Job 8:11-15 11 Doth papyrus grow up without mire?
Doth the reed shoot up without water? 12 It is still in luxuriant verdure, when it is not cut off,
Then before all other grass it with 13 So is the way of all forgetters of God,
And the hope of the ungodly perisheth, 14 Because his hope is cut off,
And his trust is a spider’s house: 15 He leaneth upon his house and it standeth not,
He holdeth fast to it and it endureth not.
Bildad likens the deceitful ground on which the prosperity of the godless stands to the dry ground on which, only for a time, the papyrus or reed finds water, and grows up rapidly: shooting up quickly, it withers as quickly; as the papyrus plant, if it has no perpetual water, though the finest of grasses, withers off when most luxuriantly green, before it attains maturity. גּמא, which, excepting here, is found only in connection with Egypt (Exo 2:3; Isa 18:2; and Isa 35:7, with the general קנה as specific name for reed), is the proper papyrus plant (Cypeerus papyyrus, L.): this name for it is suitably derived in the Hebrew from גּמא, to suck up (comp. Lucan, iv. 136: conseritur bibulâ Memphytis cymba papyro); but is at the same time Egyptian, since Coptic kam , cham , signifies the reed, and 'gôm , 'gōme, a book (like liber, from the bark of a tree). אחוּ, occurring only in the book of Job and in the history of Joseph, as Jerome (Opp. ed. Vallarsi, iv. 291) learned from the Egyptians, signifies in their language, omne quod in palude virem nascitur: the word is transferred by the lxx into their translation in the form ἄχι (ἄχει), and became really incorporated into the Alexandrian Greek, as is evident from Isa 19:7 (ערות, lxx καὶ τὸ ἄχι τὸ χλωρόν) and Sir. 40:16 (ἄχι ἐπὶ παντὸς ὕδατος καὶ χείλους ποταμοῦ πρὸ παντὸς χόρτου ἐκτιλήσεται); the Coptic translates pi - akhi , and moreover ake, oke signify in Coptic calamus, juncus. יקּטף לא describes its condition: in a condition in which it is not ready for being gathered. By אשׁר, quippe, quoniam, this end of the man who forgets God, and of the חנף, i.e., the secretly wicked, is more particularly described. His hope יקוט, from קטט, or from קוט, med. o, in neuter signification succiditur. One would indeed expect a figure corresponding to the spider’s web earlier; and accordingly Hahn, after Reiske, translates: whose hope is a gourd, - an absurd figure, and linguistically impossible, since the gourd or cucumber is קשּׁוּא, which has its cognates in Arabic and Syriac. Saadia translates: whose hope is the thread of the sun. The “thread of the sun” is what we call the fliegender Sommer or Altweibersommer, i.e., the sunny days in the latter months of the year: certainly a suitable figure, but unsupportable by any parallel in language.
We must therefore suppose that יקוט, succiditur, first gave rise to the figure which follows: as easily as a spider’s web is cut through, without offering any resistance, by the lightest touch, or a breath of wind, so that on which he depends and trusts is cut asunder. The name for spider’s web, עכּבישׁ בּית, leads to the description of the prosperity of the ungodly by בּית (Job 8:15): His house, the spider’s house, is not firm to him. Another figure follows: the wicked in his prosperity is like a climbing plant, which grows luxuriantly for a time, but suddenly perishes.