Job 30: Riff-raff rule the roost – persecution for His Name’s sake.

1: And now, those younger in years than me, whose fathers I had covenantally-rejected to put with my dogs, my flock,  derisively-laugh at me.  

2: Indeed for what is the endurance-strength of their hands to me? Their vigor is lost,

3:   in poverty and in hunger, barren, ones who gnawed  drought, yesterday’s ravage and waste (shova and shoa).

4: ones who pluck/forage a salt tolerant plant over a bush, a broom root – their bread,

5: driven out from the back, causing them to be called out as a thief,

6: to lodge by a ravine, streams, holes, dust and hollowed rocks.

7: They bray among shrubs. They stick under chickpea weeds.

8: Indeed, sons of a fool, sons of a failed name. They had been expelled from the land.

9: And now I had happened to be their guitar-song, I happen to be for their speech.

10: Still they had despised me and had kept distance

and they had not restrained spit in my face.

11: For he opened up my remains and he oppressed

and they had sent a muzzle on my face.

12: At my right hand, their brood stands up and had despatched my feet and they heap up paths of calamity against me.

13: They tore down my beaten track and cause to promote my craving. No helper are they.

14:  They come as a broad breach below a devastation which had made itself roll away.

15: Calamities were thrown over me. They pursue my nobility  like wind.

And my Jesus crossed over like a cloud.

16: And now my soul is poured out over me  and I seize days of oppression. 

17: My bones were pierced at night within me and gnawers still do not lie down

18: caused by enduring force to search my clothes as the opening of my shirt surrounds me.

19: I was caused to be shot into the mire and I make myself like dust and (am) dust.

20:  I cry-out-for -help to You and You do not reply me. I had stood up and You make yourself discern me.

21: You turn to cruelty  for me. To the bones of Your hand you begrudge me.

22: You lift me up and cause me to mount-and-ride a wind. You melt my substance.

23: For I know that You will cause to turn me back from death and an appointed-time (Moed) in a house for all living. 

24: Surely He does not send forth a hand to a heap of ruins if they cry-out-for-help in catastrophe.

25: If I had not wept for a severe day, my soul grieved for a beggar,

26: I waited for good – and troublesome-evil traverses.

And I wait for light – and gloom traverses.

27: My gut wrenched and I had not been dumb. Days of oppression had confronted me.

28: I walked darkening in sun. I had stood in a congregation and cry-out-for-help.

29: I had happened to be brother of jackals, a friend of daughters of ostriches. (why do tanim (8577) and yanah (3284) also occur together in Job 30:29, Is 13:22, 34:13, 43:20, Micah 1:8? Why do banoth (1323) and yanah (3284) occur only together in Lev 11:16, Deut 14:15, Job 30:29, Isaiah 13:22, 34:13, 43:20, Jer 50:39, Micah 1:8? And always inrelationship.to a day of God’s Judgement)

30: My black skin falls off me and my bones had burnt with heat.

31:  And it happens that my harp and flute is of lamentation, of a weepers’ voice. 

Prayer:

O Lord, what is the reward in heaven that we can hope to see when we are persecuted for Your Name’s sake (Matt 5:11)? Like Job, we think it is a day of judgement and lament and grieve when You cross over us like a cloud (v15).  Please turn us back from death and give us an appointment with You to mount and ride up with The Spirit (v22).