The waters wear the stones - By their constant attrition they wear away even the hard rocks, and they disappear, and return no more. The sense is, that constant changes are going on in nature, and man resembles those objects which are removed to appear no more, and not the productions of the vegetable world that spring up again. It is possible that there may also be included the idea here, that the patience, constancy, firmness, and life of any man must be worn out by long continued trials, as even hard rocks would be worn away by the constant attrition of waters.
Thou washest away - Margin, “Overflowest.” This is literally the meaning of the Hebrew תשׁטף tı̂shâṭaph. But there is included the sense of washing away by the inundation.
The things which grow out of the dust of the earth - Herder and Noyes translate this, “the floods overflow the dust of the earth,” and this accords with the interpretation of Good and Rosenmuller. So Castellio renders it, and so Luther - “Tropfen flossen die Erde weg.” This is probably the true sense. The Hebrew word rendered “the things which grow out” ספיח sâphı̂yach, means properly that which “is poured out” - from ספח sâphach, to pour out, to spread out - and is applied to grain produced spontaneously from kernels of the former year, without new seed. Lev 25:5-11; 2 Kings 19:29. See the notes at Isaiah 37:30. But here it probably means a flood - that which flows out - and which washes away the earth.
The dust of the earth - The earth or the land on the margin of streams. The sense is, that as a flood sweeps away the soil, so the hope of man was destroyed.
Thou destroyest the hope of man - By death - for so the connection demands. It is the language of despondency. The tree would spring up, but man would die like a removed rock, like land washed away, like a falling mountain, and would revive no more. If Job had at times a hope of a future state, yet that hope seems at times, also, wholly to fail him, and he sinks down in utter despondency. At best, his views of the future world were dark and obscure. He seems to have had at no time clear conceptions of heaven - of the future holiness and blessedness of the righteous; but he anticipated, at best, only a residence in the world of disembodied spirits - dark, dreary, sad; - a world to which the grave was the entrance, and where the light was as darkness. With such anticipations, we are not to wonder that his mind sank into despondency; nor are we to be surprised at the expressions which he so often used, and which seem so inconsistent with the feelings which a child of God ought to cherish. In our trials let us imitate his patience, but not his despondency; let us copy his example in his better moments, and when he was full of confidence in God, and not his language of complaint, and his unhappy reflections on the government of the Most High.