my roots spread out to the waters, with the dew all night on my branches,
Job is looking back at the good years, picturing himself as a tree with roots down in water and branches wet with dew all night. The picture is beautiful, but it raises two questions: where did that freshness come from, and why did God let it go?
The picture Job draws
The verse belongs to a short run of images — a nest, a tree, a bow — all saying the same thing about the life Job expected to keep.
Samuel RidoutAll this honour, along with his kindness to others, made life very attractive to Job. The end that must come was pushed far into the distance. It would find him comfortable in his "nest." He would stretch out the days of his life like countless grains of sand... In any case the meaning is obvious: he would live on without interruption, like a well-watered tree. So the freshness of the dew would be his, and his bow would stay strong.
Job speaks of the past here, but what he describes is what he assumed would go on without end. Older translations bring that out: "My root shall be spread out to the waters."
What dew stands for
Dew is not something a tree makes. It falls on the branch from above, through the night.
Morrish Bible DictionaryIt is a blessing, a refreshment sent by God, and withheld as punishment or in discipline... It pictures how God refreshes and strengthens His people through the night, while their Lord is away. It will not be needed when the day breaks and the Sun of righteousness rises with healing in His wings.
That single detail turns the verse around. Job treats this freshness as his own security. But God had to send it fresh each night, and God could hold it back.
A fair expectation, resting on the wrong thing
Job's confidence was not absurd. Given his life, anyone would have expected the same of him — the man from the land of Uz.
William KellyCertainly, if any mortal was entitled to look for a peaceful future from God and before men, it was the man of Uz.
But a reasonable expectation can still rest on sand. Job leaned on his position, his health, his standing — the watered ground itself.
J. G. BellettHe did not like — and which of us does? — to accept the sentence of death in himself. That way he would not trust in himself, or in his circumstances in life, or in his natural condition, but in God who raises the dead. "I shall die in my nest" was his thought and his hope. But he was to see his nest stripped of everything nature had filled it with and circumstances had decorated it with.
Job at the centre
Notice the possessives: my roots, my branches. That habit runs through the whole chapter, and one writer counted it.
C. H. MackintoshThis is a truly remarkable statement. We look in vain here for any breathing of a broken and repentant spirit. There are no signs of self-loathing, or even of self-distrust. We cannot find a single expression of any sense of weakness and nothingness. In this one chapter Job refers to himself more than forty times, while the references to God are only five.
The question it puts to us
The danger in the verse is not pride in wrongdoing. It is assuming that a good past guarantees a good future.
Leslie M. GrantJob had been exemplary in his conduct and his reliability. So he felt quite confident that this prosperity would continue without a break... How differently things turned out from what he thought! Do we also think we can depend on past experience to carry us into the future? If so, we forget that we are totally dependent on the grace of God always.
The dew he finally received
The book does not end with a dried-up tree. What Job once described as his own natural advantage, he later receives as a gift from the Lord Himself.
J. G. BellettThe comfort of this! What a story it tells of grace — tireless, patient grace! And so Job flourishes again. The Lord is as the dew to him. He grows like the lily, his branches spread, his beauty is like the olive tree, his fragrance like Lebanon... and others even live under his shade, reviving like grain and growing like the vine.
Summary
- Root — Job pictures himself as a tree that never runs dry: unbroken life, fresh growth, strength renewed.
- Dew — God sends the dew and God can hold it back; the freshness Job calls his own came as a gift each night, never as a possession.
- Nest — he expected to end his days undisturbed. That hope rested on his circumstances, not on God who raises the dead.
- "I" — in a single chapter Job speaks of himself over forty times and of God five; he shows no weakness and no self-distrust.
- Grace — a good past secures nothing; we depend on the grace of God always. In the end the Lord Himself becomes the dew to Job, and he flourishes again.