Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 8:13
So [are] the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish:
13. Application of the simile. When men forget God, and His sustaining grace is withdrawn from them, they sink down suddenly and perish like the luxuriant water-reed.
the hypocrite ] This word is difficult to translate, it means rather the godless, or, profane, cf. Jer 23:11; hypocrisy in the ordinary sense is not at all the idea of the term. The verb is rendered in the English Version mostly “defile” or “pollute,” but “profane” would suit most of the passages.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
So are the paths of all that forget God – This is clearly a part of the quotation from the sayings of the ancients. The word paths here means ways, acts, doings. They who forget God are like the paper-reed. They seem to flourish, but they have nothing that is firm and substantial. As the paper-reed soon dies, as the flag withers away before any other herb, so it will be with the wicked, though apparently prosperous.
And the hypocrites hope shall perish – This important sentiment, it seems, was known in the earliest periods of the world; and if the supposition above be correct, that this is a fragment of a poem which had come down from far distant times, it was probably known before the flood. The passage requires no particular philological explanation, but it is exceedingly important. We may remark on it,
(1) That there were hypocrites even in that early age of the world. They are confined to no period, or country, or religious denomination, or profession. There are hypocrites in religion – and so there are in politics, and in business, and in friendship, and in morals. There arc pretended friends, and pretended patriots, and pretended lovers of virtue, whose hearts are false and hol ow, just as there are pretended friends of religion. Wherever there is genuine coin, it will be likely to be counterfeited; and the fact of a counterfeit is always a tribute to the intrinsic worth of the coin – for who would be at the pains to counterfeit that which is worthless? The fact that there are hypocrites in the church, is an involuntary tribute to the excellency of religion.
(2) The hypocrite has a hope of eternal life. This hope is founded on various things. It may be on his own morality; it may be on the expectation that he will be able to practice a deception; it may be on some wholly false and unfounded view of the character and plans of God. Or taking the word hypocrite in a larger sense to denote anyone who pretends to religion and who has none, this hope may be founded on some change of feeling which he has had, and which he mistook for religion; on some supposed vision which he had of the cross or of the Redeemer, or on the mere subsiding of the alarm which an awakened sinner experiences, and the comparative peace consequent on that. The mere cessation of fear produces a kind of peace – as the ocean is calm and beautiful after a storm – no matter what may be the cause, whether it be true religion or any other cause. Many a sinner, who has lost his convictions for sin in any way, mistakes the temporary calm which succeeds for true religion, and embraces the hope of the hypocrite.
(3) That hope will perish. This may occur in various ways.
(a) It may die away insensibly, and leave the man to be a mere professor of religion – a formalist, without comfort, usefulness, or peace.
(b) It may be taken away in some calamity by which God tries the soul, and where the man will see that he has no religion to sustain him.
(c) It may occur under the preaching of the gospel, when the hypocrite may be convinced that he is destitute of vital piety, and has no true love to God.
(d) It may be on a bed of death – when God comes to take away the soul, and when the judgment-seat appears in view.
(e) Or it will be at the bar of God. Then the hope of the hypocrite will certainly be destroyed. Then it will be seen that he had no true religion, and then he will be consigned to the awful doom of him who in the most solemn circumstances lived to deceive, and who assumed the appearance of that which he had the strongest reason to believe he never possessed. Oh! how important it is for every professor of religion to examine himself, that he may know what is the foundation of his hope of heaven!
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 8:13
So are the paths of all that forget God.
Withering paths
I. Consider the sin of forgetting God.
1. It is a very common sin. Thousands never think of Him except in times of trouble.
2. It is an inexcusable sin. They are dependent upon Him. He is constantly revealing Himself to them.
(1) In nature. Physical sequences have a living agent behind them; link after link of causation, but held and moved by a living hand. Law has no life. Natural agitations are the rustling of Gods garments as He works.
(2) In events. They are the tramp of the Everlasting. History is full of the interpositions of the Supreme.
(3) In Christ. Here, God became as one of us, that we might know Him.
(4) By His Spirit. Mens souls are disturbed by His presence within them.
