Job 30:5

5 They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as 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 are wasted for need of food, biting the dry earth; their only hope of life is in the waste land.

4 They are pulling off the salt leaves from the brushwood, and making a meal of roots.

5 They are sent out from among their townsmen, men are crying after them as thieves

6 They have to get a resting-place in the hollows of the valleys, in holes of the earth and rocks.

7 They make noises like asses among the brushwood; they get together under the thorns.