Even _as I have seen_, they that plough wickedness and sow wickedness, reap the same. _By the blast of God they perish, and by the breath of his nostrils are they consumed_. The roaring of the lion, and the voice of the fierce lion, and the teeth of the young lions are broken. _The old lion perisheth for lack of prey_, and the stout lion's whelps are scattered abroad." Certainly, this seems to be a picture of a great event. Here again the fire of God, that consumed Job's sheep and servants, is at work; even the fiercest of the wild beasts are suffering: the old lion dies for want of prey, and its young ones are scattered abroad. Eliphaz continues: "In thoughts, from the visions of the night, when deep sleep falleth on me, _fear came upon me_, and trembling, which made all my bones to shake. Then a spirit _passed before my face_, the hair of my flesh stood up." A voice spake: "Shall mortal man be more just than God? Shall a man be more pure than his Maker? Behold he put no trust in his servants, and his angels he charged with folly: How much less them that dwell in houses of clay, whose foundation is in the dust, which are crushed before the moth. _They are destroyed from morning to evening; they perish forever without any regarding it_." {p. 284} The moth can crush nothing, therefore Maurer thinks it should read, "crushed like the moth." "They are destroyed," etc.; literally, "they are _broken to pieces in the space of a day_."[1] All through the text of Job we have allusions to the catastrophe which had fallen on the earth (chap. v, 3): "I have seen the foolish taking root: but suddenly I," (God,) "cursed his habitation." "4. His children are far from safety," (far from any place of refuge?) "and they are _crushed in the gate_, neither is there any to deliver them. "5. Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance." That is to say, in the general confusion and terror the harvests are devoured, and there is no respect for the rights of property. "6. Although affliction _cometh not forth of the dust_, neither doth trouble _spring out of the ground_." In the Douay version it reads: "Nothing on earth is done without a cause, and sorrow doth not spring out of the ground" (v, 6). I take this to mean that the affliction which has fallen upon men comes not out of the ground, but from above. "7. Yet man is born unto trouble, _as the sparks fly upward_." In the Hebrew we read for sparks, "sons of _flame_ or burning coal." Maurer and Gesenius say, "As the sons of lightning fly high"; or, "troubles are many and fiery as sparks." [1. Faussett's "Commentary," iii, 40.] {p. 285} "8. I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause; "9. Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: 10. Who _giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields_." Rain here signifies the great floods which cover the earth.