dog

Dogs were domesticated very early and were used for hunting and as watchdogs in the ancient world. In Egypt as early as 4000 B.C. people made pottery images that indicate that sleek fast hunting dogs were bred which looked like the modern greyhound. From Babylonian sculpture we know that around 2500 B.C. large hunting dogs that looked like the modern bull-mastiff were kept by people in the Mesopotamian civilizations.

Among the Jews however while dogs were kept mainly as watch-dogs they were held in contempt and left to feed themselves by scavenging. This habit of scavenging and the fact that dogs were possibly associated with some Egyptian gods meant that dogs were seen as very unclean animals by the Jews. The dog found in Jewish settlements in Bible times was probably the pariah dog Canis familiaris putiatini which looked something like a small light brown Alsatian or German shepherd. This type of dog in its wild and domesticated forms is found all over the Middle East and on the mainland coasts of South and Southeast Asia (where it is known as the crab-eating dog). The Australian dingo is also very similar.

Small pet dogs were kept in homes in the Greek and Roman civilizations by gentiles but not by Jews. This is probably the type of dog referred to by the Greek word kunarion in Matthew 15:26 and Mark 7:27.

[Sarah Ruden (2021, p. 27), who translates kunarion as “little doggy,” says the following: “In the entire Greek Bible, only [these two passages] use this diminutive (kunarion) of the word for ‘dog,’ a rare and largely comical word. This word choice weakens the usual sense of dogs as dirty and uncivilized and excluded from the home, much less from the table that symbolized God’s providential bounty.”]

As mentioned above dogs were held in contempt as unclean. To call someone a dog was therefore very derogatory and to refer to someone as a “dead dog” was even more so. Israelites viewed dogs as second only to pigs as unclean animals. Dogs as scavengers around the villages ate anything from household refuse to animal carcasses and human excreta. They even ate human corpses that lay unburied after battles. Furthermore the dog was possibly one of the symbols of the Egyptian god Anubis (although many modern scholars believe the symbol to be the jackal).

With all of the above in mind it is understandable that dying and then being eaten by unclean dogs was seen as the worst of all possible fates.

In the first century A.D. gentiles were considered to be unclean and were referred to by Jews in a derogatory way as “dogs.” There is therefore strong irony in the expression in Philippians 3:2 where Judaizing Christians are referred to as dogs.

One additional connotation associated with dogs in the Bible is sexual perversion and promiscuity a connotation probably arising from the fact that sexually aroused male dogs do not always differentiate between sexes as they seek to mate and the fact that dogs of both sexes mate repeatedly with different partners.

Source: All Creatures Great and Small: Living things in the Bible (UBS Helps for Translators)

complete verse (Job 30:1)

Following are a number of back-translations as well as a sample translation for translators of Job 30:1:

  • Kupsabiny: “But today people have laughed at me
    those whose fathers were nothing/useless and not worthy
    even to the point that they could go with my dogs to look after sheep.” (Source: Kupsabiny Back Translation)
  • Newari: “But now, seeing me, [those] small ones scoff and laugh at me.
    I would not even have considered their fathers worthy to be put with dogs as care-takers for my sheep.” (Source: Newari Back Translation)
  • Hiligaynon: “‘But now the people who are younger than me mock me, whose fathers are not at-all trustworthy. My dogs who guard my sheep are indeed more trustworthy than them.” (Source: Hiligaynon Back Translation)
  • English: “Then those three men stopped answering Job, because they could not convince Job that he was wrong in claiming that he had not done anything that was wrong.” (Source: Translation for Translators)

Translation commentary on Job 30:1

But now they make sport of me: verse 1 should be clearly marked as a contrast of past time in chapter 29 with present time in chapter 30. In Hebrew this verse has four lines, the first two being combined in Good News Translation. Revised Standard Version, which keeps the Hebrew form, does not name the subject until the second line. Make sport of translates the same verb which is rendered as “smiled” in 29.24. There Job “smiled” in kindness, but here Job is the object of someone’s mockery. Good News Translation has “make fun of me,” and New English Bible “laughed to scorn.” In translation we may use the same expressions for make sport of as were used for “scorn” in 16.20 and 22.19.

Men who are younger than I translates the Hebrew phrase “those smaller than I in days,” which many translate as younger. The question is how much younger? Respect for a person’s elders was expected as proper behavior. In 29.8 young men withdrew out of respect for Job. Dhorme suggests that the reference is to the mocking shouts of children, as in the case of Elisha in 2 Kings 2.23-24, and this is followed by Bible en français courant, which says “But now I am ridiculed by urchins who don’t respect my age.” Good News Translation “men younger than I” can imply that Job was making only a small distinction in age, whereas a significant age difference is intended, as is seen in the next line. Die Bibel im heutigen Deutsch says “who are much younger than I,” and Moffatt has “my juniors.”

Whose fathers I would have disdained to set with the dogs of my flock: Job is concerned not only that they are children, or at least much younger than he, but that their status is inferior. Job disdained their fathers, which in Hebrew is “whom I would have refused…”; that is, “I would not have considered letting them work with my sheepdogs.” Good News Translation and others translate this line as a fact; Revised Standard Version and many others prefer a hypothetical statement with the implied meaning “Even if someone had requested me, I would not have allowed….” Although sheepdogs were valued by shepherds (see Isa 56.9-11), they were also despised as being unclean animals that scavenged for their food (1 Kgs 14.11; 21.19, 23; Psa 68.23). To call a person a “dog” was a serious insult (1 Sam 17.43; 2 Sam 3.8; 16.9), and this is still true in Arabic today. The meaning is not that Job would have disdained to turn his dogs on these people, but that he would not have hired them do the work of a sheepdog or, as Moffatt says, “I would have scorned to trust with a sheep-dog’s task!” In languages in which sheep herding and the use of sheepdogs to keep the flock together are unknown, this line will require some adjustments. Good News Translation “I would not let them help my dogs guard sheep” may be one such adjustment. Another may be “I would not let them do the dog’s work of guarding the sheep” or “Dogs help guard the sheep, but I would not let their fathers help the dogs.” In some languages a note may be required; for example, “Dogs are trained to look after sheep and to prevent them from straying.”

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 .