Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 6:18
The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish.
18. they go to nothing ] Rather, they go up into the waste. The expression go up in Heb. is used when no ascent in the strict sense is meant; it signifies to go inland, into the interior of a region. The streams of these brooks flow out and wind into the desert and are consumed by the heat or lost in the sand. A somewhat different sense is drawn from the words by many writers. The word paths, Job 6:18, is the same as troops or caravans, Job 6:19, and they assume that the reference to the caravans is already made in Job 6:18, rendering: the caravans that go by the way of them (the streams) turn aside, they go up into the desert and perish. In favour of this interpretation it is urged that there is something unnatural in the use of the same word in different senses in two consecutive verses; and that it is customary in the Poets to express a general idea first ( Job 6:18) and then to particularize and exemplify it ( Job 6:19). On the other hand Ibn Ezra has already remarked that it is not usual for caravans to leave the route and “turn aside” in search of water, a route is selected and formed rather because water is found on it. The danger of the caravan is that it be exhausted before it reach the place where water is known to be, or, as here, that the water may be found dried up.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The paths of their way are turned aside – Noyes renders this, The caravans turn aside to them on their way. Good, The outlets of their channel wind about. Rosenmuller, The bands of travelers direct their journey to them. Jerome, Involved are the paths of their steps. According to the interpretation of Rosenmuller, Noyes, Umbreit, and others, it means that the caravans on their journey turn aside from their regular way in order to find water there; and that in doing it they go up into a desert and perish. According to the other interpretation, it means that the channels of the stream wind along until they diminish and come to nothing. This latter I take to be the true sense of the passage, as it is undoubtedly the most poetical. It is a representation of the stream winding along in its channels, or making new channels as it flows from the mountain, until it diminishes by evaporation, and finally comes to nothing.
They go to nothing – Noyes renders this very singularly, into the desert, – meaning that the caravans, when they suppose they are going to a place of refreshment, actually go to a desert, and thus perish. The word used here, however tohu, does not occur in the sense of a desert elsewhere in the Scriptures. It denotes nothingness, emptiness, vanity (see Gen 1:2), and very appropriately expresses the nothingness into which a stream vanishes when it is dried up or lost in the sand. The sense is, that those streams wander along until they become smaller and smaller, and then wholly disappear. They deceive the traveler who hoped to find refreshment there. Streams depending on snows and storms, and having no permanent fountains, cannot be confided in. Pretended friends are like them. In times of prosperity they are full of professions, and their aid is proffered to us. But we go to them when we need their assistance, when we are like the weary and thirsty traveler, and they disappear like deceitful streams in the sands of the desert.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 18. The paths of their way] They sometimes forsake their ancient channels, which is a frequent case with the river Ganges; and growing smaller and smaller from being divided into numerous streams, they go to nothing and perish – are at last utterly lost in the sands.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
i.e. The course of those waters is changed, they are gone out of their channel, flowing hither and thither, till they be quite consumed; as it here follows.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
18. turned asiderather,”caravans” (Hebrew, “travellers”) turnaside from their way, by circuitous routes, to obtain water. They hadseen the brook in spring full of water: and now in the summer heat,on their weary journey, they turn off their road by a devious routeto reach the living waters, which they remembered with such pleasure.But, when “they go,” it is “into a desert” [NOYESand UMBREIT]. Not asEnglish Version, “They go to nothing,” whichwould be a tame repetition of the drying up of the waters in Job6:17; instead of waters, they find an “empty wilderness”;and, not having strength to regain their road, bitterly disappointed,they “perish.” The terse brevity is most expressive.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The paths of their way are turned aside,…. That is, the waters, when melted by the heat of the sun, and the warmth of the weather, run, some one way, and some another in little streams and windings, till they are quite lost and the tracks of them are no more to be seen; denoting that all appearance of friendship was quite gone, and no traces of it to be found:
they go to nothing, and perish: some of them are lost in little meanders and windings about, and others are exhaled by the heat of the sun, and go into “Tohu”, as the word is, into empty air; so vain and empty, and perishing, were all the comforts he hoped for from his friends; though some understand this of the paths of travellers in the deserts being covered in the sand, and not to be seen and found; of which see Pliny z.
z Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 29.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
18 The paths of their course are turned about,
They go up in the waste and perish.
