But now [they that are] younger than I have me in
derision,
&c.] Meaning not his three friends, who were men in years,
and were not, at least all of them, younger than he, see (
Job 15:10 ) (
Job 32:6 Job 32:7 ) ; nor were they
of such a mean extraction, and such low-lived creatures, and of
such characters as here described; with such Job would never have
held a correspondence in the time of his prosperity; both they
and their fathers, in all appearance, were both great and good;
but these were a set of profligate and abandoned wretches, who,
as soon as Job's troubles came upon him, derided him, mocked and
jeered at him, both by words and gestures; and which they might
do even before his three friends came to him, and during their
seven days' silence with him, and while this debate was carrying
on between them, encouraged unto it by their behaviour towards
him; to be derided by any is disagreeable to flesh and blood,
though it is the common lot of good men, especially in poor and
afflicted circumstances, and to be bore patiently; but to be so
used by junior and inferior persons is an aggravation of it; as
Job was, even by young children, as was also the prophet Elisha,
( 2 Kings
2:23 ) ; see ( Job 19:18 ) ;
whose fathers I would have disdained to have set with the
dogs of my
flock;
either to have compared them with the dogs that kept his flock
from the wolves, having some good qualities in them which they
had not; for what more loving or faithful to their masters, or
more vigilant and watchful of their affairs? or to set them at
meat with the dogs of his flock; they were unworthy of it, though
they would have been glad of the food his dogs ate of, they
living better than they, whose meat were mallows and juniper
roots, ( Job 30:4 )
; and would have jumped at it; as the prodigal in want and
famine, as those men were, would fain have filled his belly with
husks that swine did eat; but as no man gave them to him, so Job
disdained to give the meat of his dogs to such as those; or to
set them "over" F13 the dogs of his flock, to be the
keepers of them, to be at the head of his dogs, and to have the
command of them; see the phrase in ( 2 Samuel 3:8
) ; or else to join them with his dogs, to keep his flock with
them; they were such worthless faithless wretches, that they were
not to be trusted with the care of his flock along with his dogs.
It was usual in ancient times, as well as in ours, for dogs to be
made use of in keeping flocks of sheep from beasts of prey, as
appears from Orpheus F14, Homer F15, Theocritus F16, and
other writers: and if the fathers of those that derided Job were
such mean, base, worthless creatures, what must their sons be,
inferior to them in age and honour, if any degree of honour
belonged to them?
F13 (yblk Me) "super canes", Noldius, p. 739. No. 1825.
F14 De Lapidibus, Hypoth. ver. 53, 54.
F15 Iliad. 10. (wv kunev peri mhla) v. 183. & Iliad 12. v. 303.
F16 (c' amin esti kuwn filopoimniov) Idyll. 5. v. 106. & Idyll. 6. v. 9, 10.