For now ye are nothing; ye see [my] casting down, and are afraid.
Ver. 21. For now ye are nothing] i.e. To me nothing worth; I have no more joy of you than if you were not at all; ye are not unlike him who said to his friend, I am all yours, except body and goods; ye are not so much as friends at a sneeze, who will come out with a God bless you; or as those great benefactors in St James, James 2:15,16, that were free of their mouth mercy; ye are mere mutes and ciphers, nullities, as to me just nothing; that is, ye are no such thing as I expected. And here Job brings the foregoing similitude home to his friends by close application. And according to the Hebrew margin called keri, it may be rendered, Fuistis ei similes, sc. torrenti; ye are like to it, that is, to the brook before mentioned; ye fail me as much as it did the thirsty passengers (Drus.).
For ye see my casting down, and are afraid] There is an elegance in the original that cannot be Englished; your eyes see what you had before heard of only by the hearing of the ear, that I am at a great under, dejected and impovershed; you are therefore afraid of me, lest I should ask you something for the supply of my wants; or else you keep at a distance, as more afraid of catching mine evil than desirous of curing it; ye visit me, but are not moved with any compassion towards me, Horrore perculsi resiluistis a me veluti si quispiam viperam calcasset (Lay.). So the Septuagint.