Job 6:17

Job 6:17 What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place.

Ver. 17. What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, &c.] Lo, such is the fruit of creature confidence, of making flesh our arm, of trusting in men or means; whereas Deo confisi nunquam confusi, they that trust in the Lord shall never be disappointed. This thou canst never do, unless (unbottomed of thyself and the creature) thou so lean upon the Lord, as that if he fail thee thou sinkest, and not otherwise.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Job 6:17-18. What time they wax warm — When the weather grows milder, and the frost and snow are dissolved; they vanish — נצמתו, nitsmathu, ex cisi sunt, they are cut off, having no fountain from whence to draw a supply. When it is hot — In the hot season, when waters are most refreshing and necessary; they are consumed out of their place — The place where the traveller expected to find them to his comfort; but they are gone he knows not whither. The paths of their way are turned aside — That is, the courses of those waters are changed; they are gone out of their channel, flowing hither and thither, till they be quite consumed, as it here follows. There “is a noble climax,” as Heath observes, in these last three verses; “a most poetical description of the torrents in the hot climates. By extraordinary cold they are frozen over, but the sun no sooner exerts its power than they melt; they are exhaled by the heat, till the stream for smallness is diverted into many channels; it yet lasts a little way, but is soon quite evaporated and lost.”

Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

wax warm--rather, "At the time when." ("But they soon wax") [UMBREIT]. "they become narrower (flow in a narrower bed), they are silent (cease to flow noisily); in the heat (of the sun) they are consumed or vanish out of their place. First the stream flows more narrowly--then it becomes silent and still; at length every trace of water disappears by evaporation under the hot sun" [UMBREIT].

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

The paths of their way are turned aside,.... That is, the waters, when melted by the heat of the sun, and the warmth of the weather, run, some one way, and some another in little streams and windings, till they are quite lost and the tracks of them are no more to be seen; denoting that all appearance of friendship was quite gone, and no traces of it to be found:

they go to nothing, and perish: some of them are lost in little meanders and windings about, and others are exhaled by the heat of the sun, and go into "Tohu", as the word is, into empty air; so vain and empty, and perishing, were all the comforts he hoped for from his friends; though some understand this of the paths of travellers in the deserts being covered in the sand, and not to be seen and found; of which see Pliny (z).

(z) Nat. Hist. l. 6. c. 29.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

What time - In the time; or after a time.

They wax warm - Gesenius renders this word (יזרבו yezorebû) when they became narrow, and this version has been adopted by Noyes. The word occurs nowhere else. Taylor (Concord.) renders it, “to be dissolved by the heat of the sun.” Jerome, fuerint dissipati - “in the time in which they are scattered.” The Septuagint, τακεῖσα Θέρμης γενομένης takeisa thermēs genomenēs - “melting at the approach of heat.” The Chaldee, “In the time in which the generation of the deluge sinned, they were scattered.” Castell says that the word זרב zârab in the Piel, as the word in Chaldee (זרב zerab) means “to flow”; and also that it has the same signification as צרב tsârab, to become warm. In Syriac the word means to be straitened, bound, confined. On the whole, however, the connection seems to require us to understand it as it is rendered in our common translation, as meaning, that when they are exposed to the rays of a burning sun, they evaporate. They pour down from the mountains in torrents, but when they flow into burning sands, or become exposed to the intense action of the sun, they are dried up, and disappear.

They vanish - Margin, “are cut off.” That is, they wander off into the sands of the desert until they are finally lost.

When it is hot - Margin, “in the heat thereof.” When the summer comes, or when the rays of the sun are poured down upon them.

They are consumed - Margin, “extinguished.” They are dried up, and furnish no water for the caravan.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

When the weather grows milder, and the frost and snow is dissolved.

When it is hot; in the hot season of the year, when waters are most refreshing and necessary.

Out of their place; in which the traveller expected to find them to his comfort, but they are gone he knows not whither.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

17. What time — At the time (that is, as soon as) they flow, they vanish away. So short-lived are the mountain torrents. As soon as the snows that feed the streams are melted, the torrents are consumed away. “The simile is remarkably complete. When little needed the torrent overflows, when needed it disappears; in winter it does not fertilize, in summer it is dried up.”

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

What time they wax warm, they vanish: when it is hot, they are consumed out of their place (see the passage quoted from Dr. Geikie in the comment on ver. 15).

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

Warm - When the weather grows milder. Hot - In the hot season, when waters are most refreshing and necessary.

John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.

At the time they become warm Heb. יזרבו, an expression of יְצֹרָבוּ, they become warm from the heat of the sun.

they retreat Heb. נצמתו, retrait in Old French, shrink, contract, as “and the vinegar shrinks them (צומתן), (Pesachim 41a) in Talmudic Hebrew. [In the word יְזֹרָבוּ], the “zaddi” is converted to a “zayin,” like צעקה and זעקה, a cry.

[Therefore,] יְזֹרָבוּ is an expression of (Ezekiel 21:3), “and all faces shall be scorched (ונצרבו),” and like (Prov. 16:27), “searing (צרבת) fire.”

they jump they jump from their place.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.