Introduction: From the Highest Roof to the Deepest Pit
Chapter 30 is the direct continuation of Chapter 29. There, Iyov described his former greatness and honor, and here he comes and says: let me describe to you how I fell and plummeted from the highest roof to the deepest pit. The entire chapter depicts a complete reversal: one before whom elders once stood has now become an object of ridicule to the dregs of society, and one whose garments were majesty is now clothed in dust and ashes.
Pasuk 1: The Mockery of the Youth
וְעַתָּה שָׂחֲקוּ עָלַי צְעִירִים מִמֶּנִּי לְיָמִים אֲשֶׁר מָאַסְתִּי אֲבוֹתָם לָשִׁית עִם כַּלְבֵי צֹאנִי׃ - But now those younger than I mock me, whose fathers I would have disdained to put with the dogs of my flock.
In the past, even aged men would rise and stand before me, refusing to sit until I sat down. And today - youths younger than me, mere children, mock me. And not just any youths, but those whose fathers I disdained even to place alongside the dogs of my flock.
The Yalkut expounds here: "But now those younger than I mock me" - Iyov was saying to Elifaz: Are you not the son of Esav? Had your father stood and asked me to feed him along with my dogs, I would have rejected him and not accepted him. That is to say, even as an animal, even to feed him together with my dogs, I would not have agreed to sustain your father - and now you come and laugh at me? And this is what his companions answered him when he argued that he was an elder: "Both the gray-haired and the aged are among us" - we too have elders and aged men; do not lecture us, and do not think you impress us.
The Malbim adds an explanation: the youths laugh at him precisely because of this - "whose fathers I disdained." Since in the past, when their fathers came to beg him for work and sustenance, and he refused even to place them with the dogs of his flock, the sons now found an opportunity to take revenge on him: You refused to sustain our father even with your dogs, and now our hour has come. In a sense, they found an opportunity to collect their debt.
Pesukim 2-4: Who These People Were
גַּם כֹּחַ יְדֵיהֶם לָמָּה לִּי עָלֵימוֹ אָבַד כָּלַח׃ - Even the strength of their hands, of what use was it to me? In them vigor has perished.
I rejected not only the fathers, but even the physical strength of the youths themselves. Although they are young and could work with their hands, I still said: Of what use are they to me? I did not want them even to guard my sheep. And why? "In them vigor has perished" - their strength was gone.
בְּחֶסֶר וּבְכָפָן גַּלְמוּד הַעֹרְקִים צִיָּה אֶמֶשׁ שׁוֹאָה וּמְשֹׁאָה׃ הַקֹּטְפִים מַלּוּחַ עֲלֵי שִׂיחַ וְשֹׁרֶשׁ רְתָמִים לַחְמָם׃ - In want and in famine, solitary, fleeing into the parched wasteland, into gloom, ruin, and desolation; who pluck mallow from bushes, and whose bread is the root of the broom tree.
They always suffered from want and hunger, and they always lived solitary lives - isolated, separated from human society, and through this their strength and vigor were lost. "Fleeing into the parched wasteland" - they would wander continuously in the desert and the darkness; emesh denotes darkness and the watches of the night, as in "and He rebuked [him] yesterday night." Places of ruin and desolation, desolate regions where nothing grows, bearing neither fruits nor human inhabitants.
And what was their food? A mixture of shrub leaves and broom roots - broom, as the Gemara mentions regarding "coals of broom wood" (gachalei retamim). The poorest possible food, literal beast fodder, eaten by people who dwell in the wilderness. And malu'ach - some say it refers to something salty, while others explain it as related to memulach tehor kodesh ("well-blended, pure and holy"), meaning thoroughly mixed. This is also the reason sailors are called malahim in Hebrew: they churn and mix the water with their oars. In other words, their food was a crude mixture of bush leaves and broom roots.
Verses 5-8: Driven from Society
מִן גֵּו יְגֹרָשׁוּ יָרִיעוּ עָלֵימוֹ כַּגַּנָּב׃ - They are driven out from society; people shout after them as after a thief.
Whenever they arrived in a town, people would drive them away and raise a hue and cry after them, as if thieves had entered the city. The townsfolk would shout at them: "Get out of here!" Iyov is illustrating his point: look at the vile people who mock me today! Outcasts who live in the wilderness, whose food is animal fodder, and who were driven off whenever they approached human settlement.
