14 What they trust in is fragile
14 His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider's web.
14 They hang their life from one thin thread, they hitch their fate to a spider web.
14 Whose confidence shall be cut off, And whose trust is a spider's web.
14 Their confidence hangs by a thread. They are leaning on a spider's web.
18 The wicked worketh a deceitful work: but to him that soweth righteousness shall be a sure reward.
18 A wicked person earns deceptive wages, but the one who sows righteousness reaps a sure reward.
18 The wicked earns deceptive wages, but one who sows righteousness gets a sure reward.
18 Bad work gets paid with a bad check; good work gets solid pay.
18 The wicked man does deceptive work, But he who sows righteousness will have a sure reward.
18 Evil people get rich for the moment, but the reward of the godly will last.
(Read Proverbs 11:18)
He that makes it his business to do good, shall have a reward, as sure to him as eternal truth can make it.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 8:14
Commentary on Job 8:8-19
(Read Job 8:8-19)
Bildad discourses well of hypocrites and evil-doers, and the fatal end of all their hopes and joys. He proves this truth of the destruction of the hopes and joys of hypocrites, by an appeal to former times. Bildad refers to the testimony of the ancients. Those teach best that utter words out of their heart, that speak from an experience of spiritual and divine things. A rush growing in fenny ground, looking very green, but withering in dry weather, represents the hypocrite's profession, which is maintained only in times of prosperity. The spider's web, spun with great skill, but easily swept away, represents a man's pretensions to religion when without the grace of God in his heart. A formal professor flatters himself in his own eyes, doubts not of his salvation, is secure, and cheats the world with his vain confidences. The flourishing of the tree, planted in the garden, striking root to the rock, yet after a time cut down and thrown aside, represents wicked men, when most firmly established, suddenly thrown down and forgotten. This doctrine of the vanity of a hypocrite's confidence, or the prosperity of a wicked man, is sound; but it was not applicable to the case of Job, if confined to the present world.