Albert Barnes Commentary Job 20:17

"He shall not look upon the rivers, The flowing streams of honey and butter." — Job 20:17 (ASV)

He shall not see the rivers - This means he will not be permitted to enjoy plenty and prosperity. Rivers or rills of honey and butter are emblems of prosperity (Job 29:6). In Scripture, a land flowing with milk, honey, and butter is the highest image of prosperity and happiness.

The word translated "rivers" (פלגה p^elaggâh) more accurately means "rivulets," "small streams," or "brooks." These are such as were made by "dividing" a large stream (from פלג pâlag—to "cleave, divide"). This term would properly be applied to canals created by separating a large stream or dividing it into numerous watercourses for irrigating lands.

The word translated "floods"—and in the margin, "streaming brooks"—(נחלי נהרי nâhârēy nachalēy) means "the rivers of the valley." These are streams such as flow through a valley when swollen by melting snow or by torrents of rain. A flood, a rapid, swollen, full stream, would express the idea. These were ideas of beauty and fertility among the Orientals; and where butter and honey were represented as flowing in this manner in a land, it was the highest conception of plenty.

The word translated "honey" (דבשׁ d^ebash) can, and commonly does, mean "honey." However, it also means the juice of the grape, boiled down to about the consistency of molasses and used as an article of food. Arabs make much use of this kind of food now, and in Syria, nearly two-thirds of the grapes are used in preparing this food item. It is called by the Arabs "Dibs," which is the same as the Hebrew word used here. Might not the word mean this in some of the places where it is translated "honey" in the Scriptures?

The word translated "butter" (חמאה chem'âh) probably means, usually, "curdled milk" (see the notes at Isaiah 7:15). It is not certain that the word is ever used in the Old Testament to denote "butter" as we know it. The substance still used by Arabs is chiefly curdled milk, and this is probably what is referred to here. To illustrate this passage, it is worth noting that the inhabitants of Arabia, and of those who live in similar countries, have no concept of "butter" as it exists among us, in a solid state.

What they call "butter" is in a fluid state and is therefore compared with flowing streams. An abundance of these items was regarded as a high proof of prosperity, as they constitute a considerable part of the diet of Orientals. The same image, to denote plenty, is often used by the sacred writers and by Classical poets; see Isaiah 7:22:

And it shall come to pass in that day
That a man shall keep alive a young cow and two sheep,
And it shall be that from the plenty of milk which they shall give,
He shall eat butter
For butter and honey shall every one eat,
Who is left alone in the midst of the land.

See also Joel 3:18:

And it shall come to pass in that day,
The mountains shall drop down new wine,
And the hills shall flow with milk,
And all the rivers of Judah shall flow with water.

Thus, also Ovid, Metamorphoses III:

Flumina jam lactis, jam flumina nectaris ibant.

Compare Horace, Epodes XVI.41:

Mella cava manant ex ilice; montibus altis
Levis crepante lympha desilit pede.

From oaks pure honey flows, from lofty hills
Bound in light dance the murmuring rills.

Boscawen.

See also Euripides, Bacchae 142; and Theocritus, Idyll V.124. Compare Rosenmuller’s Alte und neue Morgenland on Exodus 3:8, No. 194.