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But now [they that are] younger than I have me in derision, whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock.

But now they that are younger than I have me in derision — Id quod ei morbo suo longe gravius fuerit, sicut et Hebraei testantur, saith Mercer. This troubled him much more than all his sores and sicknesses; that every young shackrag slighted him, and laughed him to scorn. In this case especially,

• Faciles motus mens generosa capit (Ovid).

You shall find some, saith Erasmus, that if death be threatened, can despise it; but to be despised or belied they cannot brook; but least of all by base persons: Quilibet ab aquila quam corvo discerpi mavult. Job was now grown ancient, and had been honourable, as he had set forth, Job 29:1-25 . Old age and honour, in the Greek tongue, are near akin, Cognata sunt, γηρας et γερας , ut ηθος et εθος ; and,

Inque sue precio ruga senilis erat.

But it is a sign of gasping devotion, and that things are far out of order, when the child behaveth himself proudly against the ancient, and the base against the honourable, Isaiah 3:5 , as at Bethel, where those poorly bred children derided the old prophet, and petulantly cried after him, "Go up, thou bald head; go up, thou bald head," 2 Kings 2:23 . If the like unworthy usage befall us, let it suffice us that our betters, Job, David, Christ himself, have sped no better. Art not thou glad to fare as Phocion? said he to a lowly man that was to die with him.

Whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the dogs of my flock — i.e. To have made my dog keepers, that they might feed with them, as the prodigal son did with the swine. Dogs are commonly looked upon as paltry carrion creatures; only some, for their mind’s sake, and others, for certain necessary uses, as shepherds and hunters, make some reckoning of them. It was not permitted to a dog to enter into the Acropolis, or tower of Athens, for his libidinousness and ill savour, δια του ακολαστου και δυσωδους (Plut.). At Rome they crucified a dog yearly, in detestation of those dogs in the capitol that gave not warning of the approach of an enemy. Job, it seems, had his dog feeders, men of meanest account. Now these men’s sons, a beggarly breed, and very rascals, insulted and trampled upon this precious man, dealt as basely and coarsely with him, haply, as those factious fellows in Geneva did with reverend Calvin; whom they not only in contempt called Cain (as Athanasius was sometimes by his enemies called Sathanasius; and Cyprian, Coprian, that is, a dunghill fellow), but also named their dogs Calvin, as Beza, in his Life, reporteth.

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Yea, whereto [might] the strength of their hands [profit] me, in whom old age was perished?

Yea, whereto might the strength of their hands profit me — For, to say the truth (thus Beza here paraphraseth), the strength of those young striplings could not have stood me in any stead at all; and as for the old age of their fathers, it were such, that, having spent the greatest and best part of their life partly in idleness, and partly in divers wicked and lewd pranks, they might worthily seem to have lived in vain all that while. Thus he. The Greeks say, Eργα νεων , and the Latins, Iuniores ad labores, young men are fit for hard labour, because strong and lusty. But these Sanuiones in the text were, through idleness, mere nullities in the world, superfluities in the earth, Jeremiah’s rotten girdle, good for nothing but to devour victuals; vermin, apes, monkeys, their whole life was to eat and drink (when they could come by it), and sleep, and sport, and fleer, jeer at God’s afflicted, with words as full of scorn as profane wit or rancoured malice can make them. These are excrements in human society; pests, the Scripture styleth them, Psalms 1:1 ( λοιμοι . Septuag.).

In whom old age was perished? — Their fathers also were old dottrels, in ipsa senectute, senectute carentes, old, but not wise (Moriae Encore.); like the Brabanti, who are said to be the older the foolisher. Some men live long, but are good for little. Non ille diu vixit, sed diu fuit, saith Seneca of somebody, He hath not lived long, but only been long; as a ship in a storm, he hath been tossed much, but sailed nothing. Those old men who have not gotten wisdom by long experience are not worthy of their years; their old age is perished, and their honour forfeited. The Vulgate rendereth it, They were reckoned unworthy of life itself: Depontani.

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For want and famine [they were] solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.

