Job 8:11 Commentary and Bible Study

What follows from verse 11 is probably a long quotation or a précis of the doctrine of man’s ability to achieve God’s favour. God treats men and women strictly according to their works, and therefore only hypocrites perish. Bildad is arguing that God is active to expose all hypocrites. If they survive at all, it is only for a short time, before God calls them to account. Just as a reed growing in a marsh is the first to die when the marsh dries out, so the Lord exposes the hypocrite first of all, and the implication of course is that Job is one such hypocrite. He looked as if he was flourishing for a time, but the day of reckoning has now come and God has completely altered his circumstances, and shown what he really thinks of him. This is what happens to all those who forsake God, and try to live a double life. The hypocrite’s hope is that his hypocrisy will not be noticed or taken into the reckoning. He has a hope like all men of future blessing, but, says Bildad, he will never see that hope. Bildad compares Job’s life to a spider’s web. It is fragile, insubstantial. The spider spins to catch its prey, and when some creature falls into the web, it darts out to consume it, but the web is insubstantial and the falling of a twig can easily break it. Your life, Job, is as weak as that – because it has no integrity. The hypocrite leans upon the house that he has built for himself – the structure of deceit which is designed to provide him with concealment; he puts a certain amount of confidence in it, but he finds it to be no more substantial than that web of the spider. It collapses immediately. The images are powerful, but the application to Job is completely inappropriate.Bildad’s third illustration is in verse 16-18. It is about the transience of the hypocrite – again, Job – and his complete removal so that there is no trace left of him. Though for a time he seems to flourish, and those who see him are impressed with his abundance, so that he wraps his roots around the stones, and anchors himself securely in the world, yet when God decides to act against him, he is gone in a moment. In terms of the tree or shrub in the illustration, it might have been struck by lightning. So complete is his removal that if the place where he grew were to consider where he used to be, it would have to say, it is as if he was never there. His removal is therefore final, and no one should be unduly impressed by short term success of the hypocrite.