Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 8:11
Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?
11. The ancient wisdom itself. This wisdom is plainly not that of the Arabs or Idumeans, but is Egyptian. The rush is most probably the Papyrus, which is said to attain a growth twice the height of a man. The flag is the Nile-reed, or Nile-grass (only here and Gen 41:2).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Can the rush – This passage has all the appearance of being a fragment of a poem handed down from ancient times. It is adduced by Bildad as an example of the views of the ancients, and, as the connection would seem to imply, as a specimen of the sentiments of those who lived before the life of man had been abridged. It was customary in the early ages of the world to communicate knowledge of all kinds by maxims, moral sayings, and proverbs; by apothegms and by poetry handed down from generation to generation. Wisdom consisted much in the amount of maxims and proverbs which were thus treasured up; as it now consists much in the knowledge which we have of the lessons taught by the past, and in the ability to apply that knowledge to the various transactions of life. The records of past ages constitute a vast storehouse of wisdom, and the present generation is more wise than those which have gone before, only because the results of their observations have been treasured up, and we can act on their experience, and because we can begin where they left off, and, taught by their experience, can avoid the mistakes which they made. The word rush here gome’ denotes properly a bulrush, and especially the Egyptian papyrus – papyrus Nilotica; see the notes at Isa 18:2. It is derived from the verb gama’, to absorb, to drink up, and is given to this plant because it absorbs or drinks up moisture. The Egyptians used it to make garments, shoes, baskets, and especially boats or skiffs; Pithy, Nat. His. 13. 2126; see the notes at Isa 18:2. They also derived from it materials for writing – and hence, our word paper. The Septuagint renders it here, papuros.
Without mire – Without moisture. It grew in the marshy places along the Nile.
Can the flag – Another plant of a similar character. The word ‘achu, flag, says Gesenius, is an Egyptian word, signifying marsh-grass, reeds, bulrushes, sedge, everything which grows in wet grounds. The word was adopted not only into the Hebrew, but also into the Greek idiom of Alexandria, where it is written, achi, achei. Jerome says of it, When I inquired of the learned what this word meant, I heard from the Egyptians, that by this name everything was intended in their language which grew up in a pool. The word is synonymous with rush, or bulrush, and denotes a plant which absorbs a great quantity of water. What is the exact idea which this figure is designed to convey, is not very clear. I think it probable that the whole description is intended to represent a hypocrite, and that the meaning is, that he had in his growth a strong resemblance to such a rush or reed. There was nothing solid or substantial in his piety. It was like the soft, spongy texture of the water-reed, and would wilt under trial, as the papyrus would when deprived of water.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 8:11
Can the rush grow up without mire?
–The rush to which he refers did not grow in the dry and parched land of Uz, which was the place where Bildad and Job lived. It grew principally in Egypt, and in one or two places in Northern Palestine. It is no other than the famous bulrush of the Nile, of which the ark was made in which the infant Moses was concealed; an ark of bulrush being supposed to be a powerful charm for warding off all evil. The smooth rind or skin of this remarkable plant that once grew in great abundance in Egypt, but is now very scarce, supplied when dried and beaten out and pasted together the first material used for writing on. Our word paper comes from its name papyrus. Perhaps Bildad, who from his style of speech was evidently a learned man, possessed an old Egyptian book made of papyrus leaves, in which he found the picturesque proverb of my text; and it would be a very curious thing if on the very leaf of a book made of the skin of the papyrus or rush, there should be inscribed an account of the way in which the papyrus or rush itself grew on the swampy banks of the Nile. Can the rush grow up without mire? Every plant needs water. Water forms the sap which circulates through the veins of every plant; it is the internal stream along which little successions of floats continually go, carrying the materials of growth to every pair of the structure. In Egypt we see in a very remarkable way the dependence of plants upon water; for vegetation only grows as far as the life-giving overflow of the annual inundation of the Nile extends. Beyond that point there is nothing but the parched, leafless desert. Nothing can be more striking than the dry, white sand, and the long luxuriant grass side by side. There is no mingling of barren and fertile soil; and the two endless lines of grey and green come abruptly into contact. But while other plants thus need water, and are