Job 21:11
They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about,
BSB
ASV
They send forth their little ones like a flock, And their children dance.
KJV
They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
FRAGMENTS ON JOB 15.25 (253)
"And their children play before them, taking up the psaltery and harp." Our children take up the psaltery and the harp, praising and glorifying God. But "their [the heretics'] children," who are foolish in themselves, also "play taking up the psaltery and the harp." Every time they usurp the words of the Old Testament, they play and mock the oracles of the Law and the Prophets. By taking up the harmonies that were once the psaltery of the law and the prophetic harp, they play with them.
Here is none of that care taken of their children which Abraham took of his, to teach them the way of the Lord, Gen. xviii. Their children do not pray, or say their catechism, but dance, and sing, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. Sensual pleasures are all the delights of carnal people, and as men are themselves so they breed their children.
They send forth their little ones - Their numerous and happy children they send forth to plays and pastimes. Like a flock - In great numbers. This is an exquisitely beautiful image of prosperity. What can be more so than a group of happy children around a man’s dwelling? And their children dance - Dance for joy. They are playful and sportive, like the lambs of the flock.
Rare words are the text's own signal of a deliberate thread: the fewer the occurrences, the more the places it appears belong together.
The walk5
Follow this verse’s cross-references two steps out. Each card is a verse this one points to, and beneath it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several different paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it. Every stop shows its own words, and every stop is a page.
Through
Psalms 107:41But He lifts the needy from affliction and increases their families like flocks.
leads to
He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap. He seats them among princes and bestows on them a throne of honor. For the foundations of the earth…
Yet the children of your bereavement will say in your hearing, ‘This place is too small for us; make room for us to live here.’
Mordecai went out from the presence of the king in royal garments of blue and white, with a large gold crown and a purple robe of fine linen. And the city of Susa shouted…
So the LORD attended to Hannah, and she conceived and gave birth to three sons and two daughters. Meanwhile, the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the LORD.
Though your beginnings were modest, your latter days will flourish.