בַּעֲרוּץ נְחָלִים לִשְׁכֹּן חֹרֵי עָפָר וְכֵפִים׃ בֵּין שִׂיחִים יִנְהָקוּ תַּחַת חָרוּל יְסֻפָּחוּ׃ - To dwell in the ravines of the wadis, in holes of the earth and in rocks. Among the bushes they bray; under the nettles they huddle together.
This was how the townsfolk would shout at them: "Do not come into the city! Go live in the ravines of the wadis, in dirt holes and rocky crevices" - rocky hollows or crags. "Go stay among the bushes, and under the thorn bushes - that is your dwelling place."
בְּנֵי נָבָל גַּם בְּנֵי בְלִי שֵׁם נִכְּאוּ מִן הָאָרֶץ׃ - Children of scoundrels, even nameless folk; they were beaten out of the land.
And why were they treated this way? Because they are the offspring of scoundrels and nameless men: their parents have no standing in the community, being utterly unknown and undistinguished. Alternatively, it may mean that no one even knew who their parents were - "nameless sons." Therefore, they were nik'u min ha'aretz - either in the sense of being broken-spirited (necheh ru'ach), or in the sense of being crushed and driven out from the land, as society refused to allow them to integrate with civilized people.
Verses 9-11: And These Are the Mockers
וְעַתָּה נְגִינָתָם הָיִיתִי וָאֱהִי לָהֶם לְמִלָּה׃ - And now I have become their song, and I am a byword to them.
After Iyov describes the degraded state of these people, he comes to his main grievance: and now they compose mocking songs about me. Until now, they had no voice, being completely alienated from society; now they have found someone they can belittle. "I have become their song" - they sing about me, chatter about me, and finally have a topic of conversation.
תִּעֲבוּנִי רָחֲקוּ מֶנִּי וּמִפָּנַי לֹא חָשְׂכוּ רֹק׃ כִּי יִתְרִי פִתַּח וַיְעַנֵּנִי וְרֶסֶן מִפָּנַי שִׁלֵּחוּ׃ - They loathe me, they distance themselves from me, and do not hold back from spitting in my presence. For He has loosed my cord and humbled me, so they cast off all restraint before me.
They despise me, keep their distance from me, and even spit in my face. Yitri ("my cord") is related to meitar (a bowstring or cord), as we find with Shimshon: "If they bind me with seven fresh cords (yitarim)" - for prisoners were bound with cords. Pitach does not mean opening or loosening as one might think, but rather, as the Malbim explains, like pituchei chotam (engravings of a seal), something engraved: He engraved these cords upon me to bind me and afflict me.
"And cast off the bridle before me" - in the past, they wore a bridle before me; they were restrained by their awe of me, but now they have cast off the bridle. Thus, an entirely reversed situation has emerged: I used to be free while they were restrained, and now I am the one bound and imprisoned, while they are unbridled, allowing themselves to say whatever enters their minds against me.
Verses 12-14: Ruffians Rise Against Me
עַל יָמִין פִּרְחַח יָקוּמוּ רַגְלַי שִׁלֵּחוּ וַיָּסֹלּוּ עָלַי אָרְחוֹת אֵידָם׃ - Upon my right hand rises the rabble; they thrust away my feet, and cast up against me their paths of destruction.
Now ruffians and youths stand at my right. Pirchach (rabble) - either from the word efro'ach (a fledgeling chick), someone who has barely begun to sprout and is still immature; or from the connotation of a leper, upon whom tzara'as "blossoms" (porechat), which is an expression of degradation. And those who rose against me are the very people whom "my feet cast away" - whom until now, whenever I saw them in civilized society, I would drive out into the wilderness.
"And cast up against me their paths of destruction (eidam)" - eid denotes ruin and calamity. The calamity that had once been theirs, when they were cast out and despised by mankind, they have now paved upon me: today I am the outcast, today I am the one banished from human company in their stead. In this way, my situation has been completely overturned from the honor I once held to the depth of degradation.
נָתְסוּ נְתִיבָתִי לְהַוָּתִי יֹעִילוּ לֹא עֹזֵר לָמוֹ׃ - They have broken down my path; they profit from my ruin, with none to help them.