19 The travelling bands of Tma looked for them,
The caravans of Saba hoped for them;
20 They were disappointed on account of their trust,
They came thus far, and were red with shame.
As the text is pointed, , Job 6:18, are the paths of the torrents. Hitz., Ew., and Schlottm., however, correct , caravans, which Hahn even thinks may be understood without correction, since he translates: the caravans of their way are turned about (which is intended to mean: aside from the way that they are pursuing), march into the desert and perish (i.e., because the streams on which they reckoned are dried up). So, in reality, all modern commentators understand it; but is it likely that the poet would let the caravans perish in Job 6:18, and in Job 6:19. still live? With this explanation, Job 6:19. drag along tautologically, and the feebler figure follows the stronger. Therefore we explain as follows: the mountain streams, , flow off in shallow serpentine brooks, and the shallow waters completely evaporate by the heat of the sun. signifies to go up into nothing (comp. Isa 40:23), after the analogy of , to pass away in smoke. Thus e.g., also Mercier: in auras abeunt, in nihilum rediguntur . What next happens is related as a history, Job 6:19., hence the praett. Job compares his friends to the wady swollen by ice and snow water, and even to the travelling bands themselves languishing for water. He thirsts for friendly solace, but the seeming comfort which his friends utter is only as the scattered meandering waters in which the mountain brook leaks out. The sing. individualizes; it is unnecessary with Olsh. to read .
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(18) They go to nothing.It is doubtful whether this applies to the streams or to the caravans. Thus, The paths of their way are turned aside and come to nought; or, The caravans that travel by the way of them turn aside, and go into the waste and perish. The nineteenth verse seems to suggest the latter as the more probable.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Third strophe Job draws a picture of caravans perishing miserably for the want of water, Job 6:18-20.
18. The paths of their way Delitzsch, Barnes, Wordsworth, and Zockler, substantially adopt our authorized version. They understand Job still to speak of the streams, that “they wind about;” (are turned aside;) “they go up into the waste ( tohu) and vanish.” Others, (Ewald, Dillmann, Noyes, Renan, etc.) more satisfactorily, read, caravans turn aside their course, they go up into the wastes and perish, making a slight change in the pointing of the Hebrew thus, , orhhoth, caravans, as in Isa 21:13, instead of , orhhoth, ways. Delitzsch pertinently puts the argument for the rendering “ways,” by asking “if it be likely that the poet would let the caravans perish in Job 6:18, and in Job 6:19, sq., still live? If so, the feebler figure follows the stronger.” On the other hand it may be replied, 1) That the same objection holds against the rendering of “ways.” The streams have been consumed, “extinguished,” and if they reappear here on their winding way it must be at the creative touch of the poetic wand. 2) Two different and entirely inapposite meanings must be given to substantially the same word, orhhoth, in two successive verses, the 18th and 19th. 3) To say of torrents, even though they wind about, that they go up ( ) into the waste, is quite absurd, and can here apply only to caravans. Zockler’s conceit, (in Lange,) that they go up in vapours and clouds, does not relieve the difficulty, as tohu does not justify such rendering. 4) The objection of tautology Evans thus happily answers: that the chief motive of the description just given is not to excite pity for the fate of such a caravan, but to justify Job’s resentment at the treachery of which the dry wady is the type. Hence in the verses following, Job emphasizes the disappointment which the caravans of Tema and Sheba (named by way of vivid individualization) would feel in such a plight. See note on next verse.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 6:18. The paths of their way are turned aside Here is a noble climax, a most poetical description of the torrents in hot climates. By extraordinary cold they are frozen over; but the sun no sooner exerts its power than they melt; and they are exhaled by the heat, till the stream, for smallness, is diverted into many channels; it yet lasts a little way, but is soon quite evaporated and lost. Heath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 6:18 The paths of their way are turned aside; they go to nothing, and perish.
Ver. 18. The paths of their way are turned aside ] i.e. They being (as it were) cut into divers small rivers running here and there, by little and little, and being resolved into vapours, at length quite vanish away (Beza).
They go to nothing, and perish
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
to nothings into a waste. Hebrew. tohu, as in Gen 1:2.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Reciprocal: Jer 10:24 – lest