(24) As a king ready to the battle.--Or, They prevail against him like a king: he is destined to be like a ball (comp. Isaiah 22:18), the tennis-ball of calamity.

Verse 24. - Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid; they shall prevail against him, as a king ready to the battle. Eliphaz seems covertly to allude to Job's misfortunes, which came against him with such force, and crushed him as a mighty king crushes his foes in battle.

15:17-35 Eliphaz maintains that the wicked are certainly miserable: whence he would infer, that the miserable are certainly wicked, and therefore Job was so. But because many of God's people have prospered in this world, it does not therefore follow that those who are crossed and made poor, as Job, are not God's people. Eliphaz shows also that wicked people, particularly oppressors, are subject to continual terror, live very uncomfortably, and perish very miserably. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end miserably as here described? Then let the mischiefs which befal others, be our warnings. Though no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. No calamity, no trouble, however heavy, however severe, can rob a follower of the Lord of his favour. What shall separate him from the love of Christ?Trouble and anguish shall make him afraid,.... Either his present troubles shall frighten him, they being so very dismal, terrible, and distressing, and make him fear that others were coming on, more dreadful and formidable; or those troubles he fears will be his portion hereafter, these terrify him beyond measure, even that indignation and wrath, tribulation and anguish, that shall come upon every soul of man that doeth evil, Romans 2:8;

they shall prevail against him as a king ready to the battle; that is, trouble and anguish shall prevail against him; he will be no more able to resist them than a very inferior force, or even a single man, is able to resist a warlike king, attended with a numerous army, and these set in battle array; such a man's troubles will come upon him as an armed man, against which he cannot stand; the Targum is,

"they shall surround him as a king prepared for a footstool;''

who being taken by the enemy shall be used as a footstool to mount on horseback; and as the word has the signification of a globe or ball, see Isaiah 22:18; some think it has respect to the manner of kings, when taken captive, put into an iron cage, as Bajazet was by Tamerlane; or into an iron hoop, bound hand and foot, and hung up in chains; or, as Ben Gersom thinks, to the manner of drowning persons, who used to be tied hand and foot, as if rolled up in the form of a globe, and so cast into the water; but rather the reference is to an army, besieging a place all around in the form of a ball or globe, so that there is no escaping them; or rather it may be to a king drawing up his army in such a form, ready to engage in battle; or putting it in such a position when encamped or entrenched, waiting the motion of the enemy; see 1 Samuel 26:5; and such are the troubles that surround and prevail against a wicked man, see Isaiah 29:3; the reasons of the wicked man being brought into such a woeful condition follow.