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He is green before the sun - This is another metaphor. The wicked is represented as a luxuriant plant, in a good soil, with all the advantages of a good situation; well exposed to the sun; the roots intervolving themselves with stones, so as to render the tree more stable; but suddenly a blast comes, and the tree begins to die. The sudden fading of its leaves, etc., shows that its root is become as rottenness, and its vegetable life destroyed. I have often observed sound and healthy trees, which were flourishing in all the pride of vegetative health, suddenly struck by some unknown and incomprehensible blast, begin to die away, and perish from the roots. I have seen also the prosperous wicked, in the inscrutable dispensations of the Divine providence, blasted, stripped, made bare, and despoiled, in the same way.

He is green before the sun - Vulgate, “antequam veniat sol - before the sun comes.” So the Chaldee, “before the rising of the sun.” So Eichhorn renders it. According to this, which is probably the true interpretation, the passage means that he is green and flourishing before the sun rises, but that he cannot hear its heat and withers away. A new illustration is here introduced, and the object is to compare the hypocrite with a vigorous plant that grows up quick and sends its branches afar, but which has no depth of root, and which, when the intense heat of the sun comes upon it, withers away. The comparison is not with a tree, which would bear the heat of the sun, but rather with those succulent plants which have a large growth of leaves and branches, like a gourd or vine, but which will not bear a drought or endure the intense heat of the sun. “This comparison of the transitory nature of human hope and prosperity to the sudden blight which over throws the glory of the forest and of the garden,” says the Editor of the Pictorial Bible (on Psalm 37:35), “is at once so beautiful and so natural, as to have been employed by poets of every age.” One such comparison of exquisite finish occurs in Shakespeare:

This is the state of man! Today he puts forth

The tender leaves of hope; tomorrow blossoms,

And hears his blushing honours thick upon him:

The third day comes a frost, a killing frost,

And, when he thinks, good easy man, full surely

His greatness is a ripening, nips his shoot,

And then he falls, as I do.

And his branch shooteth forth … - A comparison of a prosperous person or nation with a vine which spreads in this manner, is common in the Scriptures. See Psalm 80:11:

She sent out her boughs unto the sea,

And her branches unto the river.

Compare the note at Isaiah 16:8. A similar figure occurs in Psalm 37:35:

I have seen the wicked in great power,

And spreading himself like a green bay tree.

Bildad discourses well of hypocrites and evil-doers, and the fatal end of all their hopes and joys. He proves this truth of the destruction of the hopes and joys of hypocrites, by an appeal to former times. Bildad refers to the testimony of the ancients. Those teach best that utter words out of their heart, that speak from an experience of spiritual and divine things. A rush growing in fenny ground, looking very green, but withering in dry weather, represents the hypocrite's profession, which is maintained only in times of prosperity. The spider's web, spun with great skill, but easily swept away, represents a man's pretensions to religion when without the grace of God in his heart. A formal professor flatters himself in his own eyes, doubts not of his salvation, is secure, and cheats the world with his vain confidences. The flourishing of the tree, planted in the garden, striking root to the rock, yet after a time cut down and thrown aside, represents wicked men, when most firmly established, suddenly thrown down and forgotten. This doctrine of the vanity of a hypocrite's confidence, or the prosperity of a wicked man, is sound; but it was not applicable to the case of Job, if confined to the present world.