Matthew Henry Commentary Job 8:8-19

"For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, And apply thyself to that which their fathers have searched out: (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, Because our days upon earth are a shadow); Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, And utter words out of their heart? Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water? Whilst it is yet in its greenness, [and] not cut down, It withereth before any [other] herb. So are the paths of all that forget God; And the hope of the godless man shall perish: Whose confidence shall break in sunder, And whose trust is a spider`s web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: He shall hold fast thereby, but it shall not endure. He is green before the sun, And his shoots go forth over his garden. His roots are wrapped about the [stone] -heap, He beholdeth the place of stones. If he be destroyed from his place, Then it shall deny him, [saying], I have not seen thee. Behold, this is the joy of his way; And out of the earth shall others spring." — Job 8:8-19 (ASV)

Bildad speaks insightfully about hypocrites and evildoers, and the fatal end of all their hopes and joys. He proves this truth—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 who speak words from their heart, who speak from an experience of spiritual and divine things.

A rush growing in marshy ground, looking very green but withering in dry weather, represents the hypocrite's religious profession, which is maintained only in times of prosperity. The spider's web, spun with great skill but easily swept away, represents a person's pretensions to religion when without the grace of God in their heart. A merely formal professor flatters himself in his own eyes, does not doubt his salvation, is secure, and deceives the world with his vain confidences.

The flourishing of the tree, planted in the garden, striking its roots down to the rock, yet after a time cut down and thrown aside, represents wicked people who, when most firmly established, are suddenly thrown down and forgotten. This doctrine of the vanity of a hypocrite's confidence, or the prosperity of a wicked person, is sound; but it was not applicable to the case of Job, if confined to the present world.