Job 30:2

In the past, the most important members of society praised Job (29:11). Now, the least important made fun of him and spit in his face (30:1, 10). Compare with Psalms 35:15; 69:12; Mark 14:65; 15:17–20.

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.

Here Job makes a very large and sad complaint of the great disgrace he had fallen into, from the height of honour and reputation, which was exceedingly grievous and cutting to such an ingenuous spirit as Job's was. Two things he insists upon as greatly aggravating his affliction: -
I. The meanness of the persons that affronted him. As it added much to his honour, in the day of his prosperity, that princes and nobles showed him respect and paid a deference to him, so it added no less to his disgrace in his adversity that he was spurned by the footmen, and trampled upon by those that were not only every way his inferiors, but were the meanest and most contemptible of all mankind. None can be represented as more base than those are here represented who insulted Job, upon all accounts. 1. They were young, younger than he (Job 30:1), the youth (Job 30:12), who ought to have behaved themselves respectfully towards him for his age and gravity. Even the children, in their play, played upon him, as the children of Bethel upon the prophet, Go up, thou bald-head. Children soon learn to be scornful when they see their parents so. 2. They were of a mean extraction. Their fathers were so very despicable that such a man as Job would have disdained to take them into the lowest service about his house, as that of tending the sheep and attending the shepherds with the dogs of his flock, Job 30:1. They were so shabby that they were not fit to be seen among his servants, so silly that they were not fit to be employed, and so false that they were not fit to be trusted in the meanest post. Job here speaks of what he might have done, not of what he did: he was not of such a spirit as to set any of the children of men with the dogs of his flock; he knew the dignity of human nature better than to do so. 3. They and their families were the unprofitable burdens of the earth, and good for nothing. Job himself, with all his prudence and patience, could make nothing of them, Job 30:2. The young were not fit for labour, they were so lazy, and went about their work so awkwardly: Whereto might the strength of their hands profit me? The old were not to be advised with in the smallest matters, for in them was old age indeed, but their old age was perished, they were twice children. 4. They were extremely poor, Job 30:3. They were ready to starve, for they would not dig, and to beg they were ashamed. Had they been brought to necessity by the providence of God, their neighbours would have sought them out as proper objects of charity and would have relieved them; but, being brought into straits by their own slothfulness and wastefulness, nobody was forward to relieve them. Hence they were forced to flee into the deserts both for shelter and sustenance, and were put to sorry shifts indeed, when they cut up mallows by the bushes, and were glad to eat them, for want of food that was fit for them, Job 30:4. See what hunger will bring men to: one half of the world does not know how the other half lives; yet those that have abundance ought to think sometimes of those whose fare is very coarse and who are brought to a short allowance of that too. But we must own the righteousness of God, and not think it strange, if slothfulness clothe men with rags and the idle soul be made to suffer hunger. This beggarly world is full of the devil's poor. 5. They were very scandalous wicked people, not only the burdens, but the plagues, of the places where they lived, arrant scoundrels, the scum of the country: They were driven forth from among men, Job 30:5. They were such lying, thieving, lurking, mischievous people, that the best service the magistrates could do was to rid the country of them, while the very mob cried after them as after a thief. Away with such fellows from the earth; it is not fit they should live. They were lazy and would not work, and therefore they were exclaimed against as thieves, and justly; for those that do not earn their own bread by honest labour do, in effect, steal the bread out of other people's mouths. An idle fellow is a public nuisance; but it is better to drive such into a workhouse than, as here, into a wilderness, which will punish them indeed, but never reform them. They were forced to dwell in caves of the earth, and they brayed like asses among the bushes, Job 30:6, Job 30:7. See what is the lot of those that have the cry of the country, the cry of their own conscience, against them; they cannot but be in a continual terror and confusion. They groan among the trees (so Broughton) and smart among the nettles; they are stung and scratched there, where they hoped to be sheltered and protected. See what miseries wicked people bring themselves to in this world; yet this is nothing to what is in reserve for them in the other world. 8. They had nothing at all in them to recommend them to any man's esteem. They were a vile kind; yea, a kind without fame, people that nobody could give a good word to nor had a good wish for; they were banished from the earth as being viler than the earth. One would not think it possible that ever the human nature should sink so low, and degenerate so far, as it did in these people. When we thank God that we are men we have reason to thank him that we are not such men. But such as these were abusive to Job, (1.) In revenge, because when he was in prosperity and power, like a good magistrate, he put in execution the laws which were in force against vagabonds, and rogues, and sturdy beggars, which these base people now remembered against him. (2.) In triumph over him, because they thought he had now become like one of them. Isa 14:10, Isa 14:11. The abjects, men of mean spirits, insult over the miserable, Psa 35:15.
