Job 20:17

He shall not see the rivers - Mr. Good has the following judicious note on this passage: "Honey and butter are the common results of a rich, well-watered pasturage, offering a perpetual banquet of grass to kine, and of nectar to bees; and thus loading the possessor with the most luscious luxuries of pastoral life, peculiarly so before the discovery of the means of obtaining sugar. The expression appears to have been proverbial; and is certainly used here to denote a very high degree of temporal prosperity." See also Job 29:6 . To the Hebrews such expressions were quite familiar. See Exodus 3:8 ; Exodus 13:5 ; Exodus 33:3 ; 2 Kings 18:32 ; Deuteronomy 31:20 , and elsewhere. The Greek and Roman writers abound in such images. Milk and honey were such delicacies with the ancients, that Pindar compares his song to them for its smoothness and sweetness: -

Χαιρεπ

Φιλος. Εγω τοδε τοιπ

Πεμπω μεμιγμενον μελι λευκῳπ

Συν γαλακτι· κιρναμενα δπ ' εερςπ ' αμφεπει πομπ ' αοιδιμον, Αιολισιν εν πνοαισιν αυλων .

Pind. Nem. iii., ver. 133.