Job 4:20 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

They are destroyed Bruised, or broken, as the same word, יכתו, juccattu, is rendered, Micah 1:7, where we read, The graven images shall be broken to pieces; from morning to evening That is, either speedily, between the morning and evening, like the grass, Psalms 90:5-6. They flourish in the morning, and in the evening are cut down: or rather, all the day long; there is not a moment wherein man is not sinking toward death and corruption. If these words were considered as being connected with the latter clause of the preceding verse, as Dr. Grey thinks they ought to be, the sense would be, they are crushed and destroyed all the day long, as moths are, which, being an insect hurtful and injurious, every one is ready to destroy. They perish for ever In reference to the present worldly life, which when once lost is never recovered; without any regarding it Or laying it to heart, say most commentators. But the literal interpretation of the Hebrew, מבלי משׂים, mibbeli meesim, Chappelow thinks, is preferable, namely, absque imponente, without any one's adding to their misery; or, according to Junius and Tremellius, nemine disponente, without any one's ordering or appointing it. That is, they are continually perishing and going to destruction, of their own accord, through the mere frailty of their nature, even if no external violence be offered to them. Our translation, however, conveys an important and instructive truth, namely, that few or none that survive, lay to heart, as they ought to do, the death of those that are taken away. For it is so common a thing for all men, though ever so high and great, to perish in this manner, that no man regards it, but all pass it by, as a general accident not worthy of observation.