II. The greatness of the affronts that were given him. It cannot be imagined how abusive they were.
1. They made ballads on him, with which they made themselves and their companions merry (Job 30:9): I am their song and their byword. Those have a very base spirit that turn the calamities of their honest neighbours into a jest, and can sport themselves with their griefs.
2. They shunned him as a loathsome spectacle, abhorred him, fled far from him, (Job 30:10), as an ugly monster or as one infected. Those that were themselves driven out from among men would have had him driven out. For,
3. They expressed the greatest scorn and indignation against him. They spat in his face, or were ready to do so; they tripped up his heels, pushed away his feet (Job 30:12), kicked him, either in wrath, because they hated him, or in sport, to make themselves merry with him, as they did with their companions at foot-ball. The best of saints have sometimes received the worst of injuries and indignities from a spiteful, scornful, wicked world, and must not think it strange; our Master himself was thus abused.
4. They were very malicious against him, and not only made a jest of him, but made a prey of him - not only affronted him, but set themselves to do him all the real mischief they could devise: They raise up against me the ways of their destruction; or (as some read it), They cast upon me the cause of their woe; that is, "They lay the blame of their being driven out upon me;" and it is common for criminals to hate the judges and laws by which they are punished. But under this pretence, (1.) They accused him falsely, and misrepresented his former conversation, which is here called marring his path. They reflected upon him as a tyrant and an oppressor because he had done justice upon them; and perhaps Job's friends grounded their uncharitable censures of him (Job 22:6, etc.) upon the unjust and unreasonable clamours of these sorry people; and it was an instance of their great weakness and inconsideration, for who can be innocent if the accusations of such persons may be heeded? (2.) They not only triumphed in his calamity, but set it forward, and did all they could to add to his miseries and make them more grievous to him. It is a great sin to forward the calamity of any, especially of good people. In this they have no helper, nobody to set them on or to countenance them in it, nobody to bear them out or to protect them, but they do it of their own accord; they are fools in other things, but wise enough to do mischief, and need no help in inventing that. Some read it thus, They hold my heaviness a profit, though they be never the better. Wicked people, though they get nothing by the calamities of others, yet rejoice in them.
5. Those that did him all this mischief were numerous, unanimous, and violent (Job 30:14): They came upon me as a wide breaking in of waters, when the dam is broken; or, "They came as soldiers into a broad breach which they have made in the wall of a besieged city, pouring in upon me with the utmost fury;" and in this they took a pride and a pleasure: They rolled themselves in the desolation as a man rolls himself in a soft and easy bed, and they rolled themselves upon him with all the weight of their malice.
