Job 30:5

5 They are driven from the community. People shout at them in the same way they shout 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 Shriveled up from need and hunger, they gnaw at the dry and barren ground during the night.

4 They pick saltwort from the underbrush, and the roots of the broom plant are their food.

5 They are driven from the community. People shout at them in the same way they shout at thieves.

6 They have to live in dry riverbeds, in holes in the ground, and among rocks.

7 They howl in bushes and huddle together under thornbushes.