8 Put the question now to the past generations, and give attention to what has been searched out by their fathers: 9 (For we are but of yesterday, and have no knowledge, because our days on earth are gone like a shade:) 10 Will they not give you teaching, and say words of wisdom to you? 11 Will the river-plant come up in its pride without wet earth? will the grass get tall without water? 12 When it is still green, without being cut down, it becomes dry and dead before any other plant. 13 So is the end of all who do not keep God in mind; and the hope of the evil-doer comes to nothing: 14 Whose support is cut off, and whose hope is no stronger than a spider's thread. 15 He is looking to his family for support, but it is not there; he puts his hope in it, but it comes to nothing. 16 He is full of strength before the sun, and his branches go out over his garden. 17 His roots are twisted round the stones, forcing their way in between them. 18 If he is taken away from his place, then it will say, I have not seen you. 19 Such is the joy of his way, and out of the dust another comes up to take his place.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 8:8-19
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.