Job 30:5

5 Everyone drove them away with shouts, as if they were shouting at thieves.

Job 30:5 Meaning and Commentary

Job 30:5

They were driven from among [men]
From towns and cities, and all civil society, as unfit to be among them; not for any good, it may be observed, but for crimes that they had done, like our felons, and transported persons:

they cried after them as [after] a thief;
as they were driven and run along, the people called after them, saying, there goes a thief; which they said by way of abhorrence of them, and for the shame of them, and that all might be warned and cautioned against them; and, generally speaking, such as are idle and slothful, and thereby become miserable, are pilferers and thieves.

Job 30:5 In-Context

3 They were so poor and hungry that they would gnaw dry roots - at night, in wild, desolate places.
4 They pulled up the plants of the desert and ate them, even the tasteless roots of the broom tree!
5 Everyone drove them away with shouts, as if they were shouting at thieves.
6 They had to live in caves, in holes dug in the sides of cliffs.
7 Out in the wilds they howled like animals and huddled together under the bushes.
Scripture taken from the Good News Translation - Second Edition, Copyright 1992 by American Bible Society. Used by Permission.