Job 8:14

shall be cut off Perhaps rather, goeth in sunder, though the meaning is not quite certain. One would have expected a noun here parallel to "spider's web" in the second clause, but no efforts to find a noun have been successful. Saadia in his Arabic Translation rendered gossamer, the filmy thread-like substance that floats in the air, or the thread-like shimmer of the air itself when sultry and moist. This is a very suitable sense but is without sufficient support.

a spider's web lit. spider's house, cf. "house" in Job 8:15. The flimsiness of the spider's house is proverbial in the East. Mohammed compares idolaters to the spider: The likeness of those who take to themselves patrons beside God is as the likeness of the spider who taketh to herself a house; and verily the frailest of houses is the spider's house, if they did but know, Kor. 29:40. See also Job 27:18.