Job 30:4 describes the destitute people Job contrasts with himself: 'they pluck mallow by the bushes, and the roots of the broom tree are their food.' This plant grows in salt-marshes or desert areas—poor-quality vegetation eaten only by the desperately hungry. The term denotes a plant associated with poverty and social marginalization. Job's point is the reversal of his fortunes: those who once were beneath his notice now mock him. The mallow-eaters, living on the margins of survival, have become his tormentors—a bitter social inversion mirroring his physical and spiritual collapse.