Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 18:1
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
1. Job had used very hard words regarding his friends; he had called them annoying comforters (ch. Job 16:2) and scorners (ch. Job 16:20), and complained of being beset by their illusory mockeries (ch. Job 17:2); and said that God had sent blindness and want of understanding upon them, and that there was not one wise man among them (ch. Job 17:4-10).
But he had gone further. He had appeared to regard himself and them in their treatment of him as types of two classes himself as the type of the “upright” and “innocent” and “clean of hands” (ch. Job 17:8-9), exposed to the contumely and spitting of the “peoples,” the “godless” (ch. Job 17:6-8) and the ruthless (ch. Job 17:5).
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Job 18:1-21
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite.
The danger of denouncing wickedness
How wonderfully well the three comforters painted the portrait of wickedness! Nothing can be added to their delineation of sin. Every touch is the touch of a master. If you would see what wickedness is, read the speeches which are delivered in the Book of Job. Nothing can be added to their grim truthfulness. But there is a great danger about this; there is a danger that men may make a trade of denouncing wickedness. There is also a danger that men may fall into a mere habit of making prayers. This is the difficulty of all organised and official spiritual life. It is a danger which we cannot set aside; it is, indeed, a peril we can hardly modify; but there is a horrible danger in having to read the Bible at an appointed hour, to offer a prayer at a given stroke of the clock, and to assemble for worship upon a public holiday, But all this seems to be unavoidable; the very spirit of order requires it; there must be some law of consent and fellowship, otherwise public worship would be impossible; but consider the tremendous effect upon the man who has to conduct that worship! It is a terrible thing to have to denounce sin every Sunday twice at least; it is enough to ruin the soul to be called upon to utter holy words at mechanical periods. (Joseph Parker, D. D.)
The second discourse of Bildad
We may look at the words of Bildad in this chapter in two aspects: as representing the reprehensible in conduct, and the retributive in destiny.
I. The reprehensible in conduct. There are four things implied in the second, third, and fourth verses, which must be regarded as elements of evil.
1. There is wordiness. How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? Job had spoken much. Wordiness implies superficiality. Copiousness of speech is seldom retold in connection with profundity of thought. But it promotes, as well as implies, infertility of thought. The man of fluent utterance gets on so well without thinking, that he loses the habit of reflection. Nor is it less an evil to the hearer. The wordy man wastes their precious time, exhausts their patience, and often irritates his auditors.
2. There is unthoughtfulness. Mark, and afterwards we will speak. He insinuates that Job had spoken without thought or intelligence, and calls upon him to deliberate before he speaks. Unthoughtfulness is an evil of no small magnitude.
3. There is contemptuousness. Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight? Job had said in the preceding chapter, Thou hast hid their heart from understanding: therefore shalt thou not exalt them. Bildad perhaps refers to this, and insinuates that Job had treated him and those who were on his side as the beasts of the field–senseless and polluted. Contempt for men is an evil: it is a moral wrong.
4. There is rage. He teareth himself in his anger. Bildad means to indicate that Job was in a paroxysm of fury, that he had thrown aside the reins of reason, and that he was borne on the whirlwind of exasperated passion. Hence he administers reproof: Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? As if he had said, Thou speakest as if everything and everybody must give way to thee; as if the interests of all others must yield to thee; and that thou must have the whole world to thyself, and all of us must clear off. Shall the rock be removed out of his place? As if he had said, It would seem from thy reckless speech that thou wouldest have the most immutable things in nature to suit thy comfort and convenience. Rage is bad. When man gives way to temper he dishonours his nature, he imperils his well-being, he wars with God and the order of the universe. Now we are far enough from justifying Bildad in charging these evils upon Job; albeit he was right in treating them as evils.
II. The retributive is destiny. What are the retributive calamities that pursue and overtake the sinner?
1. Desolation. The light of the wicked shall be put out. Light, by the Orientals, was ever used as the emblem of prosperity. The extinction of the light therefore is an image of utter desolation. Sin evermore makes desolate.
2. Embarrassment. The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own council shall cast him down, etc. In every step of the sinners path it may be said the snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him by the way. Truly the wicked is snared by the work of his own hands.
3. Alarms. Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet, etc. (verses 11-14). Fear is at once the offspring and avenger of sin. The guilty conscience peoples the whole sphere of life with the grim emissaries of retribution. Fear is one of hells most tormenting fiends.
