Job 30:13

They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no helper.

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(13) They have no helper—i.e., probably without deriving therefrom any help or advantage themselves.

Benson Commentary

Job 30:13. They mar my path — Or, rather, dig up my path. As I am in great misery, so they endeavour to stop all my ways out of it, and to frustrate all my counsels and methods for obtaining relief and comfort. The allusion to a place besieged is still carried on; the besiegers of which strive to cut off all communication of the besieged with the country around. Or, the sense may be, they pervert all my ways, putting perverse and false constructions on them, censuring my conscientious discharge of my duty to God and men as nothing but craft and hypocrisy. They set forward my calamity — Increasing it by bitter taunts, invectives, and censures. But יעילו, jognilu, may be rendered, They profit by, or are pleased with, my calamity. Heath reads this and the next clause, They triumph in my calamity: there is none who helpeth me against them.

Matthew Henry's Concise 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.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

They mar my path - They break up all my plans. Perhaps here, also, the image is taken from war, and Job may represent himself as on a line of march, and he says that this rabble comes and breaks up his path altogether. They break down the bridges, and tear up the way, so that it is impossible to pass along. His plans of life were embarrassed by them, and they were to him a perpetual annoyance.

They set forward my calamity - Luther renders this part of the verse, "It was so easy for them to injure me, that they needed no help." The literal translation of the Hebrew here would be, "they profit for my ruin;" that is, they bring as it were profit to my ruin; they help it on; they promote it. A similar expression occurs in Zechariah 1:15, "I was but a little displeased, and they helped forward the afliction;" that is, they aided in urging it forward. The idea here is, that they hastened his fall. Instead of assisting him in any way, they contributed all they could to bring him down to the dust.

They have no helper - Very various interpretations have been given of this phrase. It may mean, that they had done this alone, without the aid of others; or that they were persons who were held in abhorrence, and whom no one would assist; or that they were worthless and abandoned persons. Schultens has shown that the phrase, "one who has no helper," is proverbial among the Arabs, and denotes a worthless person, or one of the lowest class. In proof of this, he quotes the Hamasa, which he thus translates, Videmus vos ignobiles, pauperes, quibus nullus ex reliquis hominibus adjutor. See, also, other similar expressions quoted by him from Arabic writings. The idea here then is, probably, that they were so worthless and abandoned that no one would help them - an expression denoting the utmost degradation.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

13. Image of an assailed fortress continued. They tear up the path by which succor might reach me.

set forward—(Zec 1:15).

they have no helper—Arabic proverb for contemptible persons. Yet even such afflict Job.

Matthew Poole's Commentary

As I am in great misery, so they endeavour to stop all my ways out of it, and to frustrate all my counsels and courses of obtaining relief or comfort. And although Job had no hopes of a temporal deliverance or restitution, yet he could not but observe and resent the malice of those who did their utmost to hinder it. Or the sense is, They pervert all my ways, putting perverse and false constructions upon them, censuring all my conscientious discharges of my duty to God and men, as nothing but craft and hypocrisy.

They set forward my calamity; increasing it by their bitter taunts, and invectives, and censures. Or, they profit by, or are pleased and satisfied with, my calamity. It doth them good at the heart to see me in misery.

They have no helper: this is added as an aggravation of their malice; they impudently persisted in their malicious designs against me, though none encouraged or assisted them therein. Or, even they who had no helper, who were themselves in a forlorn and miserable condition; and yet they could so far forget or overlook their own calamities as to take pleasure in mine.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

They mar my path,.... Hindered him in the exercise of religious duties; would not suffer him to attend the ways and worship of God, or to walk in the paths of holiness and righteousness; or they reproached his holy walk and conversation, and treated it with contempt, and triumphed over religion and godliness:

they set forward my calamity; added affliction to affliction, increased his troubles by their reproaches and calumnies, and were pleased with it, as if it was profitable as well as pleasurable to them, see Zechariah 1:15;

they have no helper; either no person of note to join them, and, to abet, assist, and encourage them; or they needed none, being forward enough of themselves to give him all the distress and disturbance they could, and he being so weak and unable to resist them; nor there is "no helper against them" (q); none to take Job's part against them, and deliver him out of their hands, see Ecclesiastes 4:1.

(q) "adversus illos", Beza, Schmidt, Michaelis; so Noldius, p. 514.

Geneva Study Bible

They mar my path, they set forward my calamity, they have no {i} helper.

(i) They need no one to help them.

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

13. They mar my path] Or, they break up my path. The reference can hardly be to the path or way leading to the besieged place (Job 30:12), so that the approach of succour is cut off; if the figure be continued the path must rather be the way of escape. Perhaps the figure is departed from in this clause, and the words may be taken more generally as meaning the path of his life, which they make it impossible to go in.

set forward my calamity] i. e. help on my downfall—aggravate my afflictions and advance the issue of them.

they have no helper] Or, they who have no helper. The phrase “to have no helper” means to be one shunned and despised of all. Yet Such persons now persecute him with injurious insult. The words are an involuntary exclamation. The phrase might mean: against whom there is no helper; i. e. none to rescue Job from them, or to interfere in his behalf against them.

Pulpit Commentary

Verse 13. - They mar my path; i.e. interfere with and frustrate whatever I am bent on doing. They set forward my calamity, Professor Lee translates, "They profit by my ruin." They have no helper. If the text is sound, we must understand, "They do all this, they dare all this, even though they have no powerful men to aid them." But it is suspected that there is some corruption in the passage, and that the original gave the sense which is found in the Vulgate," There is none to help me." Job 30:13

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

13 They tear down my path,

They minister to my overthrow,

They who themselves are helpless.

14 As through a wide breach they approach,

Under the crash they roll onwards.

15 Terrors are turned against me,

They pursue my nobility like the wind,

And like a cloud my prosperity passed away. -

They make all freedom of motion and any escape impossible to him, by pulling down, diruunt, the way which he might go. Thus is נתסוּ (cogn. form of נתץ, נתע, נתשׁ) to be translated, not: they tear open (proscindunt), which is contrary to the primary signification and the usage of the language. They, who have no helper, who themselves are so miserable and despised, and yet so feelingless and overbearing, contribute to his ruin. הועיל, to be useful, to do any good,to furnish anything effective (e.g., Isaiah 47:12), is here united with ל of the purpose; comp. עזר ל, to help towards anything, Zechariah 1:15. היה (for which the Keri substitutes the primary form הוּה), as was already said on Job 6:2, is prop. hiatus, and then barathrum, pernicies, like הוּה in the signification cupiditas, prop. inhiatio. The verb הוה, Arab. hwy, also signifies delabi, whence it may be extended (vid., on Job 37:6) in like manner to the signification abyss (rapid downfall); but a suitable medium for the two significations, strong passion (Arab. hawa) and abyss (Arab. hâwije, huwwe, mahwa), is offered only by the signification of the root flare (whence hawâ, air). לא עזר למו is a genuine Arabic description of these Idumaean or Hauranite pariahs. Schultens compares a passage of the Hamsa: "We behold you ignoble, poor, laisa lakum min sâir-in-nâsi nasirun, i.e., without a helper among the rest of men." The interpretations of those who take למו for לו, and this again for לי (Eichh., Justi), condemn themselves. It might more readily be explained, with Stick.: without any one helping them, i.e., with their own strong hand; but the thought thus obtained is not only aimless and tame, but also halting and even untrue (vid., Job 19:13).