for the refreshing rain.
opened ... mouth--panted for; Oriental image ([Psa 119:131]). The "early rain" is in autumn and onwards, while the seed is being sown. The "latter rain" is in March, and brings forward the harvest, which ripens in May or June. Between the early and latter rains, some rain falls, but not in such quantities as those rains. Between March and October no rain falls ([De 11:14]; [Jas 5:7]).
24. When I relaxed from my wonted gravity (a virtue much esteemed in the East) and smiled, they could hardly credit it; and yet, notwithstanding my condescension, they did not cast aside reverence for my gravity. But the parallelism is better in Umbreit's translation, "I smiled kindly on those who trusted not," that is, in times of danger I cheered those in despondency. And they could not cast down (by their despondency) my serenity of countenance (flowing from trust in God) ([Pr 16:15]; [Psa 104:15]). The opposite phrase ([Ge 4:5], ). "Gravity" cannot well be meant by "light of countenance."
25. I chose out their way--that is, I willingly went up to their assembly (from my country residence, [Job 29:7]).
in the army--as a king supreme in the midst of his army.
comforteth the mourners--Here again Job unconsciously foreshadows Jesus Christ ([Is 61:2], ). Job's afflictions, as those of Jesus Christ, were fitting him for the office hereafter ([Is 50:4]; [He 2:18]).
Chapter 30
[Job 30:1-31].
1. younger--not the three friends ([Job 15:10]; , [6, 7]). A general description: [Job 30:1-8], the lowness of the persons who derided him; [Job 30:9-15], the derision itself. Formerly old men rose to me ([Job 29:8]). Now not only my juniors, who are bound to reverence me ([Le 19:32]), but even the mean and base-born actually deride me; opposed to, "smiled upon" ([Job 29:24]). This goes farther than even the "mockery" of Job by relations and friends ([Job 12:4]; , ; , ; ). Orientals feel keenly any indignity shown by the young. Job speaks as a rich Arabian emir, proud of his descent.
dogs--regarded with disgust in the East as unclean ([1Sa 17:43]; [Pr 26:11]). They are not allowed to enter a house, but run about wild in the open air, living on offal and chance morsels ([Psa 59:14], ). Here again we are reminded of Jesus Christ ([Psa 22:16]). "Their fathers, my coevals, were so mean and famished that I would not have associated them with (not to say, set them over) my dogs in guarding my flock."
2. If their fathers could be of no profit to me, much less the sons, who are feebler than their sires; and in whose case the hope of attaining old age is utterly gone, so puny are they ([Job 5:26]) [Maurer]. Even if they had "strength of hands," that could be now of no use to me, as all I want in my present affliction is sympathy.
3. solitary--literally, "hard as a rock"; so translate, rather, "dried up," emaciated with hunger. Job describes the rudest race of Bedouins of the desert [Umbreit].
fleeing--So the Septuagint. Better, as Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, "gnawers of the wilderness." What they gnaw follows in [Job 30:4].
in former time--literally, the "yesternight of desolation and waste" (the most utter desolation; [Eze 6:14]); that is, those deserts frightful as night to man, and even there from time immemorial. I think both ideas are in the words darkness [Gesenius] and antiquity [Umbreit]. ([Is 30:33], Margin).
4. mallows--rather, "salt-wort," which grows in deserts and is eaten as a salad by the poor [Maurer].
by the bushes--among the bushes.
juniper--rather, a kind of broom, Spartium junceum [Linnæus], still called in Arabia, as in the Hebrew of Job, retem, of which the bitter roots are eaten by the poor.
5. they cried--that is, "a cry is raised." Expressing the contempt felt for this race by civilized and well-born Arabs. When these wild vagabonds make an incursion on villages, they are driven away, as thieves would be.
6. They are forced "to dwell."
cliffs of the valleys--rather, "in the gloomy valleys"; literally, "in the gloom of the valleys," or wadies. To dwell in valleys is, in the East, a mark of wretchedness. The troglodytes, in parts of Arabia, lived in such dwellings as caves.
7. brayed--like the wild ass ([Job 6:5] for food). The inarticulate tones of this uncivilized rabble are but little above those of the beast of the field.
gathered together--rather, sprinkled here and there. Literally, "poured out," graphically picturing their disorderly mode of encampment, lying up and down behind the thorn bushes.
nettles--or brambles [Umbreit].
8. fools--that is, the impious and abandoned ([1Sa 25:25]).