Ayub 21:11

21:11 They allow their children to run ¹  like a flock;

their little ones dance about.

Ayub 30:4

30:4 By the brush ²  they would gather ³  herbs from the salt marshes, ⁴ 

and the root of the broom tree was their food.

Ayub 30:9

Job’s Indignities

30:9 “And now I have become their taunt song;

I have become a byword ⁵  among them.

[21:11]  ¹ tn The verb שָׁלַח (shalakh) means “to send forth,” but in the Piel “to release; to allow to run free.” The picture of children frolicking in the fields and singing and dancing is symbolic of peaceful, prosperous times.

[30:4]  ² tn Or “the leaves of bushes” (ESV), a possibility dating back to Saadia and discussed by G. R. Driver and G. B. Gray (Job [ICC], 2:209) in their philological notes.

[30:4]  ³ tn Here too the form is the participle with the article.

[30:4]  ⁴ tn Heb “gather mallow,” a plant which grows in salt marshes.

[30:9]  ⁵ tn The idea is that Job has become proverbial, people think of misfortune and sin when they think of him. The statement uses the ordinary word for “word” (מִלָּה, millah), but in this context it means more: “proverb; byword.”