Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.
Job 8:12 belongs to the speech of Bildad, one of Job's friends. It stands near the opening of the extended passage from Job 8 to Job 27 in which the friends trouble Job with constant accusations, implied and otherwise, until they fall silent and leave him in the middle of his last reply, so their accusations and his replies belong together in reading rather than being divided strictly by days. Its setting concerns overruling providence, sin, and suffering, in which God is disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction while his three friends charge him with sin and insist his sufferings come from that sin. The episode shows how humanity misjudges its fellows.
The verse compares those who forget God to water plants that wither while still green and uncut, before any other herb. Their apparent vitality does not last, and with what follows it shows their hope cut off and their trust as fragile as a spider's web. The friends' observation here is generally true but was misapplied to Job, and it did not prove that his suffering meant he was under God's displeasure. Because it comes from a friend whose statements about God and Job are not all reliable, it must be tested against other inspired teaching rather than accepted as true merely because it appears in Scripture.
Job 8:12 belongs to the speech of Bildad, one of Job's friends. It stands near the opening of the extended passage from Job 8 to Job 27 in which the friends trouble Job with constant accusations, implied and otherwise, until they fall silent and leave him in the middle of his last reply, so their accusations and his replies belong together in reading rather than being divided strictly by days. Its setting concerns overruling providence, sin, and suffering, in which God is disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction while his three friends charge him with sin and insist his sufferings come from that sin. The episode shows how humanity misjudges its fellows.
The verse compares those who forget God to water plants that wither while still green and uncut, before any other herb. Their apparent vitality does not last, and with what follows it shows their hope cut off and their trust as fragile as a spider's web. The friends' observation here is generally true but was misapplied to Job, and it did not prove that his suffering meant he was under God's displeasure. Because it comes from a friend whose statements about God and Job are not all reliable, it must be tested against other inspired teaching rather than accepted as true merely because it appears in Scripture.