a well-trodden road (literally or figuratively) · noun, common feminine plural construct
forget
שֹׁ֣כְחֵיSho.khe.chei
H7911
to mislay · verb, qal active participle, masculine plural construct
God
אֵ֑ל'El
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
hypocrite’s
חָנֵ֣ףcha.Nef
H2611
soiled (i.e. with sin) · adjective, masculine singular absolute
hope
וְתִקְוַ֖תve.tik.Vat
H8615
literally a cord (as an attachment) · conjunction + noun, common feminine singular construct
perish
תֹּאבֵֽדto.Ved
H6
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine singular
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
Psalms 9:17 The wicked shall be turned into hell, and all the nations that forget God.
Job 11:20 But the eyes of the wicked shall fail, and they shall not escape, and their hope shall be as the giving up of the ghost.
Job 13:16 He also shall be my salvation: for an hypocrite shall not come before him.
Job 15:34 For the congregation of hypocrites shall be desolate, and fire shall consume the tabernacles of bribery.
Proverbs 10:28 The hope of the righteous shall be gladness: but the expectation of the wicked shall perish.
Deuteronomy 8:11 Beware that thou forget not the LORD thy God, in not keeping his commandments, and his judgments, and his statutes, which I command thee thi…
Deuteronomy 8:19 And it shall be, if thou do at all forget the LORD thy God, and walk after other gods, and serve them, and worship them, I testify against y…
Job 20:5 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
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…
paths--so "ways" (Pro 1:19).
all that forget God--the distinguishing trait of the godless (Psa 9:17; Psa 50:22).
John Gill on Job 8:13
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 an…
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
Job has not really forgotten God. Being still subject to the test, Job has offered blessings and praise. That is why the final condition of the righteous is not comparable to the grass dried up by heat. But he "is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaves do not wither." Indeed, by preserving the fruit of virtue, Job has caused the abundant foliage of this world's goods to bloom.
So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. But as we have before said, who he is to whom Bildad likens 'a rush' or 'a flag,' he makes plain at the moment, where he adds, So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. For what does the hypocrite hope for from all his deeds, saving the observance of honour, the reputation of applause, to be feared by his betters, to be called a Saint by all men? But the hope of the hypocrite can never endure, for, from not making eternity his aim, he hastes away from all that he holds in his hand. For the bent of his mind is not fixed in that glory which is possessed without end; but while he gapes after transient applause, he loses in the getting the thing that he toils for, as 'Truth' testifieth, Who saith, Verily I say unto you, they have had their reward. Now this hope of being vouchsafed a reward cannot be maintained for long, seeing that honour is bestowed for the works exhibited, but life is pressing on to its close; praises are reechoed, but then along with them the periods of time are speeding to an end. And because the soul is in no wise rooted in the love of the eternal world, it slips away together with the very objects that it is centered in. For no one can attach himself to the moveable, and remain himself unmoved. For he that embraces transitory things is drawn into transition by the mere circumstance, that he is entangled with things running out their course. Therefore let him say, And the hypocrite's hope shall perish. For the applause of man, which he seeks with mighty pains, being driven on by the items of time, does run to nought.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Hypocrite — One who puts on a mask and feigns himself to be what he is not; a dissembler in religion. Our Lord severely rebuked the scribes and Pharisees for their hypocrisy (Matt. 6:2, 5, 16). “The hypocrite’s…
Character Of The Wicked · Forgetting God — Forgetting God
Forgetting God · Punishment of — Punishment of
Godlessness · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Hope · OF THE WICKED — OF THE WICKED
Hypocrisy · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Hypocrites · Hope of perishes — Hope of perishes
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 8:13
So are the ways of all those who forget God to prosper when it goes well with him until his measure [of sin] is full.
and the hope the end of the flatterer will be lost.
