They cried out among the shrubs and huddled beneath the nettles.
Parallel translations
- WEB Among the bushes they bray; and under the nettles they are gathered together.
- KJV Among the bushes they brayed; under the nettles they were gathered together.
- NKJV Among the bushes they brayed, Under the nettles they nestled.
- NASB “Among the bushes they cry out; Under the weeds they are gathered together.
- NLT They sound like animals howling among the bushes, huddled together beneath the nettles.
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
Among the bushes they brayed like animals and huddled under nettles.
Overview
Job likens the cries of these outcasts to the braying of wild donkeys and pictures them clustering under thornbushes. The animal imagery underscores their degraded, subhuman existence. This vivid description of their lowliness intensifies the shame Job feels at being mocked by people so despised.
Cross-references & the web
Cross-references · 3
- Job 11:12But a witless man can no more become wise than the colt of a wild donkey can be born a man!
- Job 6:5Does a wild donkey bray over fresh grass, or an ox low over its fodder?
- Gen 16:12He will be a wild donkey of a man, and his hand will be against everyone, and everyone’s hand against him; he will live in hostility toward all his brothers.”
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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 30:7 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
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