(25) Yea, terrors overtake him.--Even when he has escaped a second and a third calamity, terrors shall still be upon him. This was all perfectly true in a sense, yea, even a truism, but it was utterly false in its application to Job himself.

Verse 25. - It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; rather, he draweth it forth and it cometh out of his body (see the Revised Version). The stricken man draws the arrow from his flesh, the natural action of every one so wounded. If the arrow was simply tipped with a smooth iron point, it would be easy to withdraw it; but a barbed arrow could only be cut out. Yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall; rather, the glittering point. The arrow is supposed to have pierced the gall-bladder, and to be drawn forth from it. There would be little chance of recovery in such a case. Hence terrors are upon him.

20:23-29 Zophar, having described the vexations which attend wicked practices, shows their ruin from God's wrath. There is no fence against this, but in Christ, who is the only Covert from the storm and tempest, Isa 32:2. Zophar concludes, This is the portion of a wicked man from God; it is allotted him. Never was any doctrine better explained, or worse applied, than this by Zophar, who intended to prove Job a hypocrite. Let us receive the good explanation, and make a better application, for warning to ourselves, to stand in awe and sin not. One view of Jesus, directed by the Holy Spirit, and by him suitably impressed upon our souls, will quell a thousand carnal reasonings about the suffering of the faithful.It is drawn, and cometh out of the body,.... That is, the arrow with which a wicked man is stricken through; either it is drawn, and comes out of the quiver, as Broughton; or rather is drawn out of the body of a wicked man, being shot into it, and that in order that he may be cured of his wound if possible, but to no purpose, since it follows:

yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall; being thrust into it, which being pierced and poured out, is certain and immediate death, see Job 16:13. Some render it, yea, "the glittering sword out of his gall, he shall go away", or "is gone" (f); that is, he shall die, or is a dead man, there is no hope of him, when the arrow has transfixed his body, and the sword has penetrated into his gall, and divided that:

terrors are upon him; the terrors of death, the plain symptoms of it being upon him; the terrors of an awful judgment, which follows after it; the terrors of the dreadful sentence of condemnation that will then be pronounced, "go, ye cursed", &c. and the terrors of hell and eternal death, signified by utter darkness, unquenchable fire, and the never ceasing torments of it. Some by them understand devils, those terrible spirits which haunt wicked men in their dying moments, and are ready to carry them to the lake which burns with fire and brimstone, where they are to be companions with them for ever. The word is sometimes used of gigantic persons, who are sometimes terrible to others; and since these are mentioned along with weapons of war, Bar Tzemach interprets them of men of strength and power, men of war or soldiers, whose fear falls on others.

(f) "abibit e vivis"; so some in Michaelis; "abit", Schultens.