Now Job sets forth the misery and degradation to which he had been suddenly reduced. And, first, he dwells on the disdain which was his portion, not from the high and haughty, but from the most wretched and despicable of men. None was so low that he could not regard Job with derision and scorn. It would be hard to find such a picture of utter baseness in the habits of men; yet was there no expression of malicious contempt which he had not to endure from these loathsome objects, who set on him, not only with their vulgar ribaldry, but with the coarsest of practical jokes and rude indecorums, which utterly unnerved him. But then a deeper and more constant sorrow oppressed him, for he could not shut out from himself the harrowing conviction that his ceaseless sufferings in the body were from the hand of God, from whom he might have looked for compassion. Whereas now he could not but abandon all hope of relief or deliverance from above, any more than of the commonest sympathy from men ordinarily quick enough to feel for the misery of their fellows.
And now at me they laugh, younger in days than I,
Whose fathers I had disdained to set with the dogs of my flock!
Even the strength of their hands, what [was] it to me?
In them the prime was lost through want and hunger,
Who yesterday were gnawing the desert, the waste, and the wild,
Plucking saltwort in the jungles, roots of broom their food.
At them, driven out of the midst, they hooted, as at a thief,
To dwell in the horror of glens, in dens of the earth, and in rocks.
Among the bushes they brayed, under the nettles huddled,
Sons of folly, sons of no-name, who were whipped out of the land.
And now I am become their song, and I am their bye-word;
Abhorring me, they get far from me,
And even refrain not from spitting in my face.
For He hath loosed my cord, and humbled me,
And they have cast away the bridle before my face.
On the right riseth up a brood; they push aside my feet,
And cast up against me their destructive ways;
They tear up my path, helping on my downfall;
They have no helper; they come as [through] a wide breach,
Under the ruin they roll onward.
Terrors turn on me; they pursue like a storm my dignity,
And my prosperity like a cloud is gone.
And now my soul poureth itself out upon me;
Days of suffering hold me fast;
The night pierceth my bones, and my gnawers rest not.
With great violence is my clothing changed;
It girdeth me as the collar of my vest.
He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become as dust and ashes.
I cry to Thee, but Thou dost not answer me;
I stand, and Thou dost look fixedly at me.
Thou art changed to a cruel one towards me,
With the strength of Thy hand Thou warrest against me.
Raising me on the wind, Thou makest me borne off,
And in my very substance dissolved me.
And I know that Thou art bringing me to death,
And to the house of assembly for all living.
Surely there is no prayer when He putteth forth the hand,
Though they cry out, in His destroying.
For have I not wept over one whose day is hard?
Was not my soul sad over the needy?
Yet when I looked for good, evil came,
And when I waited for light, darkness came.
My bowels are made to boil, and are not silent;
Days of affliction have overtaken me.
I am going as blackened without the sun;
I stand up in the assembly, I cry out.
Of jackals am I become brother, and companion of ostriches.
My skin of me is black, and my bones are burned with heat,
And my harp is turned to wailing, and my pipe to the voice of weepers.
The acute feelings of the eastern grandee come out vividly in this resumption of complaint. His sensitiveness was in no way impaired by his astonishing reverses, and his deep and varied sufferings, but, on the contrary, as one might expect, quickened thereby to the highest degree. Thus he does not merely speak of the cruel age of mockery he had to endure from a crew of youths, incapable of appreciating worth, or of feeling for others in trouble, but breaking forth into shameless mirth over his unparalleled misery. He looks at the antecedents and belongings of these his juniors, who spared no unseasonable and unfeeling jibe that could wound to the quick, and cannot but express the reflection that he would have disdained to rank even their fathers with the doge of his flock. Even for physical strength they were worthless, their prime being perished through want and hunger. What else could be expected from such as had been till now gnawing what they could find hi the desert? and this not where bright spots smiled, but where was unrelieved waste and wild, plucking saltwort, when they could find it, in the jungles, and finding food, wretched as it was, in roots of broom or, juniper. How sad to think of such degradation for members of the human race even in those early days! Such social outcasts, with whom we commonly connect the overthronged dens of infamy and crime in some great city, were not wanting then behind the scenes of desert life. At them, says Job, driven out of the midst, men hooted as at a thief, compelled to find a dwelling in horrible glens, in dens of the earth, and hollow rocks. Among the bushes, they could hardly be said to speak; but brayed, he adds, under the nettles they herded, after some beastly sort, sons of folly, and, obscure for a name, notorious for vice and its surrounding punishment.
And now Job was become their song and their bye-word. Even such as those, wretched troglodytes, if not worse, from their origin, dared to turn him into merriment and spiteful outrage. In their abhorrence they would retire far away, or, if they drew near, it was to pour on him the lowest mark of ignominious contempt. But Job could see that God's hand was behind all the humiliation to which he was subjected. The Keri gives “my,” that is, Job's, cord; the Kethib, “His,” that is, God's, which Ewald interprets as a bowstring, Conant as a rein. The sense seems to be the letting loose of trouble end persecutions. They took their stand as bearing witness against the sufferer as the right (see Psa. 109:8; 18Let his days be few; and let another take his office. (Psalm 109:8)), as has been noticed by others. Thus was he deprived of firm ground to stand on; so that he could only compare himself to some place exposed to all the ways. and means of a siege and assault, the tenor of his life being violently broken up, and they needing no help who helped to precipitate his ruin. For they poured in as through a wide breach, rolling onward under the crash of ruin; while a crowd of terrors turned on him, each chasing his dignity away like a hurricane, and his prosperity vanishing like vapor.
Hence he was utterly unnerved, and his soul dissolved, as it were, in sorrow, as days of suffering held him fast; and the night, which ordinarily affords a respite to the most wretched, aggravated his misery to the piercing of his bones, as if they were picked out from him, and the gnawers of his flesh not only began their work before the time, but this sleeplessly. Such was the condition of his body, that it was only by the utmost violence his clothing could be changed; it surrounded him as tightly as the collar of a close-fitting vest. What could he feel but that God had cast him into the mire of abasement, so as to become like dust and ashes? Job crying to Him, and He not answering; Job standing, and He gazing fixedly at him! for there seems no warrant for transporting the negative into the later clause. Job did not doubt God's contemplating all, which made His non-intervention the keener pang; and he ventured to say that He who had erst blessed him was now changing Himself into a being creel toward him, and making war on him with all His might, raising him up in a storm-car, and causing him to be borne away only the more thoroughly to dissolve his very being. So that he knew it was God bringing him 'to' death, and to the house where living men assemble at last.
Lastly, Job contrasts his own misery, thus without a hearing or alleviation from above, with his tenderness towards incomparably less troubles among his fellows, whereas, when he cried, worse followed: Yet what could exceed his inward feeling, or what the effect outwardly on his person, and this, not by natural or external causes, but by unheard-of blows and consuming disease, and by sad exercises worse than all? He had even cried out among men, and not to God only, and this so dolefully as to set him with brutes and birds notorious for their yells and screeches.