They pluck salt herbs by the bushes. The roots of the broom are their food.
Parallel translations
- KJV Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.
- BSB They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.
- NKJV Who pluck mallow by the bushes, And broom tree roots for their food.
- NASB Who pluck saltweed by the bushes, And whose food is the root of the broom shrub.
- NLT They pluck wild greens from among the bushes and eat from the roots of broom trees.
Scripture taken from the New King James Version®. Copyright © 1982 by Thomas Nelson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
Scripture quotations taken from the (NASB®) New American Standard Bible®, Copyright © 1960, 1971, 1977, 1995, 2020 by The Lockman Foundation. Used by permission. All rights reserved. lockman.org
Scripture quotations are taken from the Holy Bible, New Living Translation, copyright © 1996, 2004, 2015 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers, Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.
Quick answer
They survived on salt herbs and the bitter roots of the broom plant.
Overview
Job continues describing the miserable diet of these outcasts, foraging desert plants and roots for survival. The details paint a vivid picture of people reduced to the barest subsistence. This portrait of social rejection sets up Job's complaint that such despised men now treat him with contempt.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Luke 15:16He wanted to fill his belly with the husks that the pigs ate, but no one gave him any.
- Amos 7:14Then Amos answered Amaziah, “I was no prophet, neither was I a prophet’s son; but I was a herdsman, and a farmer of sycamore figs;
- 2 Kgs 4:38–39Elisha came again to Gilgal. There was a famine in the land; and the sons of the prophets were sitting before him; and he said to his servant, “Get the large pot, and boil stew for the sons of the prophets.”
Themes, concepts, people & topics
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Christ at the center
Job's cry for a mediator who can lay his hand on both God and man, and his confidence that 'my Redeemer lives' and will stand on the earth, reaches forward to Jesus the living Redeemer.
How Job 30:4 points to him is part of the one story that runs through all Scripture — meet Jesus at the heart of the web, or follow a trail that traces him from Genesis to Revelation.
Original language
Each word below is tagged with its Strong’s number — tap one to see the underlying Hebrew word, its meaning, and every verse that uses it.