10 He has broken me down on every side, and I am gone. My hope he has plucked up like a tree.
*Minor differences ignored. Grouped by changes, with first version listed as example.
He hath destroyed me on every side - He has left me nothing. The word which is used here is that which is commonly applied to which is used here is that which is commonly applied to destroying cities, towns, and houses. "Rosenmuller."
And I am gone - That is, I am near death. I cannot recover myself.
And mine hope hath he removed like a tree - A tree, which is plucked up by the roots, and which does not grow again. That is, his hopes of life and happiness, of an honored old age, and of a continuance of his prosperity, had been wholly destroyed. This does not refer to his "religious" hope - as the word hope is often used now - but to his desire of future comfort and prosperity in this life. It does not appear but that his religious hope, arising from confidence in God, remainned unaffected.
Mine hope hath he removed like a tree - There is no more hope of my restoration to affluence, authority, and respect, than there is that a tree shall grow and flourish, whose roots are extracted from the earth. I am pulled up by the roots, withered, and gone.
He hath destroyed me on every side, and I am gone: and mine hope hath he removed like (f) a tree.
(f) Which is plucked up, and has no more hope to grow.
He hath destroyed me on every side,.... To be "troubled on every side" is much, as the apostles were, 2-Corinthians 4:8; but to be destroyed on every side, and all around, is more, and denotes utter destruction; it may have respect to the rein of his substance and family, which were all demolished at once; his oxen and asses, which were on one side, his camels on other, his sheep on another, and his children on another, and all destroyed in one day, and perhaps in a few hours; and also to his body, which God had made, and had fashioned together round about; but now he had suffered it to be smitten with ulcers from the crown of his head to the sole of his feet; and this earthly tabernacle of his was demolishing on every side, and just falling down; for the allusion is either to the demolition of a building, or to the rooting up of a tree, and so continued in the next clause; comparing himself to a tree, that is dug about on all sides, and its roots laid bare, and these and all their fibres cut off, so that it is utterly destroyed from growing any more, but becomes dead; and this Job thought to be his case:
and I am gone; or am a dead man, just going out of the world, the way of all flesh; and because of the certainty of it, and of its being very quickly, in a few minutes, as it were, he speaks of it as if it already was: wherefore it follows,
and my hope he hath removed like a tree; not like a tree that is cut down to its roots, which remain in the ground, and may sprout out again, Job 14:7; nor like a tree that is taken up with its roots, and removed to another place, and planted in another soil, where it may grow as well or better; but like a tree cut off from its roots, or pulled up by the roots, and laid upon the ground, when there can be no hope of its ever growing again; and so the hope of Job was like that; not his hope of salvation, of the resurrection of the dead, and of eternal life, which was strong and firm, Job 13:15; nor can a good and well grounded hope be removed; not the grace of hope, which is an abiding one; nor the ground of hope, which is Christ and his righteousness, upon which hope, as an anchor, being cast, is sure and steadfast; nor the object of hope, eternal glory and happiness laid up in heaven: but this is to be interpreted of Job's hope of a restoration to outward happiness, which his friends would have had him entertain, in case of repentance and reformation; but Job, as he was not sensible of his need of the one, as his friends understood it, he had no hope of the other, see Job 6:11.
destroyed . . . on every side--"Shaken all round, so that I fall in the dust"; image from a tree uprooted by violent shaking from every side [UMBREIT]. The last clause accords with this (Jeremiah 1:10)
mine hope--as to this life (in opposition to Zophar, Job 11:18); not as to the world to come (Job 19:25; Job 14:15).
removed--uprooted.
Every side - In all respects, my person, and family, and estate. Gone - I am a lost and dead man. Hope - All my hopes of the present life, but not of the life to come. Tree - Which being once plucked up by the roots, never grows again. Hope in this life is a perishing thing. But the hope of good men, when it is cut off from this world, is but removed like a tree, transplanted from this nursery to the garden of God.
*More commentary available at chapter level.