My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, [and] as the stream of brooks they pass away;
Ver. 15. My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook] Even you, whom I esteemed as my brethren (for to them he applieth this speech, Job 6:21), prove hollow and helpless to me; like the river Araris, that moveth so slowly, that it can hardly be discerned, saith Caesar, whether it flow forward or backward (Caesar, de Bell Gal. l. 1); or rather, to a certain fish in that river Araris, called scolopidus; which at the waxing of the moon is as white as the driven snow, and at the waning thereof is as black as a burnt coal. Job here elegantly compareth them, not to a river which is fed by a spring, and hath a perennity of flowing; but to a brook arising from rain or melted snow, the property whereof is in a moisture, when there is least need of them, to swell; in a drought, when they should do good, to fail. It is reported of the river Novanus, in Lombardy, that at every midsummer solstice it swelleth and runneth over the banks, but in midwinter is quite dry (Plin. lib. 2, cap. 10. 3.) Such were Job's deceitful brethren; good summer birds, &c. The same author telleth us, that in that part of Spain called Carrinensis there is a river that shows all the fish in it to be like gold; but take them into thine hand, and they soon appear in their natural kind and colour. Job found that all is not gold that glittereth.
And as the stream of brooks they pass away] i.e. As an impetuous land flood, they fail me; and now that I have most need of their refreshments, they yield me none, but the contrary rather; like as land floods by their sudden and violent overflow do much hurt many times to corn and cattle. I can go to these streams of brooks, saith Job, and show my friends the face of their hearts in those waters.