III. All this contempt put upon him was caused by the troubles he was in (Job 30:11): "Because he has loosed my cord, has taken away the honour and power with which I was girded (Job 12:18), has scattered what I had got together and untwisted all my affairs - because he has afflicted me, therefore they have let loose the bridle before me," that is, "have given themselves a liberty to say and do what they please against me." Those that by Providence are stripped of their honour may expect to be loaded with contempt by inconsiderate ill-natured people. "Because he hath loosed his cord" (the original has that reading also), that is, "because he has taken off his bridle of restraint from off their malice, they cast away the bridle from me," that is, "they make no account of my authority, nor stand in any awe of me." It is owing to the hold God has of the consciences even of bad men, and the restraints he lays upon them, that we are not continually thus insulted and abused; and, if at any time we meet with such ill treatment, we must acknowledge the hand of God in taking off those restraints, as David did when Shimei cursed him: So let him curse, for the Lord hath bidden him. Now in all this, 1. We may see the uncertainty of worldly honour, and particularly of popular applause, how suddenly a man may fail from the height of dignity into the depth of disgrace. What little cause therefore have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! Those that today cry Hosannah may tomorrow cry Crucify. But there is an honour which comes from God, which if we secure, we shall find it not thus changeable and loseable. 2. We may see that it has often been the lot of very wise and good men to be trampled upon and abused. And, 3. That those who look only at the things that are seen despise those whom the world frowns upon, though they are ever so much the favourites of Heaven. Nothing is more grievous in poverty than that it renders men contemptible. Turba Remi sequitur fortunam, ut semper odit damnatos - The Roman populace, faithful to the turns of fortune, still persecute the fallen. 4. We may see in Job a type of Christ, who was thus made a reproach of men and despised of the people (Psa 22:6; Isa 53:3), and who hid not his face from shame and spitting, but bore the indignity better than Job did.

Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me,.... For though they were strong, lusty, hale men, able to do business, yet their strength was to sit still and fold their hands in their bosoms, so that their strength was of no profit or avail to themselves or others; they were so slothful and lazy, that Job could not employ them in any business of his to any advantage to himself; and this may be one reason, among others, why he disdained to set them with the dogs of his flock to keep it; for the fathers seem to be intended all along to Job 30:8; though it matters not much to which of them the words are applied, since they were like father like son:

in whom old age was perished? who did not arrive to old age, but were soon consumed by their lusts, or cut off for their sins; and so the strength and labour of their hands, had they been employed, would have been of little worth; because the time of their continuance in service would have been short, especially being idle and slothful: some understand it of a lively and vigorous old age, such as was in Moses; but this being not in them, they were unfit for business, see Job 5:26; or they had not the endowments of old age, the experience, wisdom, and prudence of ancient persons, to contrive, conduct, and manage affairs, or direct in the management of them, which would make up for lack of strength and labour. Ben Gersom, Bar Tzemach, and others, interpret the word of time, or the time of life, that was perished or lost in them; their whole course of life, being spent in sloth and idleness, was all lost time.

Nor was it strange that I did, or would. or might refuse to take them into any of my meanest services, because they were utterly impotent, and therefore unserviceable.

In whom old age was perished; or, lost; either,

1. Because they never attain to it, but are consumed by their lusts or cut off for their wickedness by the just hand of God, or men, in the midst of their days. Or,

2. Because they had so wasted their strength and spirits by their evil courses, that when they came to old age, they were feeble and decrepit, and useless for any labour. Or,

3. Because they had not that prudence and experience which is proper and usual in that age, by which they might have been useful, if not for work, yet to oversee and direct others in their work. But the words may be thus rendered, in whom vigorous age was perished, i.e. who were grown impotent for service. For the word here rendered old age, is used only here and , where also it may be so rendered, Thou shalt come to thy grave in a vigorous or mature age, having the rigour of youth even in thine old age, and until thy death, as Moses had. And if this word do signify old age, yet it signifies not every, but only a flourishing and vigorous, old age; as the Hebrews note, and the word may seem to imply; whence the LXX. interpreters also render it perfection, to wit, of age, and of thee endowments belonging to age.

1 And now they who are younger than I have me in derision,
Those whose fathers I disdained To set with the dogs of my flock.
2 Yea, the strength of their hands, what should it profit me?
They have lost vigour and strength.
3 They are benumbed from want and hunger,
They who gnaw the steppe,
The darkness of the wilderness and waste;
4 They who pluck mallows in the thicket,
And the root of the broom is their bread.