4. Destruction. It shall dwell in his tabernacle because it is none of his, etc. (verses 15-21). His home will be gone; his tabernacle will be none of his any longer. His memory will be gone. His remembrance shall perish from the earth. Once his name was heard in the street, pronounced perhaps often in the day by merchant, manufacturer, clerk, etc., but it has passed away from all tongues. His presence will be gone. He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. His progeny will be gone. He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people. His nearest relations will soon follow him to the grave, and none will appear to make mention of his name. Suffering must follow sin, as certain as season follows season. Hell is bound by chains stronger than those that bind the planets to the sun. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER XVIII
Bildad, in a speech of passionate invective, accuses Job of
impatience and impiety, 1-4;
shows the fearful end of the wicked and their posterity; and
apparently applies the whole to Job, whom he threatens with
the most ruinous end, 5-21.
NOTES ON CHAP. XVIII
Verse 1. Then answered Bildad] The following analysis of this speech, by Mr. Heath, is judicious: “Bildad, irritated to the last degree that Job should treat their advice with so much contempt, is no longer able to keep his passions within the bounds of decency. He proceeds to downright abuse; and finding little attention given by Job to his arguments, he tries to terrify him into a compliance. To that end he draws a yet more terrible picture of the final end of wicked men than any yet preceding, throwing in all the circumstances of Job’s calamities, that he might plainly perceive the resemblance, and at the same time insinuating that he had much worse still to expect, unless he prevented it by a speedy change of behaviour. That it was the highest arrogance in him to suppose that he was of consequence enough to be the cause of altering the general rules of Providence, Job 18:4. And that it was much more expedient for the good of the whole, that he, by his example, should deter others from treading in the same path of wickedness and folly;” Job 18:5-7.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said. Who, next to Eliphaz, spoke before, and now in his turn attacks Job a second time, and more roughly and severely than before; now he gives him no advice or counsel, nor any instructions and exhortations for his good, nor suggests that it might be better times with him again, as he had done before; but only heaps up charges against him, and describes the miserable circumstances of a wicked man, as near to Job’s as he could; thereby endeavouring to confirm his former position, that wicked men are punished of God, and to have this conclusion drawn from it, that Job must needs be a wicked man, since he was so greatly afflicted.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 Then began Bildad the Shuhite, and said:
2 How long will ye hunt for words?!
Attend, and afterwards we will speak.
3 Wherefore are we accounted as beasts,
And narrow-minded in your eyes?
Job’s speeches are long, and certainly are a trial of patience to the three, and the heaviest trial to Bildad, whose turn now comes on, because he is at pains throughout to be brief. Hence the reproach of endless babbling with which he begins here, as at Job 8:2, when he at last has an opportunity of speaking; in connection with which it must, however, not be forgotten that Job also, Job 16:3, satirically calls upon them to cease. He is indeed more entitled than his opponents to the entreaty not to weary him with long speeches. The question, Job 18:2, if six derived from , furnishes no sense, unless perhaps it is, with Ralbag, explained: how long do you make close upon close in order, when you seem to have come to an end, to begin continually anew? For to give the thought: how long do you make no end of speaking, it must have been , as the lxx ( 🙂 involuntarily inserts the negative. And what should the plur. mean by this rendering? The form = would not cause doubt; for though does not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament, it is nevertheless sufficient that it is good Aramaic ( ), and that another Hebr. plural, as , , , would have been hardly in accordance with the usage of the language. But the plural would not be suitable here generally, the over-delicate explanation of Ralbag perhaps excepted. Since the book of Job abounds in Arabisms, and in Arabic qanasa (as synon. of sad ) signifies venari, venando capere , and qansun ( maqnasun ) cassis, rete venatorium ; since, further, (comp. , Jer 9:7) is an incontrovertible reading, and all the difficulties in connection with the reference to lying in the for and in the plur. vanish, we translate with Castell., Schultens, J. D. Mich., and most modern expositors: how long (here not different from Job 8:2; Job 19:2) will ye lay snares (construction, as also by the other rendering, like Job 24:5; Job 36:16, according to Ges. 116, 1) for words; which, however, is not equivalent to hunt for words in order to contradict, but in order to talk on continually.
(Note: In post-bibl. Hebrew, has become common in the signification, proofs, arguments, as e.g., a Karaitic poet says, , the oneness of thy name have I upheld with proofs; vid., Pinsker, Likute Kadmoniot. Zur Gesch. des Karaismus und der karischen Literatur, 1860, S. .)