3. It is a sin of Gods children (Jer 11:31 Jer 23:23-29 ?). We should live to Him every waking hour. Nothing should be too trifling about which to talk to Him.
II. To forget God is ruinous. Our life paths fade away like the rush without mire and the flag without water.
1. The path of inner progress. Men feel that without God they make no moral advancement. True manliness withers; they become moral skeletons. Truth, moral vitality, courage for the right, honour, integrity, all fade away from them, and they are like a withered rush. No one is self-adequate. God is the fountain of life. The highest archangel would cry, as he looked towards the Life-giver of the universe, All my springs are in Thee. The forces of death within us surely conquer, unless they are subdued by the incomings of Gods life.
2. The path of outward actualities. The way of life yields little true joy if God be forgotten. There may be worldly success without it. A man may get rich or high-positioned, but he fails to gain the highest satisfactions.
3. The path of posthumous influence. The way of life is impressionable. We all leave footprints upon it. The footprints of the good are more lasting than the evil. Evil is everywhere to be rooted up. It is a fact that the influence of the good is more permanent than the evil. Compare the influence of Alexander and Socrates, Nero and Paul, Queen Mary and Knox, Voltaire and Wesley, etc. The good parent and the wicked one. The name of the wicked shall rot. Think of the folly of forgetting Him. Why should you do this, and die? The withering of a flower may awaken a sigh; the fading away of an oak a tear; but what sorrow should there be over a man fading away into a demon! (W. Osborne Lilley.)
Forgetfulness of God
1. The hypocrite is a forgetter of God.
2. Forgetfulness of God (howsoever it seems no great matter, yet) is exceeding sinful, a wickedness of the highest stature. Forgetfulness of God is therefore a great wickedness, because God hath done so many things to be remembered by.
3. Forgetfulness of God is a mother sin, or the cause of all other sins. First, a forgetfulness that there is a God. Secondly, a forgetfulness who, or what manner of God He is. Thou thoughtest that I was such an one as thyself (Psa 50:1-23). Thirdly, to forget God, is to forget what God requires; this forgetfulness of these three sorts is productive of any, of every sin.
4. They that forget God shall quickly wither, how great and flourishing soever they are. (J. Caryl.)
The hypocrites hope shall perish.
The sin of hypocrisy
A common objection against religion is the existence of hypocrisy. The infidel uses it, the scoffer employs it, and the indifferent, who admit the obligation of religion, yet object to its restraint, always fall back upon the prevalence of hypocrisy. Nothing can be more absurd than for the people to cry down religion because of hypocrisy; it is like a man denying the existence of a subject because he saw a shadow, or asserting that because he had received or seen a few counterfeit sovereigns, there was not a piece of pure gold in the mint. The way of the hypocrite is such as Bildad describes; a brief season of profession, terminating in the extinction of what seemed spiritual life, when all his self-confidence proves to offer no better security than the flimsy web or house of the spider. The rush and flag are succulent plants, and can only live in miry or marshy spots; withdraw from them the moisture on which they grow, and you destroy them. So the hypocrite has no abiding principle of life in him, nor any aptness to derive benefit from those deep or heaven-sent sources which impart nourishment to the believer; some flood of excitement bears him up, some unwholesomeness in the soil enables him to look flourishing. The hypocrite is like the rush or the flag in his material; cut one of these and you will find but pith, or an arrangement of empty cells, you will not find the substance of the oak. Again he springs up all at once from the ground; the smooth stem of the rush, or the broad, waving leaf of the flag will represent the hypocrites profession. There is a peculiarity in the common rush; you never can find one green at the top, get it fresh and flourishing as you will, it has begun to wither. Find the hypocrite ever so promising, there will be something to tell you, if you look narrowly, that his religious life has death in it already.
I. The origin of hypocrisy, or the assumption of a character which does not belong to us. In the first instance it comes from low notions of God, arising out of our deceived understanding. Hypocrisy argues a sense of obligation on the part of the hypocrite. He knows his responsibility, but having no clear notion of the purity and all-seeing eye of God, he puts on a form of religion while destitute of the power; he thinks that God is like himself, and therefore that he can deceive Him. These persons are without a relish for that state of mind which religion requires, the new heart, the right spirit, the single eye, the death unto sin, the life unto righteousness. Man must have a religion, so a religion he assumes.
