Job 8:12

12. It withereth Our translators have disregarded the (in this case) important ו : while yet it is in its greenness, it is uncut, (and) THEN, sooner than all (other) grass, it drieth up. The passage strikingly illustrates the estate of the hypocrite the man who forgets God. The tall and graceful plant need not be cut down that it may suddenly die. Take from it the moisture of the marsh, and it withers. Thus with one who assumes to be what he is not. False and characterless he stands. He has no life of God in the soul. Withdraw the grace of God, and his nakedness stands self-confessed. He withers before he dies. Few are the exceptions to the law that the character of men is known to their fellows before they are cut down. The scene of the first three verses of this poem is evidently the Nile. The hot sun dries up the marsh water, and the plants perish. Still not far away rolls the majestic river, sometimes, as we have seen, called the ocean. In like manner the sinner perishes in the morass, not far from the river of life.