Job 30:29

30:29 I have become a brother to jackals

and a companion of ostriches. ¹ 

Isaiah 34:13

34:13 Her fortresses will be overgrown with thorns;

thickets and weeds will grow ²  in her fortified cities.

Jackals will settle there;

ostriches will live there. ³ 

[30:29]  ¹ sn The point of this figure is that Job’s cries of lament are like the howls and screeches of these animals, not that he lives with them. In Job 39:13 the female ostrich is called “the wailer.”

[34:13]  ² tn The words “will grow” are supplied in the translation for stylistic reasons.

[34:13]  ³ tc Heb “and she will be a settlement for wild dogs, a dwelling place for ostriches.” The translation assumes an emendation of חָצִיר (khatsir, “grass”) to חָצֵר (khatser, “settlement”). One of the Qumran scrolls of Isaiah (1QIsa^a) supports this emendation (cf. HALOT 344 s.v. II חָצִיר)