Even those whom I thought would benefit me against my calamity (havati) - against my ruin - namely my friends, whom I believed would assist me when they saw my downfall, not only fail to help, but "they broke down my path" (natsu netivati), like natzu, meaning tearing down and destroying. I have a path - a way of righteousness and fear of Hashem - and not only did they not vindicate me, but they demolished my path, telling me: "You are wicked; you committed sins in secret; you are not the righteous man you claim to be." They robbed me of my honor. "There is no helper among them" (lo ozer lamo) - none of them comes to assist me; they have turned into my enemies.
כְּפֶרֶץ רָחָב יֶאֱתָיוּ תַּחַת שֹׁאָה הִתְגַּלְגָּלוּ׃ - They come as through a wide breach; amid the devastation they roll onward.
They come upon me like a breach of water, like a mighty torrent, and like the desolation of a dark storm cloud. This is a metaphor for the torrent of words from Iyov's companions: until now I had light and sunshine, and they come like a cloud obscuring the sun; and not only that, but a cloudburst pours down from it like a flood. In other words, they have both darkened my sun and their words are like a deluge threatening to drown me.
Verse 15: The Wind That Works Two Opposites
הָהְפַּךְ עָלַי בַּלָּהוֹת תִּרְדֹּף כָּרוּחַ נְדִבָתִי וּכְעָב עָבְרָה יְשֻׁעָתִי׃ - Terrors are turned upon me; they pursue my nobility like the wind, and my salvation has passed away like a cloud.
The parable of the cloud continues: the cloud is carried by the wind; the wind brings the clouds, and the wind carries them away. And behold, that very same wind does two contradictory things to me, and both are terrible. On the one hand, it brings upon me the cloud that darkens my sun and pours down a rain of afflictions; and on the other hand, "it pursues my soul like the wind" - my soul, which is so close to me, it seeks to distance and banish from me. What is near, it drives away, and what is far, it draws close. This is the meaning of "Terrors are turned upon me." "And my salvation passes away like a cloud" - the affliction hanging over my head ensures that I have no salvation; rather, my salvation has vanished like a cloud swept away by the wind.
Verses 16-17: The Days Hold and the Night Pierces
וְעַתָּה עָלַי תִּשְׁתַּפֵּךְ נַפְשִׁי יֹאחֲזוּנִי יְמֵי עֹנִי׃ לַיְלָה עֲצָמַי נִקַּר מֵעָלָי וְעֹרְקַי לֹא יִשְׁכָּבוּן׃ - And now my soul pours out upon me; days of affliction seize me. By night my bones are pierced from upon me, and my throbbing veins find no rest.
My soul pours out upon me like water pouring down from the clouds. The parable here is: the days hold him fast, and the night pierces his bones - just as when, Heaven forbid, two people set out to beat someone, one holds him so he cannot flee while the other rains blows upon him.
And the lesson of the parable: If it were always night - for suffering intensifies at night - I would have died long ago. What restores my strength is the day; the daytime arrives and heals. Just as we know, lehavdil, regarding prisoners who were detained and tortured to extract confessions under interrogation, where a doctor was always present: they would torture the prisoner until he reached a critical state, nurse him back to health, and once revived, begin torturing him anew, lest they lose him altogether. Such is my reality: were it always night, I would have perished from the sheer agony of my suffering. But the Holy One, blessed be He, brings me daytime, and the day keeps me alive - so that by the next night, there is once again room to inflict more torment, and the cycle repeats itself. This is the meaning of "days of affliction seize me" - the days hold me fast and give me strength, so that "by night my bones are pierced from upon me."
"And my pulses do not rest" - the orkim are the sinews, the blood vessels. They never rest: when a person is under stress or running a fever, his heart beats rapidly and his blood races. So too, my veins are constantly racing from the unrelenting strain under which I live.
Verses 18-19: Dust and Ashes as Garments
בְּרָב כֹּחַ יִתְחַפֵּשׂ לְבוּשִׁי כְּפִי כֻתָּנְתִּי יַאַזְרֵנִי׃ הֹרָנִי לַחֹמֶר וָאֶתְמַשֵּׁל כֶּעָפָר וָאֵפֶר׃ - With great force my garment is disfigured; it binds me like the collar of my tunic. He has cast me into the mire, and I have become like dust and ashes.
