strike.[1]
On הארץ, of arable land in opposition to the steppe, vid., on Job 18:17.
Verses 9-12
Job 30:9-12 9 And now I am become their song,
And a by-word to them. 10 They avoid me, they flee far from me,
And spare not my face with spitting. 11 For my cord of life He hath loosed, and afflicted me,
Therefore they let loose the bridle recklessly. 12 The rabble presses upon my right hand,
They thrust my feet away,
And cast up against me their destructive ways.
The men of whom Job complains in this strophe are none other than those in the preceding strophe, described from the side of their coarse and degenerate behaviour, as Job 24:4-8 described them from the side of the wrong which was practised against them. This rabble, constitutionally as well as morally degraded, when it comes upon Job's domain in its marauding expeditions, makes sport of the sufferer, whose former earnest admonitions, given from sympathizing anxiety for them, seemed to them as insults for which they revenge themselves. He is become their song of derision (נגינתם to be understood according to the dependent passage, Lam 3:14, and Psa 69:13), and is למלּה to them, their θρύλλημα (lxx),
- ↑ The root Arab. nk is developed in Hebr. נכה, הכּה, in Arab. naka'a and nakâ, first to the idea of outward injury by striking, hewing, etc.; but it is then also transferred to other modes of inflicting injury, and in Arab. nawika, to being injured in mind. The root shows itself in its most sensuous development in the reduplicated form Arab. naknaka, to strike one with repeated blows, fig. for: to press any one hard with claims. According to another phase, the obscene Arab. nâka, fut. i, and the decent Arab. nakaḥa, signify properly to pierce. - Fl.
