Bible Commentaries

But now [they that are] younger than I ^a have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the ^b dogs of my flock.

(a) That is, my estate is changed and while before the ancient men were glad to revere me, the young men now contemn me.

(b) Meaning to be my shepherds or to keep my dogs.

Yea, whereto [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age was ^c perished?

(c) That is, their fathers died of hunger before they came to age.

They were ^d driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them as [after] a thief;)

(d) Job shows that those who mocked him in his affliction were like their fathers, wicked and lewd fellows, such as he here describes.

And now am I their ^e song, yea, I am their byword.

(e) They make songs of me, and mock my misery.

Because he hath loosed my ^f cord, and afflicted me, ^g they have also let loose the bridle before me.

(f) God has taken from me the force, credit, and authority with which I kept them in subjection.

(g) He said that the young men when they saw him, hid themselves as in (Job 29:8), and now in his misery they were impudent and licentious.

Upon [my] right [hand] rise the youth; they push away my feet, and they raise up against me the ^h ways of their destruction.

(h) That is, they sought by all means how they might destroy me.

They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no ⁱ helper.

(i) They need no one to help them.

They came [upon me] as a wide breaking in [of waters]: in the ^k desolation they rolled themselves [upon me].

(k) By my calamity they took an opportunity against me.

And now my soul is ^l poured out upon me; the days of affliction have taken hold upon me.

(l) My life fails me, and I am as half dead.

^m My bones are pierced in me in the night season: and my sinews take no rest.

(m) Meaning sorrow.

ⁿ He hath cast me into the mire, and I am become like dust and ashes.

(n) That is, God has brought me into contempt.

Thou art become ^o cruel to me: with thy strong hand thou opposest thyself against me.

(o) He does not speak this way to accuse God, but to declare the vehemency of his affliction, by which he was carried beside himself.

Thou liftest me up to the ^p wind; thou causest me to ride [upon it], and dissolvest my substance.

(p) He compares his afflictions to a tempest or whirlwind.

Howbeit he will not stretch out [his] hand ^q to the grave, though they cry in his destruction.

(q) No one can deliver me from there, though they lament my death.

When I looked for good, then ^r evil came [unto me]: and when I waited for light, there came darkness.

(r) Instead of comforting they mocked me.

I went mourning ^s without the sun: I stood up, ^t [and] I cried in the congregation.

(s) Not delighting in any worldly thing, no not so much as in the use of the sun.

(t) Lamenting them that were in affliction and moving others to pity them.

I am a brother to ^u dragons, and a companion to owls.

(u) I am like the wild beasts that desire solitary places.

My skin is black upon me, and my bones are burned with ^x heat.

(x) With the heat of affliction.