For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste. For want and famine they were solitary; fleeing into the wilderness in former time desolate and waste.
Solitary - literally, hard as a rock х galmuwd (H1565)]: translate, 'dried up,' emaciated with hunger, Job describes the rudest race of Bedouins of the desert (Umbreit).
Fleeing, х ha`orªqiym (H6207)] - so the Septuagint Better, as the Syriac, Arabic, and Vulgate, 'gnawers of the wilderness.' What they gnaw in the wilderness follows in Job 30:4.
In former time - literally, the 'yesternight of desolation and waste' (the most utter desolation, Ezekiel 6:14); i:e., those deserts, frightful as night to man by their gloom, and even there from time immemorial. I think both ideas are in the word-namely, both darkness (Gesenius) and antiquity (Umbreit). (Isaiah 30:33, margin) Hebrew, 'from yesterday' - i:e., of old.