Job is the person addressed, for Bildad agrees with the two others. It is remarkable, however, that he addresses Job with “you.” Some say that he thinks of Job as one of a number; Ewald observes that the controversy becomes more wide and general; and Schlottm. conjectures that Bildad fixes his eye on individuals of his hearers, on whose countenances he believed he saw a certain inclination to side with Job. This conjecture we will leave to itself; but the remark which Schlottm. also makes, that Bildad regards Job as a type of a whole class, is correct, only one must also add, this address in the plur. is a reply to Job’s sarcasm by a similar one. As Job has told the friends that they act as if they were mankind in general, and all wisdom were concentrated in them, so Bildad has taken it amiss that Job connects himself with the whole of the truly upright, righteous, and pure; and he addresses him in the plural, because he, the unit, has puffed himself up as such a collective whole. This wrangler – he means – with such a train behind him, cannot accomplish anything: Oh that you would understand ( , as e.g., Job 42:3, not causative, as Job 6:24), i.e., come to your senses, and afterward we will speak, i.e., it is only then possible to walk in the way of understanding. That is not now possible, when he, as one who plays the part of their many, treats them, the three who are agreed in opposition to him, as totally void of understanding, and each one of them unwise, in expressions like Job 17:4, Job 17:10. Looking to Psa 49:13, 21, one might be tempted to regard (on the vowel instead of , vid., Ges. 75, rem. 7) as an interchange of consonants from : be silent, make an end, ye profligati ; but the supposition of this interchange of consonants would be arbitrary. On the other hand, there is no suitable thought in “why are we accounted unclean?” (Vulg. sorduimus ), from = , Lev 11:43 (Ges. 75, vi.); the complaint would have no right connection, except it were a very slight one, with Job 17:9. On the contrary, if we suppose a verb in the signification opplere, obturare , which is peculiar to this consonant-combination in the whole range of the Semitic languages (comp. , Arab. ‘tm , obstruere , Aram. , , Arab. tmm , e.g., Talm.: transgression stoppeth up, , man’s heart), and after which this has been explained by the Jewish expositors (Raschi: ), and is interpreted by (Parchon: ), we gain a sense which corresponds both with previous reproaches of Job and the parallelism, and we decide in its favour with the majority of modern expositors. With the interrogative Wherefore, Bildad appeals to Job’s conscience. These invectives proceed from an impassioned self-delusion towards the truth, which he wards off from himself, but cannot however alter.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| Second Address of Eliphaz. | B. C. 1520. |
1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, 2 How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak. 3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight? 4 He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
Bildad here shoots his arrows, even bitter words, against poor Job, little thinking that, though he was a wise and good man, in this instance he was serving Satan’s design in adding to Job’s affliction.
I. He charges him with idle endless talk, as Eliphaz had done (Job 15:2; Job 15:3): How long will it be ere you make an end of words? v. 2. Here he reflects, not only upon Job himself, but either upon all the managers of the conference (thinking perhaps that Eliphaz and Zophar did not speak so closely to the purpose as they might have done) or upon some that were present, who possibly took part with Job, and put in a word now and then in his favour, though it be not recorded. Bildad was weary of hearing others speak, and impatient till it came to his turn, which cannot be observed to any man’s praise, for we ought to be swift to hear and slow to speak. It is common for contenders to monopolize the reputation of wisdom, and then to insist upon it as their privilege to be dictators. How unbecoming this conduct is in others every one can see; but few that are guilty of it can see it in themselves. Time was when Job had the last word in all debates (ch. xxix. 22): After my words they spoke not again. Then he was in power and prosperity; but now that he was impoverished and brought low he could scarcely be allowed to speak at all, and every thing he said was as much vilified as formerly it had been magnified. Wisdom therefore (as the world goes) is good with an inheritance (Eccl. vii. 11); for the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and, because he is poor, his words are not heard, Eccl. ix. 16.
II. With a regardlessness of what was said to him, intimated in that, Mark, and afterwards we will speak. And it is to no purpose to speak, though what is said be ever so much to the purpose, if those to whom it is addressed will not mark and observe it. Let the ear be opened to hear as the learned, and then the tongues of the learned will do good service (Isa. l. 4) and not otherwise. It is an encouragement to those that speak of the things of God to see the hearers attentive.
III. With a haughty contempt and disdain of his friends and of that which they offered (v. 3): Wherefore are we counted as beasts? This was invidious. Job had indeed called them mockers, had represented them both as unwise and as unkind, wanting both in the reason and tenderness of men, but he did not count them beasts; yet Bildad so represents the matter, 1. Because his high spirit resented what Job had said as if it had been the greatest affront imaginable. Proud men are apt to think themselves slighted more than really they are. 2. Because his hot spirit was willing to find a pretence to be hard upon Job. Those that incline to be severe upon others will have it thought that others have first been so upon them.
IV. With outrageous passion: He teareth himself in his anger, v. 4. Herein he seems to reflect upon what Job had said (ch. xiii. 14): Wherefore did I take my flesh in my teeth? “It is thy own fault,” says Bildad. Or he reflected upon what he said ch. xvi. 9, where he seemed to charge it upon God, or, as some think, upon Eliphaz: He teareth me in his wrath. “No,” says Bildad; “thou alone shalt bear it.” He teareth himself in his anger. Note, Anger is a sin that is its own punishment. Fretful passionate people tear and torment themselves. He teareth his soul (so the word is); every sin wounds the soul, tears that, wrongs that (Prov. viii. 36), unbridled passion particularly.