With ועתּה, which also elsewhere expresses the turning-point from the premises to the conclusion, from accusation to the threat of punishment, and such like, Job here begins to bewail the sad turn which his former prosperity has taken. The first line of the verse, which is marked off by Mercha-Mahpach, is intentionally so disproportionately long, to form a deep and long breathed beginning to the lamentation which is now begun. Formerly, as he has related in the first part of the monologue, an object of reverential fear to the respectable youth of the city (Job 29:8), he is now an object of derision (שׂחק על, to laugh at, distinct from שׂחק אל, Job 29:24, to laugh to, smile upon) to the young good-for-nothing vagabonds of a miserable class of men. They are just the same עניּי ארץ, whose sorrowful lot he reckons among the mysteries of divine providence, so difficulty of solution (Job 24:4-8). The less he belongs to the merciless ones, who take advantage of the calamities of the poor for their own selfish ends, instead of relieving their distress as far as is in their power, the more unjustifiable is the rude treatment which he now experiences from them, when they who meanly hated him before because he was rich, now rejoice at the destruction of his prosperity. Younger than he in days (לימים as Job 32:4, with ל of closer definition, instead of which the simple acc. was inadmissible here, comp. on Job 11:9) laugh at him, sons of those fathers who were so useless and abandoned that he scorned (מאס ל, comp. מאס מן, Sa1 15:26) to entrust to them even a service so menial as that of the shepherd dogs. Schult., Rosenm., and Schlottm. take שׁית עם for שׁית על, praeficere, but that ought to be just simply שׁית על; שׁית עם signifies to range beside, i.e., to place alike, to associate; moreover, the oversight of the shepherd dogs is no such menial post, while Job intends to say that he did not once consider them fit to render such a subordinate service as is that of the dogs which help the shepherds.
And even the strength of their (these youths') hands (גּם is referable to the suff. of ידיהם: even; not: now entirely, completely, as Hahn translates), of what use should it be to him: (למּה not cur, but ad quid, quorsum, as Gen 25:32; Gen 27:46.) They are enervated, good-for-nothing fellows: כּלח is lost to them (עלימו trebly emphatic: it is placed in a prominent position, has a pathetic suff., and is על for ל, Sa1 9:3). The signif. senectus, which suits Job 5:26, is here inapplicable, since it is not the aged that are spoken of, but the young; for that "old age is lost to them" would be a forced expression for the thought - which, moreover, does not accord with the connection - that they die off early. One does not here expect the idea of senectus or senectus vegeta, but vigor, as the Syriac (‛ushino) and Arabic also translate it. May not כּלח perhaps be related to כּח, as שׁלאנן to שׁאנן, the latter being a mixed form from שׁאנן and שׁלו, the former from כּח and לח, fresh juicy vigour, or as we say: pith and marrow (Saft and Kraft)? At all events, if this is somewhat the idea of the word, it may be derived from כּלח = כּלה (lxx συντέλεια), or some other way (vid., on Job 5:26): it signifies full strength or maturity.
(Note: From the root Arab. kl (on its primary notion, vid., my review of Bernstein's edition of Kirsch's Syr. Chrestomathie, Ergnzungsblatt der A.L.Z. 1843, Nr. 16 and 17) other derivatives, as Arab. kl', klb, klt, klṯ, klj, kld, klz, etc., develop in general the significations to bring, take, or hold together, enclose, and the like; but Arab. lkḥ in particular the signification to draw together, distort violently, viz., the muscles of the face in grinning and showing the teeth, or even sardonic laughing, and drawing the lips apart. The general signification of drawing together, Arab. šdd, resolves itself, however, from that special reference to the muscles of the face, and is manifest in the IV form Arab. kâlaḥa, to show one's self strict and firm (against any one); also more sensuously: to remain firm in one's place; of the moon, which remains as though motionless in one of its twenty-eight halting-places. Hence Arab. dahrun kâliḥun, a hard season, zmân šdı̂d and kulâḥun, kalâḥi (the latter as a kind of n. propr. invariably ending in i, and always without the article), a hard year, i.e., a year of failure of the crops, and of scarcity and want. If it is possible to apply this to כּלח without the hazardous comparison of Arab. qḥl, qlḥm, etc. so supra, p. 300], the primary signification might perhaps be that of hardness, unbroken strength; Job 5:26, "Thou wilt go to the grave with unbroken strength," i.e., full of days indeed, but without having thyself experienced the infirmities and burdens of the aetas decrepita, as also a shock brought in "in its season" is at the highest point of ripeness; Job 30:2 : "What (should) the strength of their hands profit me? as for them, their vigour is departed." - Fl.)