dependent upon it, they can nevertheless cling to life and preserve their greenness even during a pretty long drought. The rush, on the contrary, cannot exist without water, even for the shortest period; and the burning sun of Egypt would destroy in a few hours every water plant that grows in the Nile, were the stream to fail and cease to bathe their roots. Bildad tells us this in very striking language. He says, While it is yet in its greenness and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. No other plant so quickly withers in the absence of water, just because it is made to grow in the water. All its structure is adapted to that kind of situation and to no other. Its material is soft and spongy and filled with water, which evaporates at once when the circulation is not kept up. There are in nature two kinds of plants at the opposite poles from each other, and each wonderfully suited to the place in which it grows. There is the cactus, found in the dry-parched deserts of Mexico, where there is no water, no running stream, and no rain for weeks and months together. It has thick, leathery, fleshy stems instead of leaves, without any evaporating pores on their surface, so that whatever moisture they get from the rare rain or the dew by their roots, they keep and never part with, and therefore they can stand the most intense and long-continued drought, having a reservoir within themselves. And there is on the other hand the rush which grows with its root in the waters of the Nile, and, like a vegetable sponge, cannot live for an hour without that outside water ascending its stem and flowing through all its structure. You know our own common rush cannot do without water. It always grows beside springs, and the sources of streams, and on marshy lands. Wherever you see rushes growing you may be sure that the soil is full of water; and if the farmer drains the field where rushes grow, they soon disappear. The moral which Bildad draws from that interesting fact of natural history is that as the rush requires water for its life, so man can only live by the favour of God (Jer 17:7-8). Your natural life is like that of the rush that grows in the water. Seven-tenths of your bodies is water. Seven-tenths of your bodies came from the last rains that fell. Your life is indeed a vapour, a breath, a little moisture condensed. You begin as a fish, and you swim in a stream of vital fluids as long as your life lasts. You can taste and absorb and use nothing but liquids. Without water you have no life. You know after a long drought how restless and parched and irritable you feel; and what a relief and refreshment the rain is when it comes. It shows you how necessary water is to the well-being of your bodies; how you cannot exist without it. And if this be the case as regards your natural life, what shall be said in regard to your spiritual? God is as necessary to your soul as water is to your body. Your souls thirst for God, for the living God; for He, and He alone, is the element in which you live and move and have your being. You are made for God as the rush is made for the water; and nothing but God can suffice you, as nothing but water can suffice the rush. The rush with its head in the torrid sunshine, and its root in the unfailing waters is stimulated from below and from above. Nothing can exceed the luxuriance of the rush, or papyrus, in the waters of Merom, a lake to the north of the Sea of Galilee. Now, what you require for your spiritual well-being is that you should grow beside the well of water that springeth up unto everlasting life. Jesus can be to you as rivers of waters in a dry place. You can flourish in the withering atmosphere of the world, and endure the fiery trials of life, just because all your wellsprings are in God, and the sources of your human steadfastness and hope are high up in heaven. You are independent of the precarious supplies of the world. The sun shall not light upon you nor any heat; and the things of the world that would otherwise be against you will work together for your good. Seek, then, to grow in grace; for you must grow in something, and if not in grace, then you will grow in sin and degradation, in conditions for which you were not made, which will be continually unsuitable to you, and which will make you always wretched. The soil of grace is the only circumstance in which you can flourish and accomplish the purposes for which God made you; for there the roots of your being will draw living sap continually from the fountain of living waters that perpetually wells up. Growth in grace is not subject to the changes and decays of earth. It is the only growth on which death has no power. Without Christ you can do nothing; you are like the rush without the water in which it grows, dry, withered and dead. With Christ you are like the rush with its root in the river; you will flourish and grow in that holiness whose end is everlasting life. You will indeed be a papyrus displaying on its own leaf the reason of its flourishing condition, in the unmistakably hieroglyphics of nature which he who runs may read; a living epistle of Christ, known and read of all men. (Hugh Macmillan, D. D.)
