and would have jumped at it; as the prodigal in want and famine, as those men were, would fain have filled his belly with husks that swine did eat; but as no man gave them to him, so Job disdained to give the meat of his dogs to such as those; or to set them "over" the dogs of his flock, to be the keepers of them, to be at the head of his dogs, and to have the command of them; see the phrase in 2Sa 3:8; or else to join them with his dogs, to keep his flock with them; they were such worthless faithless wretches, that they were not to be trusted with the care of his flock along with his dogs.
It was usual in ancient times, as well as in ours, for dogs to be made use of in keeping flocks of sheep from beasts of prey, as appears from Orpheus , Homer , Theocritus , and other writers: and if the fathers of those that derided Job were such mean, base, worthless creatures, what must their sons be, inferior to them in age and honour, if any degree of honour belonged to them?
yblk Me "super canes", Noldius, p. 739. No. 1825. De Lapidibus, Hypoth. ver. 53, 54. Iliad. 10. wv kunev peri mhla, &c. v. 183. & Iliad 12. v. 303. c' amin esti kuwn filopoimniov, &c. Idyll. 5. v. 106.
& Idyll. 6. v.