Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 5:5
Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
5. even out of the thorns ] i. e. from within the enclosed field, protected by the thorn-hedge. The roving, hungry Bedawin carry their thievish depredations up to the very homestead and in-fields of the ruined estate of the wicked man.
the robber ] This word occurs again ch. Job 18:9, in the certain meaning of snare; and the sense would thus be, and the snare gapes for their substance, the general idea being that their substance falls a prey to the greed of every crafty and cunning one. This is rather vague and colourless. The ancient versions by alteration in the punctuation give the meaning of the thirsty. This agrees with the parallel “the hungry” in the preceding clause, and therefore naturally suggested itself. While “the thirsty” suits “gapes” very well, it is less suitable to “substance.” On the whole, as the meaning snare is assured from ch. Job 18:9, it is safer to rest content with this sense. The whole forms a very graphic picture of desolation.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Whose harvest the hungry eateth up – That is, they are not permitted to enjoy the avails of their own labor. The harvest field is subject to the depredations of others, who contrive to possess themselves of it, and to consume it.
And taketh it even out of the thorns – Or, he seizes it to the very thorns. That is, the famished robber seizes the whole of the harvest. He takes it all away, even to the thistles, and chaff, and cockle, and whatever impure substances there may be growing with the grain. He does not wait to separate the grain from the other substances, but consumes it all. He spares nothing.
And the robber swalloweth up their substance – Noyes renders this, as Gesenius proposes to do, and a snare gapeth after his substance; Dr. Good, and rigidly swoopeth up their substance. Rosenmuller much better:
Cujusquo facultates oxhauriebant sitibundi, copying exactly the version of Castellio. The Vulgate in a similar manner, Et bibent sitientes divitias ejus – And the thirsty drink up his wealth. The Septuagint, eksifonisthein auton he ischus – should their power be absorbed. The true sense, as I conceive, is, the thirsty gasp, or pant, after their wealth; that is, they consume it. The word rendered in our common version the robber tsammym is, according to the ancient versions, the same as tsame’ym, the thirsty, and this sense the parallelism certainly requires. So obvious is this, that it is better to suppose a slight error in the Hebrew text, than to give it the signification of a snare, as Noyes does, and as Gesenius (Lexicon) proposes. The word rendered swalloweth up ( sha’aph) means, properly, to breathe hard, to pant, to blow; and then to yawn after, to desire, to absorb; and the sense here is, that the thirsty consume their property. The whole figure is taken from robbers and freebooters; and I have no doubt that Eliphaz meant impliedly to allude to the ease of Job, and to say that he had known just such cases, where, though there was great temporary prosperity, yet before long the children of the man who was prospered, and who professed to be pious, but was not, were crushed, and his property taken away by robbers. It was this similarity of the case of Job to the facts which he had observed, that staggered him so much in regard to his cbaracter.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 5. Whose harvest] Their possessions, because acquired by unjust means, shall not be under the protection of God’s providence; he shall abandon them to be pillaged and destroyed by the wandering half-starved hordes of the desert banditti. They shall carry it suddenly off; even the thorns – grain, weeds, thistles, and all, shall they carry off in their rapacious hurry.
The robber swalloweth us] Or, more properly, the thirsty, tsammim, as is plain from their swallowing up or gulping down; opposed to the hungry or half-starved, mentioned in the preceding clause. The hungry shall eat up their grain, and the thirsty shall drink down their wine and oil, here termed cheylam, their strength or power, for the most obvious reasons.
There seem to be two allusions in this verse: 1. To the hordes of wandering predatory banditti, or half-starved Arabs of the desert, who have their scanty maintenance by the plunder of others. These descendants of Ishmael have ever had their hands against all men, and live to this day in the same predatory manner in which they have lived for several thousands of years. M. Volney’s account of them is striking: “These men are smaller, leaner, and blacker, than any of the Bedouins yet discovered. Their wasted legs had only tendons without calves. Their belly was shrunk to their back. They are in general small, lean, and swarthy, and more so in the bosom of the desert than on the borders of the more cultivated country. They are ordinarily about five feet or five feet two inches high; they seldom have more than about six ounces of food for the whole day. Six or seven dates, soaked in melted butter, a little milk, or curd, serve a man for twenty-four hours; and he seems happy when he can add a small portion of coarse flour, or a little ball of rice. Their camels also, which are their only support, are remarkably meagre, living on the meanest and most scanty provision. Nature has given it a small head without ears, at the end of a long neck without flesh. She has taken from its legs and thighs every muscle not immediately requisite for motion; and in short has bestowed on its withered body only the vessels and tendons necessary to connect its frame together. She has furnished it with a strong jaw, that it may grind the hardest aliments; and, lest it should consume too much, she has straitened its stomach, and obliged it to chew the cud.” Such is the description given of the Bedouin and his camel, by M. Volney, who, while he denies the true God, finds out a deity which he calls Nature, whose works evince the highest providence, wisdom, and design! And where does this most wonderful and intelligent goddess dwell? Nowhere but in the creed of the infidel; while the genuine believer knows that nature is only the agent created and employed by the great and wise God to accomplish, under his direction, the greatest and most stupendous beneficial effects.