A sermon from a rush
The great hook of nature only needs to be turned over by a reverent hand, and to be read by an attentive eye, to be found to be only second in teaching to the Book of Revelation. The rush shall, this morning, by Gods grace, teach us a lesson of self-examination. Bildad, the Shuhite, points it out to us as the picture of a hypocrite.
I. First, then, the hypocrites profession: what is it like? It is here compared to a rush growing in the mire, and a flag flourishing in the water. This comparison has several points in it.
1. In the first place, hypocritical religion may be compared to the rush, for the rapidity with which it grows. True conversions are often very sudden. But the after-growth of Christians is not quite so rapid and uninterrupted: seasons of deep depression chill their joy; hours of furious temptation make a dreadful onslaught upon their quiet; they cannot always rejoice. True Christians are very like oaks, which take years to reach their maturity.
2. The rush is of all plants one of the most hollow and unsubstantial. It looks stout enough to be wielded as a staff, but he that leaneth upon it shall most certainly fall. So is it with the hypocrite; he is fair enough on the outside, but there is no solid faith in Christ Jesus in him, no real repentance on account of sin, no vital union to Christ Jesus. He can pray, but not in secret, and the essence and soul of prayer he never knew. The reed is hollow, and has no heart, and the hypocrite has none either; and want of heart is fatal indeed.
3. A third comparison very naturally suggests itself, namely, that the hypocrite is very like the rush for its bending properties. When the rough wind comes howling over the marsh, the rush has made up its mind that it will hold its place at all hazards. So if the wind blows from the north, he bends to the south, and the blast sweeps over him; and if the wind blows from the south, he bends to the north, and the gale has no effect upon him. Only grant the rush one thing, that he may keep his place, and he will cheerfully bow to all the rest. The hypocrite will yield to good influences if he be in good society. Oh yes, certainly, certainly, sing, pray, anything you like. We must be ready to die for Christ, or we shall have no joy in the fact that Christ died for us.
4. Yet again, the bulrush has been used in Scripture as a picture of a hypocrite, from its habit of hanging down its head. Is it to hang thy head like a bulrush? asks the prophet, speaking to some who kept a hypocritical fast. Pretended Christians seem to think that to hang down the head is the very index of a deep piety.
5. Once more: the rush is well taken as an emblem of the mere professor from its bearing no fruit. Nobody would expect to find figs on a bulrush, or grapes of Eshcol on a reed. So it is with the hypocrite: he brings forth no fruit.
II. Secondly, we have to consider what it is that the hypocrites religion lives on. Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water? The rush is entirely dependent upon the ooze in which it is planted. If there should come a season of drought, and the water should fail from the marsh, the rush would more speedily die than any other plant. Whilst it is yet in its greenness and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. The Hebrew name for the rush signifies a plant that is always drinking; and so the rush lives perpetually by sucking and drinking in moisture. This is the case of the hypocrite. The hypocrite cannot live without something that shall foster his apparent piety. Let me show you some of this mire and water upon which the hypocrite lives.
1. Some peoples religion cannot live without excitement revival services, earnest preachers, and zealous prayer meetings keep them green; but the earnest minister dies, or goes to another part of the country; the Church is not quite so earnest as it was, and what then? Where are your converts? Oh! how many there are who are hothouse plants: while the temperature is kept up to a certain point they flourish, and bring forth flowers, if not fruits; but take them out into the open air, give them one or two nights frost of persecution, and where are they?
2. Many mere professors live upon encouragement. We ought to comfort the feebleminded and support the weak. But, beware of the piety which depends upon encouragement. You will have to go, perhaps, where you will be frowned at and scowled at, where the head of the household, instead of encouraging prayer, will refuse you either the room or the time for engaging in it.
