Job 8:11

BILDAD SPEAKS OF JOB AS ONE WHO FORGETS GOD

"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."

"They perish before any other herb" (Job 8:12). Bildad, in this passage, appeals to the suddenness with which the rushes that grow in the marsh or edge of the river wither if their water supply fails. This is only a thinly veiled allusion to the suddenness of those disasters that came to Job; and he brutally applied his illustration to Job, affirming that, "So it happens to the godless man, and the man that forgets God" (Job 7:13).

"Whose trust is a spider's web" (Job 8:14). What Bildad says here, applying it to Job, of course, is that, "The hope of the ungodly man is as insubstantial as a spider's web."[14] In these words, Bildad sees the false hope, (as he thinks Job's hope is false) as something that Job has produced within himself, just as a spider's web is spun from that which comes out of the spider's body.[15] This is actually a very accurate picture of false hope; but it had no application whatever to Job.