The second allusion in the verse I suppose to be to the loss Job had sustained of his cattle by the predatory Sabeans; and all this Eliphaz introduces for the support of his grand argument, to convict Job of hidden crimes, on which account his enemies were permitted to destroy his property; that property, because of this wickedness, being placed out of the protection of God’s providence.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whose harvest, which they now justly and confidently expect to reap, after all their cost and labour for that end, but are sadly and suddenly disappointed; which is a great aggravation of their misery.
The hungry, i.e. the poor, whose necessities make them greedy and ravenous to eat it all up; and from whom he can never recover it, nor any thing in recompence of it.
Out of the thorns, i.e. out of the fields, notwithstanding the strong thorn hedges wherewith it is enclosed and fortified, and all other dangers or difficulties which may be in their way. They will take it, though they be scratched and wounded by the thorns about it. The robbers; so called from their long hair, which such persons nourished, either because of their wild and savage kind of life, which made them neglect the trimming of their hair and body; or that they might look more terribly, and so affright all those who should endeavour to oppose them. Or, the thirsty, as the word may signify from another root. And so it answers well to the hungry, in the former branch. Swalloweth up greedily, and so as there is no hope of recovering it.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
5. even out of the thornsEvenwhen part of the grain remains hanging on the thorn bushes (or, “isgrowing among thorns,” Mt13:7), the hungry gleaner does not grudge the trouble of eventaking it away, so clean swept away is the harvest of the wicked.
the robberas theSabeans, who robbed Job. Rather, translate “the thirsty,”as the antithesis in the parallelism, “the hungry,” proves.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Whose harvest the hungry eateth up,…. This is to be understood of the foolish rich man before described, as taking root and flourishing; though he sows, and reaps and gathers in his harvest, and fancies he has goods laid up for many years, to be enjoyed by him, yet he is taken away by death, and another eats what he has gathered; either his hungry heirs, that he has kept bare, and without the proper necessaries of life; or the poor whom he has oppressed, who, driven by hunger, seize upon his harvest, and eat it up, whether he be alive or dead: Sephorno interprets this of the wicked man himself, who should eat up his own harvest, and not have enough to satisfy him, the curse of God being upon his land; and another learned interpreter s thinks the sense is, that such should be the curse of God on the fields of wicked men, that they should produce no more than what was usually left to the poor, and therefore should have no need to gather it:
and taketh it even out of the thorns; that is, either the hungry man takes the harvest out of the thorns, among which it grows, see
Mt 13:7; or which he had gotten “through the thorns”, as Mr. Broughton renders it; that is, the owner, through many difficulties; and hunger will break through many to get at it; or though his harvest being got in, is enclosed with a thorn hedge, the hungry man gets through it, and takes it out from it, surrounded by it; the above mentioned Jewish writer understands this also of the wicked man, who takes his own harvest out from among the thorns, so that there is nothing left for the poor and his friends, as it is meet there should: the word t for “thorns” has also the signification of armour, particularly of shields; hence the Targum is,
“and armed men with warlike arms shall take it away;”
to which agrees the Vulgate Latin version,
“and the armed men shall take it away;”
that is, soldiers should forage, spoil, and destroy it:
and the robber swalloweth up their substance; the house robber, who breaks in and devours all at once, and makes a clear riddance of it; some render it “the hairy man” u either that neglects his hair, as beggars, or such that live in desert places, as robbers, that they may appear the more terrible; or that take care of it, and nourish it, and tie it up in locks, and behind their heads, as Bar Tzemach and Ben Melech observe they do in Turkey; others translate it “the thirsty” w, and so it answers to the hungry in the preceding clause, and designs such who thirst, and gape after, and covet the substance of others, and greedily catch at it, and swallow it up at once, at one draught, as a thirsty man does a large quantity of liquor, see Pr 1:12; this may have some respect to the Sabeans and Chaldeans, that swallowed up Job’s substance, and took away his cattle from him at once, and were no other than bands of robbers; and the use of the word for a thief or a robber, as we take it, is confirmed by a learned man x, who derives it from the Arabic word which signifies to smite with a club or stone.
s Schmidt. t “de lanceis”, Bolducius. “est et elypeus, umbo”, Codurcus. u “comatus”, Cocceius, Schmidt; “horridus”, Junius Tremellius. w Sitientes, V. L. “sitibundi”, Montanus, Bolducius so Simeon Bar Tzemach. x Hinckelman. Praefat. ad Alcoran. p. 28, 29.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(5) Whose harvest the hungry eateth up.The meaning becomes more pointed if we understand the wicked man himself as the subject whose harvest he shall eat famishing and have to take from among the thornsthere shall be so little, and that little choked with thorns. The word robber is perhaps a trap, or snare. Some of the old versions use other vowels, and read, the thirsty swallow up, making the parallelism complete.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
5. Even out of the thorns The best interpretation is that of Dr. Thomson, who speaks of Gennesareth as “pre-eminently fruitful in thorns. They grow up among the grain, or the grain among them, and the reaper must pick the harvest out of the thorns.” The idea of Eliphaz is, that “the robbers would make thorough work of it, and leave nothing behind them, not even that which grew among the thorns.” (See further, “The Land and the Book,” 1:537.)
