Among the bushes they bray: bushes translates the same word used in verse 4. Bray translates the same verb used in 6.5, “Does the wild ass bray when he has grass?” Bray represents the noise made by a donkey. Bray suggests these miserable people live like animals, specifically donkeys. Both Dhorme and Pope think their cries are from hunger. Good News Translation has “howled like animals.” Bible en français courant shifts this line to second position and translates “One could hear their cries from the thickets.” If necessary we may avoid naming the noise made by a specific animal by saying, for instance, “They make their cries among the bushes” or “They made noises like wild animals out in the far places.”

Under the nettles they huddle together: nettles translates a word for the kind of vegetation that grows up in deserted ruins, as expressed in Zephaniah 2.9. In Proverbs 24.31 it is said to grow on the field of the idle farmer. It may be translated specifically as “thistles” or “thorns,” or more generally as “undergrowth” or “bushes.” Huddle together depicts them pressed together, perhaps to keep warm, or from fear. “They crowd together under the bushes” or “they cling to each other under the bushes to keep warm.”

Quoted with permission from Reyburn, Wiliam. A Handbook on Job. (UBS Helps for Translators). New York: UBS, 1992. For this and other handbooks for translators see here .