Bible Strands
Job 30:4
They plucked mallow among the shrubs, and the roots of the broom tree were their food.
Berean Standard Bible
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Study note
Setting — Job addresses his friends during his lament, describing the degraded conditions of the marginalized who survive in the desolate wasteland. He places himself among those banished and scorned, eating what grows wild in the barren ground.
The words — מַלּ֣וּחַ (ma.Lu.ach) translates literally as mallow, while רְתָמִ֣ים (re.ta.Mim) means broom plants, both referring to the scavenged vegetation that sustains the hungry.
The thread — The motif of desperate famine food appears in Luke 15:16, where the prodigal son longs for the pods the pigs ate, and in 2 Kings 4:38, where a famine forces the sons of the prophets to gather wild provisions.
Why it lands — The text demands recognition that dignity is stripped away by starvation, leaving only survival. It asks the reader to confront the physical reality of poverty without romanticizing the suffering.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
Who cut up mallows by the bushes, and juniper roots for their meat.
Cross-references
- Luke 15:16 He longed to fill his belly with the pods the pigs were eating, but no one would give him a thing.
- 2 Kings 4:38 When Elisha returned to Gilgal, there was a famine in the land. As the sons of the prophets were sitting at his feet, he said to his attendant, “Put on the large pot and boil some stew for the sons of the prophets.”
- Amos 7:14 “I was not a prophet,” Amos replied, “nor was I the son of a prophet; rather, I was a herdsman and a tender of sycamore-fig trees.