3. Some, too, we know, whose religion is sustained by example. It may be the custom in the circle in which you move to attend a place of worship; nay, more, it has come to be the fashion to join the Church and make a profession of religion. Well, example is a good thing. Young man, avoid this feeble sort of piety. Be a man who can be singular when to be singular is to be right.
4. Furthermore, a hypocrites religion is often very much supported by the profit that he makes by it. Mr. By-ends joined the Church, because, he said, he should get a good wife by making a profession of religion. Besides, Mr. By-ends kept a shop, and went to a place of worship, because, he said, the people would have to buy goods somewhere, and if they saw him at their place very likely they would come to his shop, and so his religion would help his trade. The rush will grow where there is plenty of mire, plenty of profit for religion, but dry up the gains, and where would some peoples religion be?
5. With certain persons their godliness rests very much upon their prosperity. Doth Job serve God for nought? was the wicked question of Satan concerning that upright man; but of many it might be asked with justice, for they love God after a fashion because He prospers them; but if things went ill with them they would give up all faith in God.
6. The hypocrite is very much affected by the respectability of the religion which he avows.
III. We have a third point, and that is, what becomes of the hypocrites hope? While it is yet in its greenness and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrites hope shall perish. Long before the Lord comes to cut the hypocrite down, it often happens that he dries up for want of the mire on which he lives. The excitement, the encouragement, the example, the profit, the respectability, the prosperity, upon which he lived fail him, and he fails too. Alas, how dolefully is this the case in all Christian churches! Yet again, where the rush still continues green because it has mire and water enough on which to feed, another result happens, namely, that ere long the sickle is used to cut it down. So must it be with thee, professor, if thou shalt keep up a green profession all thy days, yet if thou be heartless, spongy, soft, yielding, unfruitful, like the rush thou wilt be cut down, and sorrowful will be the day when, with a blaze, thou shalt be consumed. (C. H. Spurgeon.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 11. Can the rush grow] The word gome, which we translate rush, is, without doubt, the Egyptian flag papyrus, on which the ancients wrote, and from which our paper derives its name. The Septuagint, who made their Greek translation in Egypt, (if this book made a part of it,) and knew well the import of each word in both languages, render gome by papyrus, thus: ; Can the PAPYRUS flourish without water? Their translation leaves no doubt concerning the meaning of the original. They were probably writing on the very substance in question, while making their translation. The technical language of no science is so thoroughly barbarous as that of botany: the description of this plant by Linnaeus, shall be a proof. The plant he calls “Cyperus Papyrus; CLASS Triandria; ORDER Monogynia; Culm three-sided, naked; umbel longer than the involucres; involucels three-leaved, setaceous, longer; spikelets in threes. – Egypt, c. Involucre eight-leaved general umbel copious, the rays sheathing at the base; partial on very short peduncles; spikelets alternate, sessile; culm leafy at the base; leaves hollow, ensiform.”
Hear our plain countryman John Gerarde, who describes the same plant: “Papyrus Nilotica, Paper Reed, hath many large flaggie leaves, somewhat triangular and smooth, not much unlike those of cats-taile, rising immediately from a tuft of roots, compact of many strings; amongst the which it shooteth up two or three naked stalkes, square, and rising some six or seven cubits high above the water; at the top whereof there stands a tuft or bundle off chaffie threds, set in comely order, resembling a tuft of floures, but barren and void of seed;” GERARDE’S Herbal, p. 40. Which of the two descriptions is easiest to be understood by common sense, either with or without a knowledge of the Latin language? This plant grows in the muddy banks of the Nile, as it requires an abundance of water for its nourishment.