II. The general character of hypocrisy. How can we avoid setting down as a hypocrite the man who, devoid of Christ in his heart, attends religious services? One characteristic is self-deception. A man begins by dissembling with God; he proceeds to deceive his fellows; at length he palms the cheat upon himself. Nothing is so irksome even to the sincere Christian as the duty of self-examination. Where self-love is predominant, it is easy to believe that the man will, in the first place, shut his eyes to his faults: a false standard of holiness being set up, he will soon find others worse than himself; this will comfort him; he will substitute single acts for habits, or momentary feelings for abiding and governing principles of conduct.
III. The consequences of hypocrisy. The scoffer laughs at what he considers a satisfactory proof that there is no such thing as true religion. The careless or indolent content themselves with their present neutral (as they suppose it) condition, and think it better not to go any further in their profession. The child of God trembles and feels cast down. Yet there is good brought out of all this by God. The best method of avoiding the sin of hypocrisy is to have this constantly in our minds, that we have to deal with a God who is about our path, and about our bed, and spieth out all our ways, one on whom there can be no deception practised. Let us then seek to have that oneness of spirit by which only we can serve Him. In our religion let the heart agree with the head, the hands, and the feet. (C. O. Pratt, M. A.)
The hypocrite-his character, hope, and end
These words are supposed to be a quotation from one of the fathers. We can see that the quotation may begin at Job 8:11, but it is not easy to see where it ends.
I. The character of the hypocrite. All hypocrites belong to the class of those who forget God. In outward appearance, to the eye of man, they appear to remember God. Their outward services; their regular observance of everything that is external in religion; the words which they use; the subjects on which they converse–all appear to mark them out as those who remember God. But, in all this, as the very word hypocrite indicates, they are but acting a part. There is no reality in their services; no correspondence between their outward lives and the state of their heart; the two are altogether at variance. They are anxious for the praise of men; and so they are careful to adapt their outward lives–that which is seen of men–to a religious standard. They care not for the praise of God; and so they neglect their hearts, and withhold them from Him to whom they are due. All is show; there is no fruit. We meet with solemn examples of this character in the Scriptures. It is the motive; it is the power of godliness; it is Jesus dwelling in the heart; it is walking as in the presence of God,–it is this that constitutes the difference between the true Christian and the hypocrite; between him who serves God in truth, and him who serves in appearance. Then let us seek truthfulness of character and reality.
II. The hope of the hypocrite. The Christians hope is laid up in heaven. It is an anchor of the soul, sure and steadfast. The hypocrites hope fastens itself on some vain thing in the present life, some worldly gain, the praise of man, or some pecuniary benefit. And there is no single character in which there is so little hope of any real and saving change as in that of the hypocrite. But what is the issue and end of the hypocrites hope, and of himself? The hypocrite, being destitute of the grace of God, cannot grow, but must wither away. Without the grace of God we are but as some succulent plant, when the moistened mire and water are withdrawn from its roots. It needs not to be cut down by the hand of man, but withers speedily in consequence of the lack of moisture. We may, however, explain the mire and the water, not of inward grace, but rather of outward prosperity; and then the meaning will be this–It is only in circumstances of outward prosperity that the hypocrite can appear to flourish. Let these be changed let sifting trials come, as they will come, to try the heart, and he is as a rush or flag from which the mire and water are removed; he suddenly disappears, his hope vanishes, and he himself is lost. Another illustration is used. The hypocrites hope is compared to a spiders web. Beautifully formed as such a web is–a masterpiece of ingenuity and arrangement–it is easily swept away. A gust of wind, or the hand of man may carry it away in a moment. The poor spider may cling for safety to his house or web, woven out of its own body, but it cannot shelter him (Job 8:15). What a vivid picture of the hypocrites trust! His confidence of success rises high, when suddenly the hand of God sweeps away the spiders web, and the poor deceiver falls, clinging to its ruins Our subject has led us to speak of the thorough hypocrite, but we ought to remember that there are many degrees of this sin short of downright hypocrisy. Simplicity and transparency of character–one of the most beautiful graces of the Christian character–may be wanting. (George Wagner.)
