His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider's web.
Bildad is the second of Job's three friends. He argues from old sayings about how God deals with people. Here he picks one of the frailest things in nature to picture what a godless man leans on. The picture itself is true. The question is whether it was true of Job.
The Sting Behind the Picture
Bildad's earlier words struck at Job's children. Now the aim shifts.
F. B. HoleSo in the rest of the chapter he summarised what tradition would teach, illustrating his point by things in nature, like the rush and the spider's web. He claimed that all history showed that God repaid man according to what he deserved. If a man is evil, God cuts him off. If he is good, God makes him prosper. To tell Job that "the hypocrite's hope shall perish" was a cut this time not at Job's children but at Job himself.
What a Spider's House Means
The picture turns on a gap. A man can grip his trust as hard as he likes, and the thread still gives way.
William KellyThe object of their confidence is no firmer than a spider's web, though he may cling to it ever so tightly. It has no more permanence than the rank weed which spreads over a garden and twists its shoots into a stone-heap.
A Bible dictionary identifies the creature from the web the verse mentions. That web fails twice over: it holds nothing, and it covers nothing.
Morrish Bible DictionaryWe know this creature is the spider, because Scripture mentions its web. The web is very frail, so it pictures the trust of the hypocrite. It also pictures the weaving of the wicked, which will not give them a garment. Job 8:14; Isa. 59:5.
Wider Than Pretenders
Older versions call this man a hypocrite, which narrows the verse to people putting on a false front. One writer reads Bildad's target more widely.
Samuel RidoutSo is the prosperity of the wicked, who for a time spreads himself like a green bay tree. The hope of the ungodly — not merely the hypocrite — perishes. Then Bildad changes the picture. He compares the confidence of the wicked to someone leaning on a spider's web. How pitiful is the state of a man clinging in vain to something so frail!
The Image Turns Back on the Speakers
Bildad rests his case on human tradition. One writer turns the picture back on the friends themselves.
William KellyThey were all arguing on the ground of righteousness. Not one of them had taken in any thought of grace, up to this point and for long after… Bildad talks about the hypocrite being no better than a spider's web. That is exactly what they were, though they were not hypocrites. They were all wrong in their reasoning, and wrong reasoning is never better than a spider's web.
Bildad's verdict came from what he could see. The same writer says why that made it wrong.
William KellyApplied to the present case, there was no fellowship with God in Bildad's thoughts, and no gracious consideration for the sufferer. So his judgment, going by appearances, was unrighteous.
When True Words Wound a True Believer
This warning still unsettles sincere believers. One writer shows where it applies, and where it does not.
C. StanleyThis is all true of the stony-ground hearers. It is not true of Job, and not true of the soul that sincerely trusts in Christ… "The hypocrite's hope shall perish." But the weakest sheep of Christ shall never perish. If he looks at his own imagined greenness — at his own boasted goodness — this will fade away, and so Satan gets the advantage. There may be much freshness of soul at conversion, like a green reed. But beware of trusting in this.
The Day the Web Is Tested
Bildad expected the collapse in this life. One writer applies the same picture to a day still ahead.
James BoydThis is man's day, a day in which he has thrown off all law and followed the dictates of his own evil heart… But God's day is coming. In that day everything man trusts in will be like a spider's web, blown to pieces by the first blast of His withering wrath. He will find himself homeless, exposed to the eternal condemnation of his Creator, whose mercy he has so despised.
Summary
- Cut — Bildad aims his proverb about a perishing hope straight at Job, no longer at his children.
- Web — the picture works two ways: a thread that holds no weight, and a weaving that clothes nobody.
- Grip — the tragedy is not a weak hold but a tight hold on something that cannot carry it. How hard you cling changes nothing.
- Misfire — the friends argued only from righteousness, with no thought of grace. Their own reasoning was the flimsy web, and their verdict went by appearances.
- Anchor — the warning is real for empty profession. But the weakest sheep of Christ will never perish. Test what you lean on now, before the day that blows every false shelter apart.