Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary

Adam Clarke Commentary

It shall be accomplished before his time - I believe the Vulgate gives the true sense: Antequam dies ejus impleantur, peribit; "He shall perish before his time; before his days are completed."

1. He shall be removed by a violent death, and not live out half his days.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

It shall be accomplished before his time - Margin, “cut off.” The image here is that of a tree, which had been suggested in Job 15:30. Here it is followed up by various illustrations drawn from the flower, the fruit, etc., all of which are designed to denote the same thing - that a wicked man will not be permanently prosperous; he will not live and flourish as he would if he were righteous. He will be like a tree that is cut down before its proper time, or that casts its flowers and fruits and brings nothing to perfection. The phrase here literally is, “It shall not be filled up in its time;” that is, a wicked man will be cut off before he has filled up the measure of his days, like a tree that decays and falls before its proper time. A similar idea occurs in Psalm 55:23. “Bloody and deceitful men shall not live out half their days.” As a general fact this is all true, and the observation of the ancient Idumeans was correct. The temperate live longer than the intemperate; the chaste longer than the licentious; he that controls and governs his passions longer than he who gives the reins to them; and he who leads a life of honesty and virtue longer than he who lives for crime. Pure religion makes a man temperate, sober, chaste, calm, dispassionate, and equable in his temper; saves from broils, contentions, and strifes; subdues the angry passions, and thus tends to lengthen out life.

His branch shall not be green - It shall be dried up and withered away - retaining the image of a tree.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

It shall be accomplished before his time, Either the recompence or reward of his trusting vanity, in vain persons or things, the punishment of such a trust, the sorrows and troubles following upon it; these shall come upon the wicked man "before his day"^F6בלא יומו "ante diem suam", Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. , as it may be rendered; before the day of his death, even before his old age; before the evil days come in a course of nature, and those years in which he has no pleasure: or his life, and the days of his life, "shall be filled up"^F7תמלא "complebitur", Montanus; "implebitur", Schultens. ; or be at an end before his time; not before the time fixed in the decree and purpose of God, Job 14:5; but before his own time, that he and his friends thought he might have lived, and as his healthful constitution promised; or before the then common term of human life; and so the phrase is expressive or an immature death:

and his branch shall not be green; but dried up and wither away; his wealth and riches, his children and family, be utterly extinct; instead of being like a branch, green and flourishing, shall be like a dry stick, useless and unprofitable, only fit for burning; see Job 15:30.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Literally, “it (the tree to which he is compared, Job 15:30, or else his life) shall not be filled up in its time”; that is, “he shall be ended before his time.”

shall not be green — image from a withered tree; the childless extinction of the wicked.

Wesley's Explanatory Notes

It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.

Accomplished — That vanity should be his recompence.

Before — When by the course of nature, and common providence he might have continued much longer.

John Trapp Complete Commentary

Job 15:32 It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.

Ver. 32. It shall be accomplished before his time] Heb. In not his day. That recompense before mentioned of calamity and death shall be hastened, so that they shall not live out half their days, Psalms 55:22, but die tempore non suo, Ecclesiastes 7:15, then when it were better for them to do anything rather than to die, since they perish in their corruptions, they are killed with death, Revelation 2:23; see Proverbs 7:27. Death ever taketh a wicked man unprovided, Haec enim vena nobis ab Adam agnata est, ut nullam arborem ad suspendium aptam invenire possimus: neque unquam caro mortem eligit, nisi pressa iudicio (Brent. in loc.). We naturally dream of an immortality here, neither yield we to die till there be a necessity, Miserandum est autem, saith Lavater; but it is a pitiful thing, that, being all so desirous of life, we should so little care for those things that would lengthen our lives, such as are piety, justice, temperance, &c.; we forget that short way to long life, Psalms 34:12.

His branch shall not be green] Heb. His crooked or bowed down branch; this is his full estate or numerous issue, those boughs of his, laden and bowed down with fruit, shall not be green, but blasted and dried up; ramificans eius non virescet. It is a misery to be the branch of a wicked stock, for such, as they leave the rest of their substance to their little ones, Psalms 17:14, so they leave them God’s curse, as Joab’s legacy, 2 Samuel 3:29, or as Gehazi’s leprosy, 2 Kings 5:27, a wretched bequeath.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

It shall be accomplished, to wit, that which was last mentioned, that vanity should be his recompence. Or, it, i.e. his branch, mentioned in the next clause of the verse, from which it is understood in this former clause, as is very usual in the Holy Scripture, shall be consumed, or cut off.

Before his time, i.e. when by the course of nature and common providence it might have continued and flourished much longer.

His branch; either,

1. His glory and prosperity. Or rather,

2. His children, by comparing Job 15:34, where the desolation is said to fall upon all the congregation and tabernacles of these men; and so he reflects upon Job, who lost his children.

Shall not be green, i.e. shall not continue to flourish, as it had done.

Whedon's Commentary on the Bible

32.Accomplished before his time — Literally, In not his day it (the exchange) is fulfilled. The wicked man dies prematurely. The day he dies “is not his appointed day.” — Dillmann, Hirtzel. See note, Job 14:5. Compare Psalms 55:23. Branch — The top branch (of the palm.)

George Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary

Hands; strength and prosperity. (Calmet) --- Septuagint, "his branch shall not grow thick." (Haydock)

Mark Dunagan Commentary on the Bible

"Like a vine without grapes, and a dying olive tree, a reprobate dies prematurely" (Bible Knowledge Comm. p. 738). The theory here is that God always repays the wicked before they depart from this life, that God never allows evil men to die prosperous.

Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible - Unabridged

It shall be accomplished before his time, and his branch shall not be green.

Literally, 'it (the tree to which he is compared Job 15:30 or else his life) shall be filled up' i:e., 'he shall be ended before his time.'

Shall not be green - image from a withered tree: the childless extinction of the wicked: He and his children together perish utterly.

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

(32) It shall be accomplished.—That is, paid in full before its time.

The remainder of this chapter calls for little explanation. In it the speaker only repeats the orthodox and familiar saw that the wicked are punished in life, and therefore, by implication, the good rewarded: a maxim which fails utterly in the face of afflictions like those of Job, unless, as his friends insinuated, he was one of the wicked. After stating the doom of the ungodly, Eliphaz, in the last verse, sums up the character of those he has been denouncing. Not only are they evil in themselves, but they hatch evil; but it is evil that recoils on themselves.

Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

accomplished

or, cut off.

22:16; Psalms 55:23; Ecclesiastes 7:17

and his branch

8:16-19; 14:7-9; 18:16,17; Psalms 52:5-8; Isaiah 27:11; Ezekiel 17:8-10; Hosea 9:16; 14:5-7; John 15:6