A garment girds a person and encircles him like a belt around his loins. And what has become my garment and my tunic? The dust and the ashes, for Iyov rolled his head in dust. These have literally become like clothing to me, clinging to my body like a tunic. And this garment constantly changes "with great force": at times clothed in dust, and at times in ashes. Yitchapes denotes change - it disguises and alters itself. This is "He has cast me into the mire" - Hashem has cast me down into the clay; I sit upon the earth, and at times I am compared to dust, and at times to ashes.
Verses 20-23: The Plea for Death
אֲשַׁוַּע אֵלֶיךָ וְלֹא תַעֲנֵנִי עָמַדְתִּי וַתִּתְבֹּנֶן בִּי׃ תֵּהָפֵךְ לְאַכְזָר לִי בְּעֹצֶם יָדְךָ תִשְׂטְמֵנִי׃ - I cry out to You, but You do not answer me; I stand up, and You gaze at me. You have turned cruel to me; with the strength of Your hand You oppose me.
Iyov cries out to Hashem and awaits salvation - and what is his plea? To die. Here, the halves of the verses run in parallel: the beginning of the first verse connects to the beginning of the second, and the end of the first to the end of the second. That is to say: "I cry out to You, but You do not answer me" - and what I am asking is: "Turn cruel to me!" Master of the Universe, be cruel to me at last and release me from this suffering; better my death than my life! Yet You do not grant my request; on the contrary, "I stood up, and You gaze at me" - You watch over me and guard me vigilantly so that I do not die, merely so that my days of torment and suffering will be prolonged.
'With the might of Your hand You oppose me' - exert Your hand upon me with full force, and do not give me measured afflictions that bring me to the very brink of death and stop there. Just as we saw that HaKadosh Baruch Hu told the Satan: Break the barrel and preserve its wine, 'only spare his life' (Iyov 2:6). And it is said that this was extremely difficult for the Satan - to bring Iyov to within a hairsbreadth of death without letting him fall into it, so close to death yet not dying.
תִּשָּׂאֵנִי אֶל רוּחַ תַּרְכִּיבֵנִי וּתְמֹגְגֵנִי תּוּשִׁיָּה׃ כִּי יָדַעְתִּי מָוֶת תְּשִׁיבֵנִי וּבֵית מוֹעֵד לְכָל חָי׃ - You lift me up on the wind, You make me ride upon it, and You dissolve my substance. For I know that You will return me to death, and to the house appointed for all the living.
And how will You take me? 'You lift me up on the wind' - let the parts of my body disperse, and let me be taken from the world into the wind and ascend to the heavens. 'And You dissolve my substance (*tushiyah*)' - here, *tushiyah* has the connotation of weakness, as in 'The Rock that bore you, you weakened (*teshi*)' (Devarim 32:18), in the sense of debilitation; and through this weakness my body will melt away and dissolve, and all its parts will disintegrate.
'For I know that You will return me to death' - I know that through this weakness I will ultimately reach death, which is 'the house appointed for all the living.' I have no expectation or hope of living forever; there is a place where every living being will eventually convene, which is why the cemetery is called 'the house of meeting for all the living' (*beit mo'ed lechol chai*), from the idea of assembly - in the end, everyone convenes there.
Verse 24: In the Grave There Are No More Threats
אַךְ לֹא בְעִי יִשְׁלַח יָד אִם בְּפִידוֹ לָהֶן שׁוּעַ׃ - Surely He will not stretch out His hand into the grave; if in his ruin there is salvation.
'Into the ruin (*be'i*)' - from the word for ruins (*iyim*), referring to the grave. 'He will stretch out a hand' - once a person is buried, he is already safe from death; one can no longer threaten him with dying, nor can one threaten to take him from the world, for he is already dead and will not die again. 'If in his ruin (*fido*) there is salvation (*shua*)' - if through his ruin (*fido*, which denotes destruction, like *eido*), he finds salvation. This is Iyov's consistent argument throughout: death is not a threat to me; on the contrary, I wait and yearn for Hashem to take me, for my life is far more painful than death. And when I reach the grave, no hand can be stretched out against me any longer, and in my ruin I will find my salvation.
Verses 25-27: Did I Not Weep for the Hard-Pressed?
אִם לֹא בָכִיתִי לִקְשֵׁה יוֹם עָגְמָה נַפְשִׁי לָאֶבְיוֹן׃ - Did I not weep for him whose day was hard? Was not my soul grieved for the needy?
