Job 6:17

What time they wax warm they vanish,.... The ice and the snow, which, when the weather becomes warm, they melt away and disappear; and in like manner, he suggests his friends ceased to be friends to

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

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.

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.

14–30. Job’s sorrowful disappointment at the position taken up towards him by his three friends Job had freely expressed his misery in ch. 3, believing that the sympathies of his friends were entirely with him. He is a brother noble, Whose nature is so far from doing harms That he suspects none. Lear, i. 2. And more sorrowful to him than any cold, critical words which they have uttered is the feeling that his friends have taken up such a position against him. This was what he had not looked for. And his disappointment is like that of the thirsty caravan that finds the long-looked-for waters dried up in the heat. Every emotion seems now to find a place in Job’s mind in succession. First, his disappointment, expressed in this beautiful figure, is mixed with the feeling how unworthy his friends’ conduct was. They had not acted to him as men do to one who is, as he describes himself, “despairing” and “losing hold of the fear of the Almighty.” Kindness is due to such a one, but they had turned against him from sheer feebleness of spirit, because they saw that his calamity was from God, Job 6:14-21. Second, this mixed sadness and contempt passes into sarcasm when he tells them that he could have understood their fear if he had asked anything from them—even one’s friends must not be put under that strain—but he sought only sympathy, Job 6:22-23. Third, this sarcasm then gives place to a direct appeal of great severity, in which he demands that they should shew him the sins at which they had indirectly hinted, and wonders at their superficial captiousness in fastening on the mere excited words of a man in despair; adding in terms of bitter invective that their disposition was so hard that they would cast lots for the orphan and make market of their own friend, Job 6:24-27. Finally, he challenges them to seek the explanation of his afflictions on other principles than the supposition of his guiltiness, asking them whether, in asserting his innocence, he would lie in their faces, and if he was not able to say whether his calamities were deserved or not? Job 6:28-30.

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.

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.