to laugh (in pleasure or detraction) · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
fathers
אֲבוֹתָ֑ם'a.vo.Tam
H1
father · noun, common feminine plural construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine plural
disdained
מָאַ֥סְתִּיma.'As.ti
H3988
to spurn · verb, qal perfect, 1st person common singular
set
לָ֝שִׁ֗יתla.Shit
H7896
to place (in a very wide application) · preposition + verb, qal infinitive construct
dogs
כַּלְבֵ֥יkal.Vei
H3611
a dog · noun, common masculine plural construct
flock
צֹאנִֽיtzo.Ni
H6629
a collective name for a flock (of sheep or goats) · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 12:4 I am as one mocked of his neighbour, who calleth upon God, and he answereth him: the just upright man is laughed to scorn.
Psalms 35:15-16 But in mine adversity they rejoiced, and gathered themselves together: yea, the abjects gathered themselves together against me, and I knew…
Psalms 69:12 They that sit in the gate speak against me; and I was the song of the drunkards.
Luke 23:35 And the people stood beholding. And the rulers also with them derided him, saying, He saved others; let him save himself, if he be Christ, t…
2 Kings 2:23 And he went up from thence unto Beth-el: and as he was going up by the way, there came forth little children out of the city, and mocked him…
Job 19:13-19 He hath put my brethren far from me, and mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me.
Job 29:8-10 The young men saw me, and hid themselves: and the aged arose, and stood up.
Isaiah 3:5 And the people shall be oppressed, every one by another, and every one by his neighbour: the child shall behave himself proudly against the…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 30:1-14
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…
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision,.... Meaning not his three friends, who were men in years, and were not, at least all of them, younger than he, see Job 15:10; nor were they of such a mean extraction, and such low-lived creatures, and of such characters as here described; with such Job would never have held a correspondence in the time of his prosperity; both they and their fathers, in all appearance, were both great and good; but these were a set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who, as soon as Job's troubles came upon him, derided him, mocked and jeered at him, both by words and gestures; and which they might do even before his three friends came to him, and du…
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…
The Church Fathers
"And now the weakest make fun of me; the youngest ones take me back from my mistakes. Afterwards, the Church had such children; they make little progress. "They take me back," he says; for, clothed with the honors of the Church, they have received the power of preaching to the people what they do not do themselves. "Those whose fathers I despised. He gives them for fathers those whose sons they are by imitation, and to whom it has been said, "Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites."
"But now they make sport of me, those who are younger than I." These words testify to the authority, power and grace that, as he has asserted, he used to own in his previous days. The more favorable his state of former happiness had been, the more bitter now it makes his feeling of pain after turning into misfortune."Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock." He now refers to an evidence of extreme poverty, through which also the vileness of his condition appears, not only the fact that he lives on charity but also that he is appointed to take care of the food of dogs.
But now they that are younger than I have me in derision. Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. All heretics when compared to the age of the Church Universal are fitly called 'younger' in time, because they went forth out of her, not she out of them. Whence it is rightly also said by John; They went out from us, but they were not of us: for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us. For 'they that are younger in time deride Holy Church,' when they that went out from her, set at nought the words of her instruction; concerning whom it is further added; Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock. Who is the 'flock' of Holy Church saving the multitude of the faithful? Or who else are called 'the dogs' of this flock, but the holy Teachers, who became the guardians of those believers? Which same whilst in behalf of their Lord they cried aloud, given up to daily and nightly watchings, uttered, so to say, loud barks of preaching. Concerning whom it is said to that Church by the Psalmist, The tongue of Thy dogs from the enemies by the same. Since there are some that being recalled from the worshipping of idols are made the preachers of God. So 'the tongue of the dogs' of the Church goeth forth from enemies, because the Gentiles that are converted the Lord makes even preachers. Whence the slowness of the Jews, who refused to speak in God's behalf by the Prophet upbraiding them is made matter of blame, where he says, they are all dumb dogs, they cannot bark. Now we speak of the fathers of Heretics meaning those whom we style 'Heresiarchs,' by whose evil preaching, i.e. by the seed of speaking, the peoples following them were begotten in error. So then Holy Church 'disdains to set the fathers' of heretics 'with the dogs of her flock,' because the founders of erring tenets on trying she rejects, and contemns to number them among the true Fathers. Which persons though they seemed to have recalled some from the erroneousness of heathenism, to have trained the practices of some to the doing what is right, yet for this that they did not think right things of God, she does not 'set them with the dogs of the flock,' because she does not rank them with right preachers. For it is plain that Arius; Photinus, Macedonius, Nestorius, Eutyches, Dioscorus, Severus, and numbers like to these,…
Dictionary and topics
Dog — Frequently mentioned both in the Old and New Testaments. Dogs were used by the Hebrews as a watch for their houses (Isa. 56:10), and for guarding their flocks (Job 30:1). There were also then as now…
Sheep — Are of different varieties. Probably the flocks of Abraham and Isaac were of the wild species found still in the mountain regions of Persia and Kurdistan. After the Exodus, and as a result of…
Shepherd — A word naturally of frequent occurence in Scripture. Sometimes the word “pastor” is used instead (Jer. 2:8; 3:15; 10:21; 12:10; 17:16). This word is used figuratively to represent the relation of…
Dog (Sodomite?) · Shepherd dogs — Shepherd dogs
Dog, The · When domesticated: Employed in watching flocks — When domesticated: Employed in watching flocks
Mocking · The tormentors of Job mock — The tormentors of Job mock
Scoffing · .Enemies of Job — .Enemies of Job
Scorning And Mocking · Exemplified: Enemies of Joab — Exemplified: Enemies of Joab
Sheep · Flocks of: Guarded by dogs — Flocks of: Guarded by dogs
Shepherd · Dogs of — Dogs of
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).