The hope of the hypocrite
It is thought that this passage is a quotation introduced by Bildad from a fragmentary poem of more ancient date. Desirous of fortifying his own sentiments by the authority of the ancients, he introduces into the heart of his argument a stray passage which had been carried down through successive generations. The moral of this fragment is that the hypocrites hope shall perish. This is presented under three images.
1. That of the bulrush growing in a marshy soil. Rush and flag may represent any plant which demands a marshy soil, and imbibes a large quantity of water. When the hypocrite is compared to a rush which cannot live without mire, and the flag that cannot grow without water, we are instructed as to the weakness and unsubstantial nature, of his confidence; and when it is added that while yet it is in greenness, it withereth before any other herb, we are reminded of the brevity and precariousness of his profession. Take the reed out of the water, and plant it in any other soil, and you will see it hang down its head and perish utterly. You have no need to tear it up by the roots, or to cut it down as by a reaping hook. All that you have tot do is draw off the watery substance on which it depends for nourishment, and which it copiously imbibes. Thus too it is with the profession and confidence of the hypocrite. To prove the worthlessness of his hope, it is enough that you abstract from him the enjoyments of his past existence–the mire and moisture from which he derived his fair show of appearances in the flesh. But for the favourable condition in which he happened to be placed, he would have never appeared religious at all, and that being changed, his declension is rapid and inevitable. The hypocrites hope shall perish. He is himself frail as a reed, and that which he leans upon is unstable as water. Has then the hypocrite hope? Yes, for such is the deceitfulness of the human heart, that it can even cry peace when there is no peace. Thinking the Deity to be altogether such an one as himself, he has accustomed himself to call evil good and good evil. As the man is, so is the god that he creates for himself. And hence it is that even the hypocrite has a hope. But it is a hope which must perish.
2. That of the spiders web, swept away in a moment by the breath of the storm. The web of the spider is carefully and ingeniously constructed; but nothing is more easily brushed aside. The insect trusts to it indeed, but in a moment of time, he and it are carried away together. The hypocrite, too, has reared for himself what he supposes will be a comfortable habitation against the storm and rain. Not more slender is the thread spun by the spider than is his fancied security. Let trial or calamity come, and it will avail him nothing.
3. A plant that has no depth of earth for its roots, but which seeks even among a heap of stones for wherewithal to maintain itself. The metaphor is drawn from an object with which the observers of nature are familiar. When the roots have only a slender hold of a heap of stones, they are easily loosened, and the tree falls prostrate. Such is the attachment of the hypocrite to the place of his self-confidence. Into every crevice of his fancied merits does he push the fibres of hope. On the hard rock of an unconverted heart he flourishes awhile. Learn–
(1) Human nature is very much the same in all ages.
(2) It concerns us all to endeavour after that well-grounded hope which will stand against every storm, and give composure to us in our latter end. Hope is the grand engine that moves the world. How desirous we ought to be that our hope of heaven should be well grounded and sure. For this purpose be much in secret prayer; and study to be more conformed unto Him who is the author of your hope. (J. L. Adamson.)
The hope of the hypocrite delusive
I. What is meant by the hypocrite? All hypocrites may be comprehended under these two sorts.
1. The gross dissembler, who knowingly, and against his conscience, pursues some sinful course, endeavouring only to conceal it from the eyes of men. Such an one as Gehazi, or Judas.
2. The formal, refined hypocrite who deceives his own heart. He makes some advances into the practice of holiness; but not being sound at the heart, not being thoroughly divided from his sin, he takes that for grace which is not sincerity, and therefore much less grace; and being thus deceived, he misses of the power of godliness, and embraces only the form (Mat 7:26-27). Both these hypocrites agree in this, that they are deceivers. One deceives the world, the other deceives himself.