The robber The thirsty; that is, greedy spoilers. is rendered “snare,” or “noose,” by Gesenius, Furst, Hirtzel, Conant, etc., thus, “The snare gapeth for their substance:” but most ancient versions, together with Ewald, Wordsworth, Zockler, etc., adopt the reading, “The thirsty (pant for) swallow up their substance,” on the assumption that a weak letter has been lost from the original word. The exact meaning of the verb, which expresses violent emotion, such as “to pant for,” “to greedily drain,” etc., accords better with the rendering, “the thirsty.”
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 5:5. Whose harvest, &c. Heath renders this verse thus: Whose harvest the hunger-starved shall devour, and shall take it even from among the thorn-fences; and the thirsty shall swallow down their substance. In which last clause, the author means to express the suddenness of their destruction; as quick as a thirsty man swallows liquor at a gulp: and with this the Vulgate and Syriac versions agree. Houbigant renders the verse, Moreover, the hungry hath devoured their harvest; armed men have taken away their corn; robbers have consumed their substance. See his note.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 5:5 Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
Ver. 5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up ] This is another root of the wicked one, his estate, against which God raiseth up a rout of needy wretches to pillage him. These are as a sweeping rain, that leaveth no food, Pro 28:1 . These, as lean lice, bite hardest, and, as sparrow hawks, are extremly greedy: Malesuada fames putteth them upon it. These harpies seize upon his very harvest ad maiorem cruciatum et miseriam, to the more crude and wretched, pulling the meat out of his mouth, as it were, and not suffering him to roast that which he took in hunting, Pro 12:27 . He shall meet with greatest disappointment, and come to that poverty which he so studiously shunned, singing that doleful ditty,
– En queis consevimus agros?
A ’ , .
See this threatened Lev 26:19 Deu 28:33 Isa 1:6 Mic 6:15 .
And taketh it even out of the thorns
And the robber swalloweth up their substance
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
harvest: Deu 28:33, Deu 28:51, Jdg 6:3-6, Isa 62:8
the thorns: Jdg 6:11, 2Ch 33:11
the robber: Job 1:15, Job 1:17, Job 12:6, Job 18:9, Hos 8:7
swalloweth: Job 2:3, Job 20:15, Jer 51:34, Jer 51:44, Lam 2:5, Lam 2:16
Reciprocal: Gen 3:18 – Thorns Job 20:28 – increase Job 24:2 – violently Job 24:5 – the wilderness Job 31:8 – let me Psa 109:11 – extortioner Ecc 5:14 – those
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 5:5. Whose harvest Which they confidently expected to reap after all their cost and labour; The hungry eateth up The hungry Sabeans, or the poor, whose necessities make them greedy and ravenous to eat it all up; so that he can never recover it, or any thing in recompense of it. As if he had said, They may cultivate their ground with the utmost care, and sow it with the choicest seed, in expectation of reaping, at the usual time, the fruits of their labour; but when once the sentence of the judge is declared against them, behold, instead of carrying in, and filling their barns and store-houses with the great and plentiful increase, their field is laid open to the hungry poor, who soon devour their whole harvest. And take it even out of the thorns That is, out of the fields, notwithstanding the strong thorn-hedges wherewith it is enclosed and fortified; and in spite of all the dangers or difficulties which may be in their way. They will take it, though they be scratched and wounded by the thorns about it. And the robber swalloweth up their substance The word , tzammim, here rendered robber, occurs but once more, namely, Job 18:9, where Bildad, taking it for granted that Job must be a wicked man, says the robber, tzammim, shall prevail against him. R. Levi derives it from tzammah, hair, and says it represents a man who suffers his hair to grow long and squalid, and appears with a terrible countenance. It may however signify thirsty, as derived from another root. Either way it points out a set of savage and barbarous plunderers. The word shaaph, rendered swalloweth up, literally means to draw in the air, to pant after, to swallow greedily; and is applied to wild beasts, snuffing up the wind in pursuit of their prey. The sense of the clause is, that these robbers shall hasten with great eagerness, shall greedily pant after and swallow up their entire substance, so as to leave them in the most deplorable condition.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
5:5 Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the {g} thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
(g) Though there are only two or three ears left in the hedges, yet these will be taken from him.