Let thistles grow instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley. The words of Job are ended.
Ver. 40. Let thistles grow instead of wheat] This was a piece of that first curse, Genesis 3:8, under which the earth hath lain bedridden, as it were, ever since, waiting for the coming of the Son of God, that it may he delivered from the bondage of corruption, Romans 8:20; and Job wished it as due to him, Ex lege Talionis, if he should be guilty of the forementioned cruelty, James 2:13, αρουρα et Arvum ab Heb. Arur, accursed.
And cockle instead of barley] Lolium et lappae, stinking stuff the word signifieth; as those were stinking grapes, Isaiah 5:2; Isaiah 5:4, rotten, corrupted, vitiated; and as that was blasted corn, yielding nothing better than dust and chaff, Matthew 13:25, ζιζανιον, Frumentum adustum. Whereas wheat and barley are the precious fruits of the earth, James 5:7, whereof when the Metapontines had one year a great crop, they dedicated to their god Delphos, in token of thankfulness, a harvest graven in gold, Cρυσουν θερος (Strabo).
The words of Job are ended] i.e. His conference with his three friends, whom having before silenced, and now for himself sufficiently apologized, he putteth a period to that discourse; having (as Octavius once said to Decius) to the understanding spoken sufficient, and to the ignorant or obstinate too much, had he said less.