II. What is meant by the hypocrites hope? Those persuasions that a man has of the goodness and safety of his spiritual condition, whereby he strongly persuades himself that he is now in a state of grace, and consequently shall hereafter attain to a state of glory. This hope is not in the same proportion in all hypocrites. Distinguish in it these two degrees.
1. A probable opinion. This is but the lowest degree of assent.
2. A peremptory persuasion. This is its higher pitch and perfection. It seems seldom to be entertained but where hypocrisy is in conjunction with gross ignorance, or judicial searedness. Proposition–
I. A hypocrite may proceed so far as to obtain a hope and expectation of a future blessedness.
1. Hypocrites have and do obtain such hopes. Evinced by two arguments. From the nature and constitution of mans mind, which is vehement and restless in its pursuit after some suitable good. It is natural for man, both in his desires and designs, to build chiefly upon the future. Man naturally looks forward. Every man carries on some particular design, upon the event of which he builds his satisfaction; and the spring that moves these designs is hope. Hopes of the future are the causes of present action. It follows that the hypocrite has his hope, for he has his course and his way, according to which he acts, and without hope there can be no action. The other argument, proving that hypocrites have their hopes, shall be taken from that peace and comfort that even hypocrites enjoy; which are the certain effects, and therefore the infallible signs of some hope abiding in the mind. Assuredly, if it were not for hope, the heart of the merriest and most secure hypocrite in the world would break.
2. By what ways and means the hypocrite comes first to attain this hope. By misapprehending God. By his misunderstanding of sin. By mistakes about the spiritual rigour and strictness of the Gospel. By his mistakes about repentance, faith, and conversion.
3. By what ways and means the hypocrite preserves and continues this false hope. Those methods by which he first gets it, have in them also a natural fitness to continue, cherish, and foment it. Three ways more. Especially–
(1) By keeping up a course of external obedience, and abstaining from gross and scandalous sins.
(2) By comparing himself with others, who are openly vicious, and apparently worse than himself. There is no way more effectual for a man to argue himself into a delusion.
(3) By forbearing to make a strict and impartial trial of his estate. No wonder if the hypocrite discerns not his condition, when he never turns his eyes inwards by a thorough, faithful examination. The foulest soul may think itself fair and beautiful till it comes to view its deformity in the glass of Gods Word. Proposition–
II. The hypocrites fairest and most promising expectation of a future happiness will in the end vanish into miserable disappointment.
1. Prove this proposition. From clear testimony of Scripture. A spiders web may represent a hypocrites hope in the curious subtilty, and the fine artificial composure of it, and in the weakness of it; for it is too fine spun to be strong. From the weakness of the foundation on which the hope is built.
2. Show what are those critical seasons and turns in which more especially the hypocrites hope will be sure to fail him.
(1) The time of some heartbreaking, discouraging judgment from God.
(2) At the time of death.
III. Make some use and improvement of the foregoing discourse. It shall be to display and set before us the transcendent, surpassing misery of the final estate of all hypocrites, whose peculiar lot it is to hope themselves into damnation, and to perish with those circumstances that shall double and treble the weight of their destruction. In this life the heart of man is not capable of such absolute, entire misery, but that some glimmerings of hope will still dart in upon him, and buoy up his spirits from an utter despondency. But when it shall come to this, that a man must go one way, and his hopes another, so parting as never to meet again, human nature admits not of any further addition to its sorrow; for it is pure, perfect, unmixed misery, without any allay or mitigation. Those appetites and desires, the satisfaction of which brings the greatest delight; the defrauding of them, according to the rule of contraries, brings the greatest and the sharpest misery. Nothing so comfortable as hope crowned with fruition; nothing so tormenting as hope snapped off with disappointment and frustration. The despairing reprobate is happier than the hoping reprobate. Both indeed fall equally low, but he that hopes has the greater fall, because he falls from the higher place. (R. South, D. D.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Verse 13. So are the paths] The papyrus and the rush flourish while they have a plentiful supply of ooze and water; but take these away, and their prosperity is speedily at an end; so it is with the wicked and profane; their prosperity is of short duration, however great it may appear to be in the beginning. Thou also, O thou enemy of God, hast flourished for a time; but the blast of God is come upon thee, and now thou art dried up from the very roots.
