Job 30:7 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Among the bushes they brayed Like the wild asses, (Job 6:5,) for hunger or thirst. They brayed, seems to be an improper translation here; because, though נהק, nahak, signifies to bray, when applied to an ass, yet when spoken of men in difficult circumstances, as in this verse, we should rather say with the Targum and LXX., they sighed, cried out, or made their moan. So Heath and Houbigant render it. Under the nettles they were gathered The word חרול, charul, here rendered nettles, is by some translated thorns, or thistles, the nettle being too small a plant, as Bochart observes, for men to gather themselves under. Dr. Waterland, however, renders it, Among the nettles were they tormented, or burned. The meaning is, that they hid themselves under the thorns, or among the nettles, that they might not be discovered when they were sought out for justice.