Can the flag grow without water?] Parkhurst supposes that the word achu, which we render flag, is the same with that species of reed which Mr. Hasselquist found growing near the river Nile. He describes it (p. 97) as “having scarcely any branches, but numerous leaves, which are narrow, smooth, channelled on the upper surface; and the plant about eleven feet high. The Egyptians make ropes of the leaves. They lay the plant in water, like hemp, and then make good and strong cables of them.” As ach signifies to join, connect, associate, hence achi, a brother, achu may come from the same root, and have its name from its usefulness in making ropes, cables, &c., which are composed of associated threads, and serve to tie, bind together, &c.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Without mire, i.e. if it be not in moist and miry ground. This and what follows he mentions as it were in the person of those ancients to whom he had referred him, of whom he saith that they would give him such instructions as these.
The flag; or, the grass; or, the meadow, as this word is used, Gen 41:2, i.e. the grass of a meadow, But our translation seems the best, because it is compared with other herbs.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
11. rushrather, “paper-reed”:The papyrus of Egypt, which was used to make garments, shoes,baskets, boats, and paper (a word derived from it). It and the flag,or bulrush, grow only in marshy places (such as are along the Nile).So the godless thrives only in external prosperity; there is in thehypocrite no inward stability; his prosperity is like the rapidgrowth of water plants.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Can the rush grow up without mire?…. No, at least not long, or so as to lift up his head on high, as the word signifies a; the rush or bulrush, which seems to be meant, delights in watery places, and has its name in Hebrew from its absorbing or drinking up water; it grows in moist and watery clay, or in marshy places, which Jarchi says is the sense of the word here used; the Septuagint understands it of the “paper reed”, which, as Pliny b observes, grows in the marshy places of Egypt, and by the still waters of the river Nile:
can the flag grow without water? or “the sedge” c; which usually grows in moist places, and on the banks of rivers; this unless in such places, or if without water, cannot grow long, or make any very large increase, or come to maturity; so some d render it, “if the rush should grow up without”, c. then it would be with it as follows.
a “an attollit se”, Junius Tremellius, Piscator, Cocceius “an superbiet”, so some Beza, Schultens. b Nat. Hist. l. 13. c. 11. c “carectum”, V. L. “ulva”, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Schmidt, Michaelis, Schultens. d Sic Bar Tzemach & Belgae.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
11 Doth papyrus grow up without mire?
Doth the reed shoot up without water?
12 It is still in luxuriant verdure, when it is not cut off,
Then before all other grass it with
13 So is the way of all forgetters of God,
And the hope of the ungodly perisheth,
14 Because his hope is cut off,
And his trust is a spider’s house:
15 He leaneth upon his house and it standeth not,
He holdeth fast to it and it endureth not.
Bildad likens the deceitful ground on which the prosperity of the godless stands to the dry ground on which, only for a time, the papyrus or reed finds water, and grows up rapidly: shooting up quickly, it withers as quickly; as the papyrus plant,
(Note: Vid., Champollion-Figeac, Aegypten, German translation, pp. 47f.)
if it has no perpetual water, though the finest of grasses, withers off when most luxuriantly green, before it attains maturity. , which, excepting here, is found only in connection with Egypt (Exo 2:3; Isa 18:2; and Isa 35:7, with the general as specific name for reed), is the proper papyrus plant (Cypeerus papyyrus, L.): this name for it is suitably derived in the Hebrew from , to suck up (comp. Lucan, iv. 136: conseritur bibul Memphytis cymba papyro ); but is at the same time Egyptian, since Coptic kam , cham , signifies the reed, and ‘gom , ‘gome , a book (like liber, from the bark of a tree).
(Note: Comp. the Book of the Dead (Todtenbuch), ch. 162: “Chapter on the creation of warmth at the back of the head of the deceased. Words over a young cow finished in pure gold. Put them on the neck of the dead, and paint them also on a new papyrus,” etc. Papyrus is here cama : the word is determined by papyrus-roll, fastening and writing, and its first consonant corresponds to the Coptic aspirated g. Moreover, we cannot omit to mention that this cama = gome also signifies a garment, as in a prayer: “O my mother Isis, come and veil me in thy cama .” Perhaps both ideas are represented in volumen, involucrum ; it is, however, also possible that goome is to be etymologically separated from kam , cham = .)
