Job 30:22

Therefore from all exterior appearances it seems that you granted me prosperity in the past to my hurt, and so he adds, "You raised me up," in the time of prosperity, "placing me almost above the wind," in a very exalted position, yet unstable like …

Thou liftedst me up, and as it were setting me upon the wind, thou dashedst me down strongly. Because the glory of the present life is seen as on high, but is not set firm by any stedfastness, one is as if he were 'lifted up and set upon the wind,' who rejoices in earthly prosperity, because the breath of fleeting happiness lifts him up only for this end, that it may in a moment prostrate him the worse below.

): Thou lifted me up to the wind, as a feather or the chaff which the wind plays with; so unequal a match did Job think himself for Omnipotence, and so unable was he to help himself when he was made to ride, not in triumph, but in terror, upon the wings of the wind, and the judgments of God did even dissolve his substance, as a cloud is dissolved and dispersed by the wind.

quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens

Thou liftest me up to the wind,....

Thou liftest me up to the wind - The sense here is, that he was lifted up as stubble is by a tempest, and driven mercilessly along. The figure of riding upon the wind or the whirlwind, is common in Oriental writers, and indeed elsewhere. So Milton says, “They ride the air in whirlwind.” So Addison, speaking of the angel that executes the commands of the Almighty, says, “Rides in the whirlwind, and directs the storm.” Coverdale renders this verse, “In times past thou didst set me up on high, as it were above the wind, but now hast thou given me a very sore fall.” Rosenmuller thinks that the image here is not taken from straw or chaff that is driven by the wind, but that the meaning of Job is, that he is lifted up and borne aloft like a cloud. But the image of chaff or straw taken up by the whirlwind and driven about, seems best to accord with the scope of the passage. The idea is, that the tempest of calamity had swept everything away, and had driven him about as a worthless object, until he was wasted away and ruined. It is possible that Job refers in this passage to the sand-storm which occurs sometimes in the deserts of Arabia. The following description of such a storm by Mr. Bruce (vol. 4:pp. 553, 554), will furnish an illustration of the force and sublimity of the passage. It is copied from Taylor’s Fragments, in Calmet’s Dictionary, vol. 3:235: “On the fourteenth,” says Bruce, “at seven in the morning, we left Assa Nagga, our course being due north. At one o’clock we alighted among some acacia trees at Waadiel Halboub, having gone twenty-one miles. We were here at once surprised and terrified by a sight, surely one of the most magnificent in the world. […]