[They were] children of fools
Their parents were fools, or they themselves were such; foolish
children, or foolish men, were they that derided Job; and their
derision of him was a proof of it: the meaning is not that they
were idiots, or quite destitute of reason and natural knowledge,
but that they were men of slender capacities; they were "Nabal
like", which is the word here used of them; and, indeed, it may
easily be concluded, they could not have much knowledge of men
and things, from their pedigree, education, and manner of living
before described; though rather this may signify their being
wicked men, or children of such, which is the sense of the word
"fool" frequently in the Psalms of David, and in the Proverbs of
Solomon; and men may be fools in this sense, as having no
understanding of divine and spiritual things, who yet have wit
enough to do evil, though to do good they have no knowledge:
yea, children of base men,
or "men without a name" F19; a kind without fame, Mr. Broughton
renders it; an infamous generation of men, famous for nothing;
had no name for blood, birth, and breeding; for families, for
power and authority among men, having no title of honour or of
office; nor for wealth, wisdom, nor strength, for which some have
a name; but these men had no name but an ill one, for their folly
and wickedness; had no good name, were of no credit and
reputation with men; and perhaps, strictly and literally
speaking, were without a name, being a spurious and bastardly
breed; or living solitary in woods and deserts, in cliffs and
caves; they belonged not to any tribe or nation, and so bore no
name:
they are viler than the earth;
on which they trod, and who are unworthy to tread upon it; and
out of which their vile bodies were made, and yet were viler than
that which is the basest of the elements, being most distant from
heaven, the throne of God F20; they were not so valuable
as some parts of the earth, the gold and silver, but were as vile
as the dross of the earth, and viler than that; they were crushed
and bruised, and "broken" more than the earth, as the word
F21 signifies; they were as small and
as contemptible as the dust of the earth and the mire of the
streets, and more so; or than the men of the earth, as Aben Ezra
observes, than the meanest and worst, and vilest of men: Mr.
Broughton renders it, "banished from the earth"; smitten,
stricken, and driven out of the land where they had dwelt, (
Job 30:5 ) ;
whipped out of it, as some translate the word F23, as
vagabonds; as a lazy, idle, pilfering set of people, not fit to
be in human society; and by such base, mean, lowly people, were
Christ and his apostles ill treated; see ( Matthew
23:33 ) ( Matthew
27:27 Matthew
27:39 Matthew
27:44 ) ( Acts 17:5 ) .
F19 (Mv ylb) "absque nomine", Pagninus, Montanus, Vatablus; so Beza, Mercerus, Piscator, Drusius, Michaelis, Cocceius.
F20 See Weemse's Observat. Natural. c 3.
F21 (wakn) "contriti", Montanus, Bolducius; so the Targum.
F23 "Flagellati", Schultens.