In the gullies of the torrents they must dwell, in holes of the earth and of the rocks.
Job is remembering how far he has fallen. The men who now jeer at him are men he once would not have hired — outcasts driven out of society, scraping food from the desert and sheltering in caves.
The Men in the Caves
One rendering brings out how brutal the picture is. These outcasts are not merely poor. Others chase them away like criminals:
William KellyAt them, driven out from among people, they hooted as at a thief, so that they had to live in the horror of the glens, in dens of the earth and rocks. Among the bushes they brayed, under the nettles they huddled — sons of folly, sons of no-name, who were whipped out of the land.
The same writer stops to feel the weight of it. These were real human beings, and their misery is the kind we usually associate with the worst slums of a modern city:
William KellyHow sad to think of such degradation for members of the human race even in those early days! Such social outcasts, whom we normally connect with the overcrowded dens of shame and crime in some great city, were not missing even then, behind the scenes of desert life.
A Question Job Never Asks
Job treats their living conditions as proof that they count for nothing. One commentator raises the obvious objection. Job never asks whether their state is really their fault, or whether God cares about them:
Leslie M. GrantJob does not consider that some of these people may not be to blame for their condition. They have sunk to scrounging food from unhealthy sources, and others have driven them away to live in caves or clefts in the valleys. He seems to think this made them not worth considering. For he says, "they were sons of fools, yes, sons of vile men." Can God not save sons of vile men? Indeed He can, and often does. Should Job not have cared about others brought so low, when he himself had fallen from his former place?
What the Mockery Touched
Job has just described his own kindness to the helpless. Now the same people appear again, and his tone has changed:
Samuel RidoutJob's words about his former greatness described his generous pity for the wretched outcasts he comforted and cheered. Coming to the present, he seems to have changed places with these people, or people like them. Now he speaks of them not with sympathy but with the deepest contempt… But in Job there is no turning to God under such unjust treatment. Clearly his deepest mental suffering is the wound to his pride, when such a rabble mocks him.
The Hand He Could Not Ignore
The mockery is only the surface. Underneath it Job traces everything back to God, and that is what he cannot bear:
William KellyNone was so low that he could not look at Job with derision and scorn… But a deeper and more constant sorrow weighed on him. He could not shut out the harrowing conviction that his endless suffering in the body came from the hand of God — the very One from whom he might have expected compassion. Now he had to give up all hope of relief or rescue from above. He gave up hope, too, of even the most ordinary sympathy from people who are quick to feel for the misery of others.
Another Sufferer, Another Spirit
One commentator sets Job's anger beside the meekness of Christ under similar treatment:
Samuel RidoutScorn them as he may, Job has to admit that he is mocked by them, that he is their song and their byword. We can only compare his anger at their taunts with the meekness of Him "who when He was reviled, did not revile in return; when He suffered, He did not threaten"… He answered like one who did not hear: "I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting" (Isa. 50:6). Who said this? Not a man lamenting his lost grandeur. This was One who had given up His glory by His own choice, out of love for His enemies. He could have freed Himself from His troubles at any moment.
Loss Is Not Yet Blessing
Job has lost his standing and discovered how shallow people's respect was. That discovery, by itself, does not heal anything:
C. H. MackintoshMuch more is needed than the stripping away of self and the discovery that the world is hollow and deceitful. A person may go through all of this, and the result be nothing but frustration and disappointment. Indeed it can be nothing more if God is not reached. If the heart does not find all its satisfaction in God, a reversal of fortune leaves it desolate… Once Job got into God's presence, the self-absorption of chapter 29 and the bitterness of chapter 30 came to an end.
Summary
- Driven out. The mockers are men hooted at like thieves, living in gullies, holes and rocks — the lowest of the low in Job's world.
- Driven down. Job has changed places with them. The sting is not the pain but the shame — wounded pride is his deepest suffering.
- Driven aside. Job writes them off as sons of vile men, never asking whether God can save such people — and He can, and often does.
- Driven to despair. Behind the jeering Job sees God's hand, and gives up hope of any help from above.
- Driven to God. Loss alone only makes a person bitter. Only God Himself satisfies the heart — and in His presence Job's self-praise and bitterness end.