With Job 30:3 begins a new clause. It is גּלמוּד, not גּלמוּדים, because the book of Job does not inflect this Hebraeo-Arabic word, which is peculiar to it (besides only Isa 49:21, גּלמוּדה). It is also in Arab. more a substantive (stone, a mass) than an adj. (hard as stone, massive, e.g., Hist. Tamerlani in Schultens: Arab. 'l-ṣchr 'l-jlmûd, the hardest rock); and, similar to the Greek χέρσος (vid., Passow), it denotes the condition or attribute of rigidity, i.e., sterility, Job 3:7; or stiff as death, Job 15:34; or, as here, extreme weakness and incapability of working. The subj.: such are they, is wanting; it is ranged line upon line in the manner of a mere sketch, participles with the demonstrative article follow the elliptical substantival clause. The part. הערקים is explained by lxx, Targ., Saad. (Arab. fârrı̂n), and most of the old expositors, after ערק, Arab. ‛araqa, fut. ya‛riq, fugere, abire, which, however, gives a tame and - since the desert is to be thought of as the proper habitation of these people, be they the Seir remnant of the displaced Horites, or the Hauran "races of the clefts" - even an inappropriate sense. On the contrary, ‛rq in Arab. (also Pael ‛arreq in Syriac) signifies to gnaw; and this Arabic signification of a word exclusively peculiar to the book of Job (here and Job 30:17) is perfectly suitable. We do not, however, with Jerome, translate: qui rodebant in solitudine (which is doubly false), but qui rodunt solitudinem, they gnaw the sunburnt parched ground of the steppe, stretched out there more like beasts than men (what Gecatilia also means by his Arab. lâzmû, adhaerent), and derive from it their scanty food. אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה is added as an explanatory, or rather further descriptive, permutative to ציּה. The same alliterative union of substantives of the same root occurs in Job 38:27; Zep 1:15, and a similar one in Nah 2:11 (בוקה ומבוקה), Eze 6:14; Eze 33:29 (שׁמה ומשׁמה); on this expression of the superlative by heaping up similar words, comp. Ew. 313, c. The verb שׁאה has the primary notion of wild confused din (e.g., Isa 17:12.), which does not pass over to the idea of desolation and destruction by means of the intermediate notion of ruins that come together with a crash, but by the transfer of what is confusing to the ear to confusing impressions and conditions of all kinds; the desert is accordingly called also תּהוּ, Deu 32:10, from תּהה = שׁאה (vid., Genesis, S. 93).