, occurring only in the book of Job and in the history of Joseph, as Jerome ( Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iv. 291) learned from the Egyptians, signifies in their language, omne quod in palude virem nascitur: the word is transferred by the lxx into their translation in the form ( ), and became really incorporated into the Alexandrian Greek, as is evident from Isa 19:7 ( , lxx ) and Sir. 40:16 ( ); the Coptic translates pi – akhi , and moreover ake , oke signify in Coptic calamus, juncus .
(Note: The tradition of Jerome, that originally signifies viride, is supported by the corresponding use of the verb in the signification to be green. So in the Papyr. Anastas. No. 3 (in Brugsch, Aeg. Geographic, S. 20, No. 115): naif hesbu achach em sim, his fields are green with herbs; and in a passage in Young, Hieroglyphics, ii. 69: achechut uoi aas em senem.t, the beautiful field is green with senem. The second radical is doubled in achech, as in uot-uet, which certainly signifies viriditas. The substantive is also found represented by three leaf-stalks on one basis; its radical form is ah, plural, weaker or stronger aspirated, ahu or akhu, greenness: comp. Salvolini, Campagne d Rhamss le Grand, p. 117; and Brugsch, above, S. 25.)
describes its condition: in a condition in which it is not ready for being gathered. By , quippe, quoniam , this end of the man who forgets God, and of the , i.e., the secretly wicked, is more particularly described. His hope , from , or from , med. o,
(Note: Both are possible; for even from , the mode of writing, , is not without numerous examples, as Dan 11:12; Psa 94:21; Psa 107:27.)
in neuter signification succiditur . One would indeed expect a figure corresponding to the spider’s web earlier; and accordingly Hahn, after Reiske, translates: whose hope is a gourd, – an absurd figure, and linguistically impossible, since the gourd or cucumber is , which has its cognates in Arabic and Syriac. Saadia
(Note: Vid., Ewald-Dukes’ Beitrge zur Gesch. der ltesten Auslegung, i. 89.)
translates: whose hope is the thread of the sun. The “thread of the sun” is what we call the fliegender Sommer or Altweibersommer , i.e., the sunny days in the latter months of the year: certainly a suitable figure, but unsupportable by any parallel in language.
(Note: Saadia’s interpretation cannot be supported from the Arabic, for the Arabs call the “ Altweibersommer ” the deceitful thread ( el – chaitt el – battil ), or “sunslime or spittle” ( luab es – schems ), or chaytaur (a word which Ewald, Jahrb. ix. 38, derives from Arab. chayt = , a word which does not exist, and ur , chaff, a word which is not Arabic), from chatara , to roam about, to be dispersed, to perish, vanish. From this radical signification, chaitaur , like many similar old Arabic words with a fulness of figurative and related meaning, is become an expression for a number of different things, which may be referred to the notion of roaming about and dispersion. Among others, as the Turkish Kamus says, “That thing which on extremely hot days, in the form of a spider’s web, looks as though single threads came down from the atmosphere, which is caused by the thickness of the air,” etc. The form brought forward by Ew., written with Arab. t or t , is, moreover, a fabrication of our lexicons (Fl.).)
We must therefore suppose that , succiditur , first gave rise to the figure which follows: as easily as a spider’s web is cut through, without offering any resistance, by the lightest touch, or a breath of wind, so that on which he depends and trusts is cut asunder. The name for spider’s web, ,
(Note: The spider is called , for , Arabic ancabuth , for which they say accabuth in Saida, on ancient Phoenician ground, as atta (thou) for anta (communicated by Wetzstein).)
leads to the description of the prosperity of the ungodly by (Job 8:15): His house, the spider’s house, is not firm to him. Another figure follows: the wicked in his prosperity is like a climbing plant, which grows luxuriantly for a time, but suddenly perishes.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
(11) The flag is the plant of Gen. 41:2, which the cattle feed upon. This figure is enforced by a second, that, namely, of the spiders web, the most fragile and transient of tenements.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
b. The luxuriant water-reeds that tower above the marshes of the Nile, and quickly wither when its waters are suddenly withdrawn, image forth the short-lived prosperity of the wicked, whose roots take hold upon worldly slime and mire rather than upon God, Job 8:11-13.
