Job 8:13

So are the paths of all that forget God - This is clearly a part of the quotation from the sayings of the ancients. The word “paths” here means ways, acts, doings. They who forget God are like the paper-reed. They seem to flourish, but they have nothing that is firm and substantial. As the paper-reed soon dies, as the flag withers away before any other herb, so it will be with the wicked, though apparently prosperous.

ISAAC walked in the fields at eventide to meditate. I commend him for his occupation. Meditation is exceedingly profitable to the mind. If we talked less, read less, and meditated more we should be wiser men. I commend him for the season which he chose for that occupation—at eventide—when the business of the day was over and the general stillness of nature was in harmony with the quiet of his soul. I also commend him for the place which he selected—the wide expanse of nature—the field. Wise men can readily find a thousand subjects for contemplation abroad in the open country. Our four-square room is not very suggestive. But when a man walks in the fields, having the Lord in his heart and his whole mental faculties directed towards heavenly things, all things aid him in his pleasing occupation. If we look above to the sun, moon and stars, all these remind us of the grandeur of God and make us ask ourselves, "What is man, that the Lord should be mindful of him, or the son of man, that Jehovah should visit him?" If we look below, the green meadows, or golden cornfields all proclaim Divine care and bounty. There is not a bird that sings, nor a grasshopper that chirps in the grass which does not urge us to praise and magnify the name of the Most High—while the plants, from the hyssop on the wall to the cedar which spreads its boughs so gloriously on Lebanon— exhibit to observant eyes the wisdom of the great Creator of all things. The murmuring brook talks to the listening ear in hallowed whispers of Him whose cloudy Throne supplies its stream. And the air, as it sighs amid the trees, tells in mysterious accents of the great unseen but ever-active Spirit of the living God. The great book of Nature only needs to be turned over by a reverent hand and to be read by an attentive eye to be found to be only second in teaching to the Book of Revelation.

ISAAC walked in the fields at eventide to meditate. I commend him for his occupation. Meditation is exceedingly profitable to the mind. If we talked less, read less, and meditated more we should be wiser men. I commend him for the season which he chose for that occupation—at eventide—when the business of the day was over and the general stillness of nature was in harmony with the quiet of his soul. I also commend him for the place which he selected—the wide expanse of nature—the field.

So are the paths - The papyrus and the rush flourish while they have a plentiful supply of ooze and water; but take these away, and their prosperity is speedily at an end; so it is with the wicked and profane; their prosperity is of short duration, however great it may appear to be in the beginning. Thou also, O thou enemy of God, hast flourished for a time; but the blast of God is come upon thee, and now thou art dried up from the very roots. The hypocrite’s hope shall perish - A hypocrite, or rather profligate, has no inward religion, for his heart is not right with God; he has only hope, and that perishes when he gives up the ghost. This is the first place in which the word hypocrite occurs, or the noun חנף chaneph, which rather conveys the idea of pollution and defilement than of hypocrisy. A hypocrite is one who only carries the mask of godliness, to serve secular purposes; who wishes to be taken for a religionist, though he is conscious he has no religion. Such a person cannot have hope of any good, because he knows he is insincere: but the person in the text has hope; therefore hypocrite cannot be the meaning of the original word. But all the vile, the polluted, and the profligate have hope; they hope to end their iniquities before they end life; and they hope to get at last to the kingdom of heaven. Hypocrite is a very improper translation of the Hebrew.