For want and famine they were solitary — Miserably poor they were, and nittily needy; scarce having a rag to their backs, and, therefore, ashamed to show themselves in company of others, propter penuriam, et propter esuriem, they lurked in bycorners, and seldom came abroad, unless when hard hunger drove the wolf out of the wood. Slow bellies they had ever been, and evil beasts, fitter, therefore, to live in the wilderness, in former time desolate and waste, than in a civil society; or, if in any place, at Poneropolis, a city built by Philip, king of Macedonia, for varlets and vagrants, and with such kind of persons peopled; that they might not pester other places. Job would have none such about him; and was, therefore, haply, now in this low condition, so much hated and affronted by them.

In former time desolate and waste — And so perhaps haunted by the devil, as Isaiah 13:20-21 . Brentius rendereth it, Hesternam pressuram et consternationem, yesterday’s pressures and fright; that is, saith he, The creditor’s eagerness to be satisfied, which frighteth these wretches, and putteth them to their work.

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Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots [for] their meat.

Who cut up mallows by the bushes — Pitiful poor fare they are glad of; not so good as that of the Baptist, locusts and wild honey, Matthew 3:4 , but mallows, which, together with asphodelus, Hesiod mentioneth as poor folk’s fare. Tremellius rendereth it, Herbas e salsilagine cum stirpibus, salt, and bitter herbs and stalks; Brentius rendereth it, nettles; some take it for samphire, which is a kind of sea mallows, or sea purslain. The Hebrew word comes from another that signifieth salt; and sounds like the Latin malva, and the English mallows. Coarse and homely provision the wretches were glad to make use of, to appease the cruel hunger that devoured them, Ut famem quoquomodo sedarent (Merc.). And this hath been sometimes the case of better men; as of those worthies, who wandered in deserts, and in mountains, in dens and caves of the earth, Hebrews 11:38 . The Duke of Lorrain had proscribed some thousands of his Protestant subjects, who were thereby forced to feed upon leaves of trees and grass of the fields, till the senate of Strasborough, overcome by the importunity of their divines, took them in, and relieved them, till they could be otherwise provided for (Scultet. Annal.). In the late wars of Germany people were found dead in the highways with grass in their mouths, perishing for want of better food.

And juniper roots for their meat — These, though they surpass all other in bitterness, were their ordinary food. Our forefathers, as they coloured their bodies with woad A blue dye-stuff prepared from the leaves of Isatis tinctoria powdered and fermented: now generally superseded by indigo, in the preparation of which it is still sometimes used. (and were, therefore, called Picts), this was their fine clothes; so their food was barks of trees, and roots, say our chroniclers. Is not the matter well amended with us? and should we not serve the Lord with joyfulness in the abundance of all things, Deuteronomy 28:47 . Lavater thinks that these poor people for a living dug up juniper roots, and sold them to others for the use of making perfume.

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They were driven forth from among [men], (they cried after them as [after] a thief;)

They were driven forth from among men — E corpore, saith Tremellius, out of the body; that is, out of the community, as not fit to live in a commonwealth. The Jews are, for their inexpiable guilt, banished out of the world, as it were, by a common consent of nations. Out of England they were exiled for ever by King Edward I, A.D. 1290; out of France, 1307; out of Spain, 1492; Portugal, 1597; Naples and Sicily, 1539. In Turkey they pay for the very heads they wear; but in Cyprus, if a Jew be taken (though driven thither by tempest), he is put to death immediately. Country they have none, nor resting place anywhere. In Jerusalem they are not to be found, at this time, a hundred households of them; indeed, in Constantinople and Thessalonica there are esteemed to be about 160,000 Jews; who yet are exceedingly condemned and hated there (Breerwood’s Inquiries); and at every Easter in danger of being stoned by the Christians, because at that time they crucified our Saviour, derided, and buffeted him (Biddulph). All this, and more, they suffer; and yet they continue, by a just judgment of God upon them, woefully hard hearted, blood thirsty, thievish, treacherous, flagitious. Howbeit there is a remnant according to the election of grace, Romans 11:5 . A.D. 1556, at Weissensten, in Germany, a Jew, for theft (they had cried after him with hue and cry, as after a thief), was in this cruel manner to be executed: he was hanged by the feet, with his head downward, between two dogs, which constantly snatched and bit at him. The strangeness of the torment moved Jacob Andreas, a grave divine, to go to behold it; coming thither, he found the poor wretch, as he hung, repeating verses out of the Hebrew psalms, wherein he cried out to God for mercy. Andreas hereupon took occasion to counsel him to trust in Jesus Christ, the true Saviour of mankind. The Jew, embracing the Christian faith, requested but this one thing, that he might be taken down, and be baptized, though presently after he were hanged again (but by the neck, as Christian malefactors suffered), which was accordingly granted him (Melch. Adam in Vit.).