The noun אמשׁ nuon signifies elsewhere adverbially, in the past night, to grow night-like, and in general yesterday, according to which it is translated: the yesterday of waste and desolation; or, retaining the adverbial form: waste and desolation are of yesterday = long since. It is undeniable that מאתמוּל and אתמוּל, Isa 30:33; Mic 2:8, are used in the sense pridem (not only to-day, but even yesterday); but our poet uses תּמול, Job 8:9, in the opposite sense, non pridem (not long since, but only of yesterday); and it is more natural to ask whether אמשׁ then has not here the substantival signification from which it has become an adverb, in the signification nightly or yesterday. Since it originally signifies yesterday evening or night, then yesterday, it must have the primary signification darkness, as the Arab. ams is also traceable to the primary notion of the sinking of the sun towards the horizon; so that, consequently, although the usage of Arabic does not allow this sense,
(Note: Arab. ams is manifestly connected with Arab. ms', msy, first by means of the IV form Arab. 'msy; it has, however, like this, nothing to do with "darkness." Arab. mas'â' is, according to the original sources of information, properly the whole afternoon until sunset; and this time is so called, because in it the sun Arab. tamsû or tamsı̂, touches, i.e., sinks towards the horizon (from the root Arab. ms with the primary notion stringere, terere, tergere, trahere, prehendere, capere). Just so they say Arab. 'l-šmsu tadluk, properly the sun rubs; Arab. taṣı̂f, connects itself; Arab. tušaffir, goes to the brink (Arab. šufr, šafı̂r), all in the same signification. Used as a substantive, Arab. amsu followed by the genitive is la veille de..., the evening before ... , and then generally, the day before ... , the opposite of Arab. gadu with the same construction, le lendemain de - . It is absolutely impossible that it should refer to a far distant past. On the contrary, it is always used like our "yesterday," in a general sense, for a comparatively near past, or a past time thought of as near, as Arab. gd is used of a comparatively near future, or a future time thought of as near. Zamachschari in the Kesschf on Sur. xvii. 25: It is a duty of children to take care of their aged parents, "because they are so aged, and to-day (el-jauma) require those who even yesterday (bi-l-emsi) were the most dependent on them of all God's creatures." It never means absolutely evening or night. What Gesenius, Thes., cites as a proof for it from Vita Timuri, ii. 428 - a supposed Arab. amsı̂y, vespertinus - is falsely read and explained (as in general Manger's translation of those verses abounds in mistakes); - both line 1 and line 9, Arab. 'msy, IV form of ms', is rhetorically and poetically (as "sister of Arab. kân") of like signification with the general Arab. kân or ṣâr. An Arab would not be able to understand that אמשׁ שׁואה וּמשׁאה otherwise than: "on the eve of destruction and ruin," i.e., at the breaking in of destruction and ruin which is just at hand or has actually followed rapidly upon something else. - Fl.)
it can be translated (comp. צלמות, Jer 2:6), "the evening darkness (gloominess) of the waste and wilderness" (אמשׁ as regens, Ew. 286, a). The Targ. also translated similarly, but take אמשׁ as a special attribute: חשׁוכא היך רוּמשׁא, "darkness like the late evening." Olshausen's conjecture of ארץ makes it easier, but puts a word that affirms nothing in the place of an expressive one.
Job 30:4 tells what the scanty nourishment is which the chill, desolate, and gloomy desert, with its steppes and gorges, furnishes them. מלּוּח (also Talmudic, Syriac, and Arabic) is the orach, and indeed the tall shrubby orach, the so-called sea-purslain, the buds and young leaves of which are gathered and eaten by the poor. That it is not merely a coast plant, but grows also in the desert, is manifest from the narrative b. Kidduschin, 66a: "King Jannai approached כוחלית in the desert, and conquered sixty towns there Ges. translates wrongly, captis LX talentis; and on his return with great joy, he called all the orphans of Israel to him, and said: Our fathers ate מלוחים in their time when they were engaged with the building of the temple (according to Raschi: the second temple; according to Aruch: the tabernacle in the wilderness); we will also eat מלוחים in remembrance of our fathers! And מלוחים were served up on golden tables, and they ate." The lxx translates, ἅλιμα (not: ἄλιμα); as in Athenaeus, poor Pythagoreans are once called ἅλιμα τρώγοντες καὶ κακὰ τοιαῦτα συλλέγοντες.
(Note: Huldrich Zwingli, in the Greek Aldine of 1518 (edited by Andrea of Asola), which he has annotated throughout in the margin, one of the choicest treasures of the Zurich town library, explains ἅλιμα by θαλάσσια, which was natural by the side of the preceding περικυκλοῦντες. We shall mention these marginal notes of Zwingli now and again.)
