Job 8:17 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

His roots are wrapped about the heap Heath renders this, He windeth his roots about a spring; he twisteth himself about a heap of stones: and he approves a slight alteration of the text made by Houbigant; who, rather more elegantly, reads, He has his roots involved, or, fixed, in a hill; he adheres to the midst of stones. This circumstance is added to signify the tree's firmness and strength; that it was not fixed in loose and sandy ground, which a violent wind might overthrow, but in solid ground, within which were many stones, which its numerous and spreading roots embraced, folding and interweaving themselves about them. He seeth the place of stones The tree reacheth thither, takes the advantage of that place for the strengthening of itself. By this the writer seems to express the apparent firmness and worldly dependance of the hypocrite.