They cried after them as after a thief — Presuming that, by doing nothing, they had learned to do naughtily; and that, having nothing of their own, and not willing to work, they lived by rapine and robbery. Such, therefore, as these they served as Philip of Macedonia did a couple of his idle, and therefore evil, subjects; he made the one of them run out of the country, and the other drive him. Solon made a law at Athens, that every man once a year should show the magistrates by what art or trade he maintained his family. This if he could not do to their good liking, he was presently expelled from the city. At Corinth, also, Periander ordained, That if any man spent freely, and could not make it appear that he got it honestly, he should, without further process of law, be trussed up for a thief.

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To dwell in the clifts of the valleys, [in] caves of the earth, and [in] the rocks.

To dwell in the cliffs of the valleys — Like wild beasts and serpents; which these idle persons will rather choose to do, and suffer any hardship, than labour for their livings, and do good in their places; earning it before they eat, and contributing something to the public welfare, as bees bring their honey to the common hive; this, those that will not do, are worthily cast out, and made to dwell in the cliffs, … In the time of Cato Censorius, when any one would be a citizen of Rome, they took his hand between theirs; and if it felt smooth and soft, they presently, as an idle vagabond, gave him his dimissal; but if hard and knotty, they forthwith admitted him to dwell in their city. And if a malefactor were apprehended whose hands were labouring hands, his punishment should be mitigated, though his crime were grievous; as if otherwise, a severe punishment was inflicted for a light offence.

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Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.

Among the bushes they brayed — Through grief and discontent at their low condition and many miseries; which yet they would rather bootlessly bewail than take a right course to remedy. They lust, and have not; they kill (themselves through idleness), and desire to have (if it would come without labour), but cannot obtain, James 4:2 . And hence they bray like the wild ass when empty, and roar as the lion when bitten with hunger.

Under the nettles they were gathered together — Or they were pricked, whealed, as we call it. Urtica ab urendo, they were nettle stung, while they got under those weeds for shelter and warmth. All this Job relateth of those that derided him; not to be even with them, or out of a desire to disparage them, but to aggravate the indignity of his misusage, and to comfort himself, as Seneca in like case did: Male de me loquuntur, sed mali, They speak evil of me, but who are they? base persons, and wicked above measure; and oh how easy a thing it is to wag a wicked tongue! especially when the devil hath the doing of it, as he hath in this kind of men qui revera os aperiunt, et diabolum loqui sinunt, whose mouth the devil borroweth to vent the language of hell by (Lavater).

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[They were] children of fools, yea, children of base men: they were viler than the earth.

They were children of fools, yea, children of base men — Homines flagitiosissimi, etiam homines ignominiosissimi afflictissimi erant, extorres, so Tremellius translateth; Naught all over they were, and nought esteemed; what wonder, therefore, if heavily afflicted and relegated? Their poverty was self-procured, and, therefore, unpitied; they had brought themselves into the briars, and also in their fathers’ iniquities they were pining away with them, Leviticus 26:39 . Evil eggs they were of evil birds, nihili homunciones et inglorii, as the Tigurines translate, fellows of no fashion, and as little account, terrae filii, earth sprung mushrooms, men in whom all true wisdom was faded and decayed, sapless persons, Nabals, Nebulones.

They were viler than the earth — Terra quam ferimus, terra etiam quam terimus; or, They were smitten out of the earth, driven out of the land, sc. by me when I was in power; but now these vile varlets show themselves again, and trample upon me with the feet of pride and petulancy, Leoni mortuo vel mus insultat.

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