The hypocrite’s hope shall perish] A hypocrite, or rather profligate, has no inward religion, for his heart is not right with God; he has only hope, and that perishes when he gives up the ghost.
This is the first place in which the word hypocrite occurs, or the noun chaneph, which rather conveys the idea of pollution and defilement than of hypocrisy. A hypocrite is one who only carries the mask of godliness, to serve secular purposes; who wishes to be taken for a religionist, though he is conscious he has no religion. Such a person cannot have hope of any good, because he knows he is insincere: but the person in the text has hope; therefore hypocrite cannot be the meaning of the original word. But all the vile, the polluted, and the profligate have hope; they hope to end their iniquities before they end life; and they hope to get at last to the kingdom of heaven. Hypocrite is a very improper translation of the Hebrew.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Of all that forget God, i.e. of wicked men, who are branded with this same character, Psa 9:17; 50:22; or hypocrites, as the next words explain it, who are described by their first and fundamental miscarriage, which is, that they forget, i.e. neglect, forsake, and despise, (for so this phrase is commonly understood, as Deu 6:12; 8:11; 32:18; Jer 2:32; 23:27) God, i.e. his presence, and commands, and worship, and providence; and therefore break forth into manifold sins. But by their paths he doth not understand the course of their actions, or manner of their living; but the events which befall them, called their paths objectively, because they are the paths of God, or the methods of his providence, or manner of his dealing with them. Now this may be accommodated to the foregoing similitude in this manner: Such is the prosperity of wicked men, because it wants the solid foundation of their piety, and of Gods promise and blessing consequent thereupon, it quickly vanisheth into nothing.
The hypocrites hope shall perish, i.e. he shall lose what he hoped for (hope being oft put for its object,) even uninterrupted and abiding felicity, and with it all hope of restitution.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
13. pathsso “ways”(Pr 1:19).
all that forget Godthedistinguishing trait of the godless (Psa 9:17;Psa 50:22).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
So [are] the paths of all that forget God,…. Who forget that there is a God; he is not in all, and scarce in any of their thoughts, and they live without him in the world; who forget the works of God, of creation and providence, in which there is a glorious display of his being and perfections; who forget the benefits and blessings of his goodness they are every day partakers of, and are not thankful for them; and who forget the word, worship, and ordinances of God, and follow after and observe lying vanities, idols, and the works of men’s hands, and worship them, being unmindful of the rock of their salvation: now such men, as well as the hypocrites in the next clause, are like bulrushes and flags, or sedge, being unfruitful, useless, and unprofitable; and, for their sensuality and worldly mindedness, standing in the mire and clay of an unregenerate state, and of carnal and worldly lusts; and though, especially the latter, may carry their heads high in a profession of religion, and make a fair show in the flesh while it is a time of outward prosperity with them, but when tribulation arises on the account of religion, they are presently offended, and apostatize; being destitute of the true grace of God, and having the root of the matter in them, they wither of themselves; they soon drop their profession in the view of all good men, comparable to herbs and green grass, which abide in their verdure, when the other are gone and are seen no more:
and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish; who are either the same with those before described, who, being in prosperous circumstances, forget the God of their mercies they make a profession of, like Jeshurun of old, or different persons, as Bar Tzemach thinks, the former designing open profane sinners, these secret ones, under the appearance of good men: an “hypocrite” is one whose inside is not as his outside, as the Jews say; who is outwardly righteous, but inwardly wicked; has a form of godliness, but not the power of it; a name to live, but dead; that makes a show of religion and devotion, attending the worship and ordinances of God in an external way, as if he had great delight in him and them, when his heart is removed far from him: and such have their “hope”, for the present, of being in the favour of God, and of future happiness, which is founded on their outward prosperity their esteem among men, and more especially their external righteousness, and profession of religion; but this will “perish”, even both the ground of their hope, the riches and righteousness, which come to nothing, and the hope that is built thereupon sinks into despair; if not in life, as it sometimes does, yet always at death, see Job 11:20; Bildad seems to have Job in view here, whom he esteemed an hypocrite.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
13. Forget God Ingratitude is a burning wind that dries up the fountains of piety and the streams of love. (St. Bernard.)