The place where they seek for and find this kind of edible plant is indicated by עלי־שׂיח. שׂיח is a shrub in general, but certainly pre-eminently the Arab. šı̂h, that perennial, branchy, woody plant of uncultivated ground, about two-thirds of a yard high, and the same in diameter, which is one of the greatest blessings of Syria and of the steppe, since, with the exception of cow and camel's dung, it is often the only fuel of the peasants and nomads, - the principal, and often in a day's journey the only, vegetation of the steppe, in the shade of which, then everything else is parched, a scanty vegetation is still preserved.
(Note: Thus Wetzstein in his Reise in den beiden Trachonon und um das Haurangebirge.)
The poor in search of the purslain surround this Arab. šı̂ḥ (shı̂h), and as Job 30:4 continues: the broom-root is their bread. Ges. understands לחמם according to Isa 47:14, where it is certainly the pausal form for לחמם ("there is not a coal to warm one's self"), and that because the broom-root is not eatable. But why should broom-root and not broom brushwood be mentioned as fuel? The root of the steppe that serves as fuel, together with the shı̂h, is called gizl (from גזל, to tear out), not retem, which is the broom (and is extraordinarily frequent in the Belka). The Arabs, however, not only call Genista monosperma so, but also Chamaerops humilis, a degenerate kind of which produces a kind of arrow-root which the Indians in Florida use.
(Note: The description of these eaters of the steppe plants corresponds exactly to the reality, especially if that race, bodily so inferior, is contrasted with the agricultural peasant, and some allowance is made for the figure of speech Arab. mubâlagat (i.e., a description in colours, strongly brought out), without which poetic diction would be flat and devoid of vividness in the eye of an Oriental. The peasant is large and strong, with a magnificent beard and an expressive countenance, while e.g., the Trachonites of the present day (i.e., the race of the W'ar, יער), both men and women, are a small, unpleasant-looking, weakly race. It is certain that bodily perfection is a plant that only thrives in a comfortable house, and needs good nourishment, viz., bread, which the Trachonite of the present day very rarely obtains, although he levies heavy contributions on the harvest of the villagers. Therefore the roots of plants often serve as food. Two such plants, the gahh (גח) and the rubbe halı̂le (רבּה חלילה), are described by my Reisebericht. A Beduin once told me that it should be properly called rubh lêle (רבח לילה), "the gain of a supper," inasmuch as it often takes the place of this, the chief meal of the day. To the genus rubbe belongs also the holêwâ (חליוא); in like manner they eat the bulbous plant, qotên (קטין); of another, the mesha‛ (משׁע), they eat leaves, stem, and root. I often saw the poor villagers (never Beduins) eat the broad thick fleshy leaves of a kind of thistle (the thistle is called Arab. šûk, shôk), the name of which is ‛aqqub (עקּוּב); these leaves are a handbreadth and a half in length, and half a handbreadth in width. They gather them before the thorns on the innumerable points of the serrated leaves become strong and woody; they boil them in salt and water, and serve them up with a little butter. Whole tribes of the people of the Ruwala live upon the small brown seed (resembling mustard-seed) of the semh (שׂמח). The seeds are boiled up a pulp. - Wetzst.)
לחמם in the signification cibus eorum is consequently not incomprehensible. lxx (which throws Job 30:4 into sad confusion): οἳ καὶ ῥΊζας ξύλων ἐμασσῶντο.
(Note: Zwingli observes here: Sigma only once. Codd. Anex. and Sinait. have the reading εμασωντο, which he prefers.)
All the ancient versions translate similarly. One is here reminded of what Agatharchides says in Strabo concerning the Egyptio-Ethiopian eaters of the rush root and herb.
(Note: Vid., Meyer, Botanische Erluterungen zu Strabons Geographie, S. 108ff.)