Job 30:4 In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food was the root of the broom bush.

◄ Job 30:4 ►

Parallel Verses

New International Version
In the brush they gathered salt herbs, and their food was the root of the broom bush.

English Standard Version
they pick saltwort and the leaves of bushes, and the roots of the broom tree for their food.

New American Standard Bible
Who pluck mallow by the bushes, And whose food is the root of the broom shrub.

King James Bible
Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.

Holman Christian Standard Bible
They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.

International Standard Version
"They would pluck off herbs from salt marshes to eat; and roots of the broom shrub for food.

American Standard Version
They pluck salt-wort by the bushes; And the roots of the broom are their food.

Douay-Rheims Bible
And they ate grass, and barks of trees, and the root of junipers was their food.

Darby Bible Translation
They gather the salt-wort among the bushes, and the roots of the broom for their food.

Young's Literal Translation
Those cropping mallows near a shrub, And broom-roots is their food.

Commentaries

Matthew Henry's Commentary

30:1-14 Job contrasts his present condition with his former honour and authority. What little cause have men to be ambitious or proud of that which may be so easily lost, and what little confidence is to be put in it! We should not be cast down if we are despised, reviled, and hated by wicked men. We should look to Jesus, who endured the contradiction of sinners.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown

4. mallows—rather, "salt-wort," which grows in deserts and is eaten as a salad by the poor [Maurer].

by the bushes—among the bushes.

juniper—rather, a kind of broom, Spartium junceum [Linnæus], still called in Arabia, as in the Hebrew of Job, retem, of which the bitter roots are eaten by the poor.