11. The rush , gome, unquestionably the papyrus; thus in the Septuagint. This plant flourishes in pools of still water, reaching from ten to fifteen feet above, and descending two or three feet beneath, the surface. The plant had a diameter at the bottom of about three inches, tapered upward, was without leaves, and was crowned with a graceful tuft, not unlike the broom. The ark in which the infant Moses was placed was made of this plant. Exo 2:3. See Isa 18:2; Isa 35:7, where the word rush is also used. The papyrus (hence our word paper) was of great renown, because it furnished the material from which the ancients made their paper. The process was so simple that it may be briefly described. The stalk, having been pared, was split lengthwise into thin slices, two courses of which were laid one above the other, crosswise and at right angles, and glued together, probably by the juice of the plant. The plant formerly abounded along the Nile, springing up from its mire, but now is wholly extinct in Egypt. It is still found in two places in Palestine. It grows luxuriously in a swamp at the north end of the plain of Gennesaret; it also covers many acres in the inaccessible marshes of the Huleh, the ancient Merom. Tristram thus describes his experiences in the papyrus marsh of the Huleh: “A false step off its roots will take the intruder over head in suffocating peat mud In fact, the whole is simply a floating bog of several miles square a very thin crust of vegetation over an unknown depth of water; and if the weight of the explorer breaks through this, suffocation is imminent. Some of the Arabs, who were tilling the plain for cotton, assured us that even a wild boar never got through it. We shot two bitterns, but, in endeavouring to retrieve them, I slipped from the root on which I was standing, and was drawn down in a moment, only saving myself from drowning by my gun, which had providentially caught across a papyrus stem.” Land of Israel, p. 587.
Flag , ( ahhu,) including reeds, grass, particularly Nile grass. (Furst.) The use of the word in Gen 41:2, where it is translated “meadow,” points to some specific plant eaten by cattle. But little more is known about the word now than in the times of Jerome, who, having inquired of the learned as to what it signified, “heard from the Egyptians that it meant every green herb which grew in a marsh.” Peyron, in his Coptic Lexicon, defines the word in the exact language of Jerome. “The edible rush, and the beautiful flowering rush, would either meet the requirements of the sacred text.” TRISTRAM, Nat. History of the Bible, p. 435.
Without water What mire is to the papyrus, and water to the Nile grass, such is the grace of God to the soul. For want of oil the lamps of the five foolish virgins went out.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 8:11. Can the rush grow up without mire? &c. A bulrush without water is proverbial. It is adapted to the hypocrite, who, while he suddenly grows up, withers as suddenly, and while he flourishes most verdantly, is immediately dried up. Can the flag, or, can the sedge. Houbigant renders the 12th verse, whilst it yet flourishes, it is not cut down; yet it withereth before any other herb.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 8:11 Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?
Ver. 11. Can the rush grow up without mire? ] Iam subiungit quod illi exploratum habuerant et perspectum, sed eleganti similitudine, saith Mercer; that is, here Bildad setteth forth what the fathers had observed, taught, and told them; and this he doth by three elegant similitudes, which was a way of teaching usual among the ancients, ut quod per simplex praeceptum teneri non possit, per similitudines teneretur, that that which could not be remembered by simple precepts, might be retained by similitudes drawn from natural things, which are as shadows to us of spiritual (Hieron. in cap. 19, Matth.). And first from the rush, which hath its name from drinking; because it lives in liquor, it loves and delights in a moorish soil. Can the rush (or bulrush, Exo 2:3 Isa 18:2 ) grow up? Heb. perk and pride itself, bear the head aloft, shoot up amain, without mire or moisture, such as are the fens? Job 40:21 . The meaning hereof is, saith Ferus, look how the rush and flag grow not but in miry places; remove them to dry and firm ground, and they soon wither: so the wicked hypocrite in prosperity maketh a great show of piety; but in adversity he loseth that very show, and by his impatience maketh the hollowness of his heart appear to all men. And herein Bildad aimed at the making of Job’s case odious, whom he now held to be a hypocrite.
