Job 18:16

These words mean that the punishment of the impious will be similar to the massacre of the Sodomites. "Their roots dry beneath, and their branches wither above" so that nothing useful to the impious may remain anywhere, beneath or above the ground.

Let his roots be dried up beneath, and above let his crop be spoiled.

For what do we understand by the title of 'roots,' which are set out of sight, and bring forth a shoot into open view, but the thoughts, which, while they are not seen in the heart, produce visible works? And hence by the title of a 'crop' there is denoted the same visible practice, which is thus produced from a hidden root. And whereas every bad man first dries up in the imaginings of temptation and afterwards dies off from good deeds, it is rightly said by Bildad, Let his roots be dried up beneath, and above let his crop be spoiled, in that, whereas the wicked man sets his thoughts in things below, and neglects to seek the delights of everlasting greenness, what is this but that he lets his 'roots be dried beneath?' Whose 'crop too is spoiled above,' in that all his practice is counted as nothing in the view of the judgment above, even if it seem good in the eyes of man. Thus the 'roots' are at the bottom, and the 'crop' above, in that we first send out good thoughts here, that we may one day deserve to receive the fruit of our good works in eternal recompensing; but every wicked person when he abandons good thoughts, and pours himself forth upon the things that are without, has 'his roots dried up below:' but 'above his crop is spoiled,' in that he, who persists barren here, after this life is bidden to no rewards.

When a man has died, frequently everything which was his goes to ruin. He shows this is a consequence beginning first with those things produced from the earth, some of which have been planted still remain as seedlings after he dies. Expressing this he says, "Behold! May his roots be dried up," so that if he had sowed or planted anything it may be destroyed and does not bear fruit. However as to those which have already produced fruit, he says, "and may his harvest above be ruined." One can refer this to any business he has just begun or that is already almost finished.