Commentaries:
Barnes' Notes
They were children of fools - The word rendered "fools" nâbâl , means,
(1) stupid, foolish; and
(2) abandoned, impious; compare I Samuel 25:3, I Samuel 25:25.
Here it means the worthless, the refuse of society, the abandoned. They had no respectable parentage. Umbreit, "A brood of infamy." Coverdale, "Children of fools and villains."
Children of base men - Margin, as in Hebrew, "men of no name." They were men of no reputation; whose ancestors had in no way been distinguished; possibly meaning, also, that they herded together as beasts without even a name.
They were viler than the earth - Gesenius renders this, "They are frightened out of the land." The Hebrew word ( ) means "to chide, to upbraid," and then in the niphal "to be chidden away," or "to be driven off." The sense is, as an impious and low-born race they were driven out of the land.
Other Barnes' Notes entries containing Job 30:8:
1 Samuel 20:30
Proverbs 22:1
Daniel 11:30
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