a green plant · preposition + noun, common masculine singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
down
יִקָּטֵ֑ףyi.ka.Tef
H6998
to strip off · verb, niphal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
withereth
יִיבָֽשׁyi.Vash
H3001
to be ashamed · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
before
וְלִפְנֵ֖יve.lif.Nei
H6440
the face (as the part that turns) · conjunction + preposition + noun, common masculine plural construct
herb
חָצִ֣ירcha.Tzir
H2682
grass · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Jeremiah 17:6 For he shall be like the heath in the desert, and shall not see when good cometh; but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness, in…
Psalms 129:6-7 Let them be as the grass upon the housetops, which withereth afore it groweth up:
Matthew 13:20 But he that received the seed into stony places, the same is he that heareth the word, and anon with joy receiveth it;
James 1:10-11 But the rich, in that he is made low: because as the flower of the grass he shall pass away.
1 Peter 1:24 For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away:
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 8:8-19
Bildad here discourses very well on the sad catastrophe of hypocrites and evil-doers and the fatal period of all their hopes and joys. He will not be so bold as to say with Eliphaz that none that were righteous were ever cut off thus (Job 4:7); yet he takes it for granted that God, in the course of his providence, does ordinarily bring wicked men, who seemed pious and were prosperous, to shame and ruin in this world, and that, by making their prosperity short, he discovers their piety to be counterfeit. Whether this will certainly prove that all who are thus ruined must be concluded to have been hypocrites he will not say, but rather suspect, and thinks the application is easy.
I. He proves…
not cut down--Before it has ripened for the scythe, it withers more suddenly than any herb, having no self-sustaining power, once that the moisture is gone, which other herbs do not need in the same degree. So ruin seizes on the godless in the zenith of prosperity, more suddenly than on others who appear less firmly seated in their possessions [UMBREIT] (Psa 112:10).
John Gill on Job 8:12
Whilst it is yet in its greenness,.... Before it is come to its full height, or to a proper ripeness; when as yet it has not flowered, or is about it; before the time usual for it to turn and change; it being without moisture, water, or watery clay, will change:
and not cut down; by the scythe, or cropped by the hand of man:
it withereth before any other herb; of itself; rather sooner than such that do not require so much moisture; or in the sight and presence of them, they looking on as it were, and deriding it; a poetical representation, as Schultens observes: next follows the accommodation of these similes to wicked and hypocritical men.
Keil & Delitzsch on Job 8:11-15
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, Aegy…
The Church Fathers
"He stops at the moment of growth and no one comes to pick him," since he is without water. "Before being watered does the grass not dry out? If it is not watered; never, indeed, has the ungodly been able to grow.
Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. Now it is well added, Whilst it is yet in his flower, nor plucked with the hand, it withereth before any other herb. 'The rush in his flower' is the hypocrite in esteem. Now the rush springing up with sharp edges is not plucked with the hand, in that the hypocrite, having his feelings sharpened by presumption, disdains to be rebuked for his wickedness. In his flower he gashes the hand that plucketh him, in that the hypocrite in the midst of applause, that no one may dare to rebuke him, by his cutting tongue wounds the life of the rebuker without delay. For he desires not to be holy, but to be called holy; and when he may chance to be rebuked, it is as if he were lopped off in the full bloom of his reputation. He is enraged to be found out in his wickedness, he forbids the man that brings his guilt home to him to address him, in that he is as it were pained by being touched in a secret wound. Such as he was known to the ignorant, he would wish to be accounted of all men, and readier to lay down his life than to be reprimanded, he is made worse by censure, because he accounts the word of disinterested goodness as the dart of deadly smiting. Hence in exasperated passion he directly rises in abuse, and looks about for all the evil he can rake together against the life of his rebuker. He longs to prove him beyond all comparison guilty, that he may make himself out innocent, not by his own doings, but by the guilt of others; so that often the person repents that he has uttered a word of censure, and that just as from the hand of one plucking any thing, so from the mind of the person chiding, there runs out as it were the blood of sorrow, if I may say so. Hence it is well said by Solomon, Reprove not a scorner, lest he hate thee. For it is not proper for the good man to fear, lest the scorner should utter abuse at him when he is chidden; but lest being drawn into hatred, he should be made worse. And here it is necessary to be known, that the excellencies of good men, as they begin from the heart, go on increasing to the very end of the present life; but the practices of hypocrites, seeing that they are not rooted in secret, often come to nought before the present life is ended. For very frequently…
Dictionary and topics
Leek — (Heb. hatsir; the Allium porrum), rendered “grass” in 1 Kings 18:5, 2 Kings 19:26, Job 40:15, etc.; “herb” in Job 8:12; “hay” in Prov. 27:25, and Isa. 15:6; “leeks” only in Num. 11:5. This Hebrew…
Forgetting God · Punishment of — Punishment of
Godlessness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
To forget God does not mean to have a lapse of memory but to act as if God did not exist (see Pss 10:4; 14:1; Zeph 1:12) or cannot see (see Job 22:13-17; Ps 94:7).
Rashi on Job 8:12
in its greenness In its moisture and with its produce.
will not be plucked Heb. יקטף, will not be broken or pulled off; like (Deut. 23:26), “you may pluck (וקטפת) ears.”
but before any other grass it will dry up Before any other grass [does], it will dry up when the water evaporates and the marsh dries up.
