Read & explore together
Job’s Honor Turned to Contempt
In Job 30:1–14, Job speaks about a painful reversal. People he describes with contempt now mock him, reject him and press against him with destructive force.
Understanding the passage
Listening in context
This passage is wisdom and dialogue spoken in the first person. In these verses, Job first describes the harsh condition and exclusion of the people who deride him. Then he says that he himself has become their song, byword and target.
Job 30:1–14Main takeaway
Job 30:1–14 shows Job describing a bitter fall from honour to public contempt and threat.
Look closely at the words
Open a card to explore the full explanation and its Bible references.
01Younger men now laugh at JobJob begins with “But now”, marking a painful change. He says younger men hold him in derision.
Explanation
Job begins with “But now”, marking a painful change. He says younger men hold him in derision. He also speaks scornfully of their fathers, saying he would not have placed them with his sheep dogs. The verse highlights both Job’s humiliation and his own contemptuous way of describing these people.
02Job describes their hunger and exclusionJob says their strength is of no use and describes them as gaunt with famine. They scrape food from dry ground, pluck salt herbs and eat broom roots.
Explanation
Job says their strength is of no use and describes them as gaunt with famine. They scrape food from dry ground, pluck salt herbs and eat broom roots. He says they are driven out, cried after like a thief, and made to live in valleys, holes and rocky places among bushes and nettles.
03Job says he has become their object of scornAfter calling them children of fools and wicked men, flogged out of the land, Job turns to his own shame.
04Mockery becomes open attackJob says, “he has untied his cord, and afflicted me”, and that others have therefore thrown off restraint before him.
Explanation
Job says, “he has untied his cord, and afflicted me”, and that others have therefore thrown off restraint before him. The rabble rise against him, thrust aside his feet and work for his destruction. The final picture is of people coming through a wide breach, rolling in amid ruin.
Questions to explore
Pause, look back at the verses and talk together.
01What change does Job stress with the words “But now”?
02Which details make Job’s description of these people especially bleak?
Read the Bible passage
World English Bible ClassicScripture quotation · Public domain
Job 30:1–14
1“But now those who are younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I considered unworthy to put with my sheep dogs.
2Of what use is the strength of their hands to me, men in whom ripe age has perished?
3They are gaunt from lack and famine. They gnaw the dry ground, in the gloom of waste and desolation.
4They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom tree are their food.
5They are driven out from among men. They cry after them as after a thief,
6so that they live in frightful valleys, and in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
7They bray among the bushes. They are gathered together under the nettles.
8They are children of fools, yes, children of wicked men. They were flogged out of the land.
9“Now I have become their song. Yes, I am a byword to them.
10They abhor me, they stand aloof from me, and don’t hesitate to spit in my face.
11For he has untied his cord, and afflicted me; and they have thrown off restraint before me.
12On my right hand rise the rabble. They thrust aside my feet. They cast their ways of destruction up against me.
13They mar my path. They promote my destruction without anyone’s help.
14As through a wide breach they come. They roll themselves in amid the ruin.