Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 30:3
For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
3. The verse reads,
With want and hunger they are gaunt,
They gnaw the desert, in former time desolate and waste.
The first clause refers to the “shriveled” appearance of these outcasts from want; the second to their devouring the roots which they can gather in the steppe ( Job 30:4), which has for long been desolate and unproductive. The word rendered “they gnaw” occurs again of Job’s gnawing pains, Job 30:17. For “in former time,” i. e. for long, others translate darkness: the darkness of desolation and waste a description of the desert.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
3 8. Description of this wretched class of outcasts. The tenses should all be put in the present. The race of people referred to appears to be the same as that in ch. 24.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
For want and famine – By hunger and poverty their strength is wholly exhausted, and they are among the miserable outcasts of society. In order to show the depth to which he himself was sunk in public estimation, Job goes into a description of the state of these miserable wretches, and says that he was treated with contempt by the very scum of society, by those who were reduced to the most abject wretchedness, and who wandered in the deserts, subsisting on roots, without clothing, shelter, or home, and who were chased away by the respectable portion of the community as if they were thieves and robbers. The description is one of great power, and presents a sad picture of his own condition.
They were solitary – Margin, or, dark as the night. Hebrew galmud. This word properly means hard, and is applied to a dry, stony, barren soil. In Arabic it means a hard rock. Umbreit. In Job 3:7, it is applied to a night in which none are born. Here it seems to denote a countenance, dry, hard, emaciated with hunger. Jerome renders it, steriles. The Septuagint, agonos – sterile. Prof. Lee, Hardly beset. The meaning is, that they were greatly reduced – or dried up – by hunger and want. So Umbreit renders it, gantz ausgedorrt – altogether dried up.
Fleeing into the wilderness – Into the desert or lonely wastes. That is, they fled there to obtain, on what the desert produced, a scanty subsistence. Such is the usual explanation of the word rendered flee – araq. But the Vulgate, the Syriac, and the Arabic, render it gnawinq, and this is followed by Umbreit, Noyes, Schultens, and Good. According to this the meaning is, that they were gnawers of the desert; that is, that they lived by gnawing the roots and shrubs which they found in the desert. This idea is much more expressive, and agrees with the connection. The word occurs in Hebrew only in this verse and in Job 30:17, where it is rendered My sinews, but which may more appropriately be rendered My gnawing pains. In the Syriac and Arabic the word means to gnaw, or corrode, as the leading signification, and as the sense of the word cannot be determined by its usage in the Hebrew, it is better to depend on the ancient versions, and on its use in the cognate languages. According to this, the idea is, that they picked up a scanty subsistence as they could find it, by gnawing roots and shrubs in the deserts.
In the former time – Margin, yesternight. The Hebrew word ( ’emesh) means properly last night; the latter part of the preceding day, and then it is used to denote night or darkness in general. Gesenius supposes that this refers to the night of desolation, the pathless desert being strikingly compared by the Orientals with darkness. According to this, the idea is not that they had gone but yesterday into the desert, but that they went into the shades and solitudes of the wilderness, far from the homes of men. The sense then is, They fled into the night of desolate wastes.
Desolate and waste – In Hebrew the same word occurs in different forms, designed to give emphasis, and to describe the gloom and solitariness of the desert in the most impressive manner. We should express the same idea by saying that they hid themselves in the shades of the wilderness.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 3. Fleeing into the wilderness] Seeking something to sustain life even in the barren desert. This shows the extreme of want, when the desert is supposed to be the only place where any thing to sustain life can possibly be found.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Want and famine, brought upon them either by their own sloth or wickedness, or by Gods just judgment. Heb. In want and famine, which aggravates their following solitude. Although want commonly drives persons to places of resort and company for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, and contemptibleness, and hatefulness to all persons, that they shunned all company, and for fear or shame fled into and lived in desolate places.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
3. solitaryliterally, “hardas a rock”; so translate, rather, “dried up,”emaciated with hunger. Job describes the rudest race of Bedouins ofthe desert [UMBREIT].
fleeingSo theSeptuagint. Better, as Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate,”gnawers of the wilderness.” What they gnaw followsin Job 30:4.
in former timeliterally,the “yesternight of desolation and waste” (the mostutter desolation; Eze 6:14);that is, those deserts frightful as night to man, and even there fromtime immemorial. I think both ideas are in the words darkness[GESENIUS] and antiquity[UMBREIT]. (Isa30:33, Margin).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
For want and famine [they were] solitary,…. The Targum interprets it, without children; but then this cannot be understood of the fathers; rather through famine and want they were reduced to the utmost extremity, and were as destitute of food as a rock, or hard flint, from whence nothing is to be had, as the word signifies, see Job 3:7;
fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste: to search and try what they could get there for their sustenance and relief, fleeing through fear of being taken up for some crimes committed, or through shame, on account of their miserable condition, not caring to be seen by men, and therefore fled into the wilderness to get what they could there: but since men in want and famine usually make to cities, and places of resort, where provision may be expected; this may be interpreted not of their flying into the wilderness, though of their being there, perhaps banished thither, see Job 30:5; but of their “gnawing” q, or biting the dry and barren wilderness, and what they could find there; where having short commons, and hunger bitten, they bit close; which, though extremely desolate, they were glad to feed upon what they could light on there; such miserable beggarly creatures were they: and with this agrees what follows.
q “qui rodebant in solitudine”, V. L. “rodentes siccitatem”, Schultens.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
3. Solitary Similar to Job 3:7, (which see;) barren, emaciated, hard like the rock.
Fleeing into Literally, gnawing the wilderness. The scantness of their livelihood appears from Job 30:4.
Former time The prime import of this word, , is darkness, or yesternight, as in margin; others insist upon “the yesterday of waste and desolation.” The language denotes extreme desolation.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 30:3 For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
Ver. 3. For want and famine they were solitary ] Miserably poor they were, and nittily needy; scarce having a rag to their backs, and, therefore, ashamed to show themselves in company of others, propter penuriam, et propter esuriem, they lurked in bycorners, and seldom came abroad, unless when hard hunger drove the wolf out of the wood. Slow bellies they had ever been, and evil beasts, fitter, therefore, to live in the wilderness, in former time desolate and waste, than in a civil society; or, if in any place, at Poneropolis, a city built by Philip, king of Macedonia, for varlets and vagrants, and with such kind of persons peopled; that they might not pester other places. Job would have none such about him; and was, therefore, haply, now in this low condition, so much hated and affronted by them.
In former time desolate and waste
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
solitary: or, dark as the night, Job 24:13-16
fleeing into: Job 24:5, Heb 11:38
in former time: Heb. yesternight
Reciprocal: Job 15:23 – wandereth Psa 109:10 – General Jer 48:6 – be like Jer 49:3 – run Eze 26:20 – in places Dan 4:25 – drive Dan 5:21 – he was driven
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 30:3. For want and famine Brought upon them either by their own sloth or wickedness, or by Gods just judgment. Hebrew, , becheser, In want and famine, which aggravates their following solitude. They were solitary, &c. Although want commonly draws persons to places of resort and company for relief, yet they were so conscious of their own guilt, and contemptibleness, and hatefulness to all persons, that they shunned all company, and for fear or shame fled into and lived in desolate places.