Can the flag Can . . . ? Figure of speech Erotesis. App-6. This is the first simile. See the second, verses: Job 8:16-19.
Job 8:11-15
Job 8:11-15
BILDAD SPEAKS OF JOB AS ONE WHO FORGETS GOD
“Can the rush grow up without mire?
Can the flag grow without water?
Whilst it is yet in its greenness, and not cut down,
It withereth before any other herb.
So are the paths of all that forget God;
And the hope of the godless man shall perish.
Whose confidence shall break in sunder,
And whose trust is a spider’s web.
He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand:
He shall hold fast thereby, but it shall not endure.”
“They perish before any other herb” (Job 8:12). Bildad, in this passage, appeals to the suddenness with which the rushes that grow in the marsh or edge of the river wither if their water supply fails. This is only a thinly veiled allusion to the suddenness of those disasters that came to Job; and he brutally applied his illustration to Job, affirming that, “So it happens to the godless man, and the man that forgets God” (Job 7:13).
“Whose trust is a spider’s web” (Job 8:14). What Bildad says here, applying it to Job, of course, is that, “The hope of the ungodly man is as insubstantial as a spider’s web.”[ In these words, Bildad sees the false hope, (as he thinks Job’s hope is false) as something that Job has produced within himself, just as a spider’s web is spun from that which comes out of the spider’s body. This is actually a very accurate picture of false hope; but it had no application whatever to Job.
E.M. Zerr:
Job 8:11-12. This is the same old argument; no effect without a cause. Job admitted all that but that did not even touch the question of what was the real cause in the case under consideration.
Job 8:13-14. The very point in dispute is what these friends always assumed. The hypocrite’s hope will perish but it had not been proved that Job was a hypocrite.
Job 8:15. Bildad intimated that Job was leaning on his house (his claim of being innocent) and that it would not sustain him. Even at the very moment it was beginning to topple as evidenced by the afflictions being suffered.
the rush: Exo 2:3, Isa 19:5-7
Reciprocal: Gen 41:2 – a meadow Isa 19:6 – the reeds Jer 17:6 – like
Job 8:11-12. Can the rush grow without mire, &c. This, and what follows, he speaks as from those ancients, to whom he had referred him, and concerning whom he says, that they would give him such instructions as these. While it is yet in its greenness Whereby it promises long continuance: and not cut down Though no man cut it down it withers of itself, and saves a man the labour of cutting or plucking it up. Before any other herb Sooner than other herbs, or, as , liphnee, means, in their presence, or they surviving; in which sense it is said, that Ishmael died in the presence of his brethren; the rest of the herbs, as it were, looking upon it, and admiring the sudden change.
8:11 Can the rush {g} grow up without mire? can the flag grow without water?
(g) As a rush cannot grow without moisture, so the hypocrite because he does not have faith which is watered with God’s Spirit.
Illustrations of Job’s godlessness 8:11-19
The illustration of the water plant (Job 8:11-13) emphasized the fact that in Bildad’s view, Job had abandoned God, the source of his blessing (cf. Job 1:1; Job 1:8). Bildad advised his friend not to forget God. The spider’s web analogy (Job 8:14-15) implied that Job was depending on his possessions rather than God for his security. The allusion to the garden plant (Job 8:16-19) compared Job to an uprooted bush that others would replace.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)