The hypocrite . At the root of this word, occurring so often in this book, unquestionably lies the idea of veiling or concealing. The word also signifies the ungodly, which is the meaning that Gesenius and most interpreters of Job give it. Hitzig, however, renders as in the text. Our English word in its Greek original explains itself. A hypocrite is one who acts a part, like a stageplayer. (See on our text two sermons by Dr. South.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 8:13. Whose hope shall be cut off, &c. The thing which he longed for shall be a torment to him; and his confidence shall be as the spider’s web. Heath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Job 8:13 So [are] the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish:
Ver. 13. So are the paths of all that forget God ] To remember God is as necessary as to draw breath, saith Chrysostom. This the wicked man doth not, Psa 9:17 . He will neither have God in his head, Psa 10:4 , nor heart, Psa 14:1 , nor words, Psa 12:2 , nor ways, Tit 1:16 . What wonder then though his paths wither, though his life, health, wealth, power, perish, since he is in such a posture of distance from, and defiance with, the fountain of living waters, the Father of all mercy and consolation; by whose favour such flourish for a time, sed exoriuntur, ut exurantur?
And the hypocrite’s hope shall perish] Every wicked man is a hypocrite; and if there were nothing else to evince it, yet his very hope and groundless confidence in the mercies of God without warrant of promise, would undoubtedly prove it. Praesumendo sperat, et sperando petit, saith an ancient; he presumptuously hopeth, and by hoping perisheth; he lays his own shadow for a bridge, and so must needs fall into the brook. Trust thou in the Lord and do good, saith David, Psa 37:3 . But this man, though he cannot tell of one tear for sin, nor one hour spent in the practice of mortification; yet he affirmeth deeply of going to heaven, and is ready to rap, yea, bounce at heaven’s gate with Lord, Lord, open unto us: but what saith the psalmist? “As for such as turn aside unto their crooked ways” (though they do it never so slily, as if they would steal a passage to hell, and the world never the wiser), “the Lord shall lead them forth with the workers of iniquity,” with gross offenders, Psa 125:5 , as malefactors are led forth to execution; and when the filthy sinner (so the word here rendered hypocrite signifieth) goes damned to hell, what shall become of the zealous professor, with all his fair hopes and possibilities? Surely God rejecteth their confidences; they shall not prosper in them, Jer 2:37 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
So are, &c. The application of the first simile.
the paths. The Septuagint reads “the latter end”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
that forget God: Deu 6:12, Deu 8:11, Deu 8:14, Deu 8:19, Psa 9:17, Psa 10:4, Psa 50:22, Isa 51:13
the hypocrite’s: Job 11:20, Job 13:16, Job 15:34, Job 18:14, Job 20:5, Job 27:8-10, Job 36:13, Pro 10:28, Pro 12:7, Isa 33:14, Lam 3:18, Mat 24:51, Luk 12:1, Luk 12:2
Reciprocal: Est 5:12 – to morrow Job 19:10 – mine hope Psa 37:35 – a green bay tree Pro 11:7 – General Pro 11:9 – An hypocrite Hos 2:13 – forgat Mat 25:8 – for
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 8:13. So are the paths of all that forget God Of wicked men, who are often described by this character; see Psa 9:17; Psa 50:22; or, of hypocrites, as the next words explain it, whose first and fundamental error is, that they forget, that is, neglect, forsake, and despise God, his presence, commands, worship, and providence; and, therefore, break out into manifold sins. But, by their paths, he does not intend their manner of living, but the events which befall them, Gods manner of dealing with them. Now this may be accommodated to the foregoing similitude in this manner, namely, Such is the prosperity of wicked men; because it wants the solid foundation of piety, and of Gods promise and blessing consequent thereupon, it quickly vanishes into nothing. The hypocrites hope shall perish That is, the object of his hope, his riches, his friends, his honours, and other such like things, on which he founded his expectations; for, when these are lost, hope may be said to perish, because that from which it arose is no more.