Iyov asks in wonder: Did I not weep for someone I saw was hard-pressed by misfortune? Did my soul not grieve for the needy, did I not share in his distress? If so, why have I been punished like this?
כִּי טוֹב קִוִּיתִי וַיָּבֹא רָע וַאֲיַחֲלָה לְאוֹר וַיָּבֹא אֹפֶל׃ - For when I hoped for good, evil came; and when I waited for light, darkness arrived.
I always sought only good for others, I always hoped for good - so why then did evil come? I always hoped that everyone would have light, and instead darkness and gloom arrived. Why do I deserve the trouble and agony that I suffer today?
מֵעַי רֻתְּחוּ וְלֹא דָמּוּ קִדְּמֻנִי יְמֵי עֹנִי׃ - "My innards churned and were not silent; days of affliction confronted me."
"My innards churned" - there is within me a kind of internal fever, illness, and a burning fire deep inside. "Days of affliction confronted me" - days of suffering and anguish from overwhelming misery and distress, and this without relief. Sometimes a person endures suffering, but the suffering is temporary and passes; whereas here, "and were not silent" - without silence, without pause or cessation, but relentlessly without any break.
Verses 28-29: An Unheard Cry
קֹדֵר הִלַּכְתִּי בְּלֹא חַמָּה קַמְתִּי בַקָּהָל אֲשַׁוֵּעַ׃ - "I walked blackened without the sun; I stood up in the assembly to cry out."
I reached a state where I walked blackened and darkened, as one who darkens from the sun - even though no sun had tanned me. And then I rose to cry out in a great assembly, in public, and began to weep over my bitter lot.
אָח הָיִיתִי לְתַנִּים וְרֵעַ לִבְנוֹת יַעֲנָה׃ - "I became a brother to jackals, and a companion to ostriches."
And instead of encouraging me and comforting me, I seemed in their eyes like a jackal and like ostriches, whose nature is always to wail. In simple terms: no one paid attention to my weeping and my cry. They said: here is Iyov the complainer again, who constantly says how bad and bitter things are for him, what was done to him and taken from him. No one took my pain seriously, nor the cry that I voiced in the assembly.
Verses 30-31: The Harp Turned to Mourning
עוֹרִי שָׁחַר מֵעָלָי וְעַצְמִי חָרָה מִנִּי חֹרֶב׃ - "My skin grew black upon me, and my bones burned from heat."
His skin turned black from the multitude of troubles. Here too, the clauses of the verses parallel each other, as we have explained several times: the beginning of this verse corresponds to the beginning of the previous verse, and its end corresponds to the other's end. Thus we read it this way: "I became a brother to jackals - my skin grew black upon me," meaning I was like a jackal in its wailing and in the darkness of its skin. "And a companion to ostriches - and my bones burned from heat," meaning I was a companion to ostriches in that I wailed over my afflictions, and I also resembled them in that ostriches dwell in deserts; therefore, "my bones burned," an expression of burning and parching from intense drought, like ostriches in the desert whose skin dries out from the aridity.
וַיְהִי לְאֵבֶל כִּנֹּרִי וְעֻגָבִי לְקוֹל בֹּכִים׃ - "My harp was turned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of weepers."
The harp and the flute are musical instruments of joy; yet my harp turned to playing melodies of mourning, and my flute became like the sound of weepers. And in this very matter I resembled jackals and ostriches, as I began to sound mournful melodies over the magnitude of my sorrow and disaster.
In summary:
In Chapter 30, Iyov depicts the total reversal he has experienced: the man before whom elders once stood has become a song and a byword on the lips of vile and nameless men, base outcasts whose fathers he would not have deigned even to set with the dogs of his flock. He describes their wretchedness - dwelling in the desert, eating leaves of bushes and broom roots, driven away from all civilized society - to illustrate just how far he has fallen: now their path of ruin is cast up against him, their bridle is loosed while he is bound and trapped. His companions, too, whom he hoped would help him in his ruin, broke down his path and surged upon him like a breach and a torrential storm. From this point onward, he pours out his soul: the days take hold of him only so that the night can continue to bore into his bones; his clothing is dust and ashes, and he cries out for a harsh end that would release him from his suffering - yet he is not answered. And finally, his great plea: Did I not weep for the unfortunate and grieve for the needy? I hoped for good and waited for light - why then has my harp turned to mourning, and my flute to the sound of weepers?