V. With a proud and arrogant expectation to give law even to Providence itself: “Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? Surely not; there is no reason for that, that the course of nature should be changed and the settled rules of government violated to gratify the humour of one man. Job, dost thou think the world cannot stand without thee; but that, if thou art ruined, all the world is ruined and forsaken with thee?” Some make it a reproof of Job’s justification of himself, falsely insinuating that either Job was a wicked man or we must deny a Providence and suppose that God has forsaken the earth and the rock of ages is removed. It is rather a just reproof of his passionate complaints. When we quarrel with the events of Providence we forget that, whatever befals us, it is, 1. According to the eternal purpose and counsel of God. 2. According to the written word. Thus it is written that in the world we must have tribulation, that, since we sin daily, we must expect to smart for it; and, 3. According to the usual way and custom, the track of Providence, nothing but what is common to men; and to expect that God’s counsels should change, his method alter, and his word fail, to please us, is as absurd and unreasonable as to think the earth should be forsaken for us and the rock removed out of its place.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JOB – CHAPTER 18
BILDAD’S SECOND ADDRESS
Verses 1-21:
ORIENTAL, PROVERBIAL PLATITUDES
Verses 1, 2 begin Bildad’s second accusatory harangue against Job. The Shuhite from afar, a pretended friend of Job, assaults both Job and his other two friends from afar, accusing them of speaking on interminably, mouthing meaningless words. He inquires how long this will go on? When will they cut off or terminate, mark an end, so that he can speak out of his superior wisdom? He is sold on himself, “wise in his own conceit,” Pro 3:7; Pro 12:15; Rom 12:16.
Verse 3 recounts Bildad’s inquiry why he and the other two foreign friends were accounted as, or compared with, beasts by Job, Job 12:7; Isa 1:3; Psa 49:12; Psa 49:20. He inquires further just why they are considered by Job to be vile, filled with sewage, stopped up, unintelligent, Job 17:4; Job 17:10.
Verse 4 declares that Job is tearing himself, destroying his own flesh, in anger, in refusing to acknowledge his wickedness, Job 13:14; Joh 4:9; Mr 9:18. Then he inquires with sarcasm whether or not the earth and rocks will change their natural laws for his benefit. If not, he should not want to have the laws of retribution for his unconfessed sins set aside as retribution for sin, Job 8; Job 3-6; Isa 24:5-6; Exo 20:4-5, though such is not true, Joh 9:2-3; Joh 11:4.
Verses 5, 6 declare that the light (of life) of the wicked, Job, will be extinguished and the spark of his fire (his life of tent-hospitality) would shine no more, Pro 3:9; Pro 20:20; Pro 24:20. And it was added that the light in his dwelling, the candle that burned all night, would go out with him, leaving all desolate and dark, Psa 18:28; Job 21:17.
Verses 7, 8 prophecy that his strong step will be weakened until he could no longer walk, and his own counsel or plan would totally fail, Pro 4:12; Psa 18:36; Job 5:13. Bildad projected that Job lets himself walk into an entrapping net, becomes a deluded, snared victim of his own wickedness and stupidity. He was walking into a pitfall of terminal calamity Bildad contended, as described Psa 9:15; Psa 35:8. This came from following his own counsel, v. 7.
Verse 9, 10 assert that the gin (snare or pitfall) would take Job by the heel as a victim of snared entrapment. And. the robber would prevail to become benefactor of all that he had, as in Job 5:5.
Verse 11 adds that terror (of an evil conscience nature) would make Job fearful on every side and “dog” his heels wherever he goes or seeks refuge, Job 24:17; Jer 20:3; Hab 3:5; Hab 3:14. The image is that of a conqueror pursuing his enemies to exterminate them. Such was the comfort (?) this Bildad friend offered Job, in contrast with compassion that the afflicted should be shown, 2Co 1:3-4; Gal 6:1-2.
Verse 12 adds further that Job’s strength would be hunger-bitten; He would be brought to starvation, wasted by disease that plagued his life. Bildad advised him that he was incurably afflicted, had destruction at hand, was without hope of survival, Pro 1:27; Job 15:23; Psa 7:12-14; 1Th 5:3; 2Pe 2:3. But he was wrong, Job 42:10-17.
Verse 13 states that this death would devour the strength of his skin, so that the “first-born” of death, death in its fiercest form, would devour or consume Job’s strength, till it was all gone. Some hold that Bildad was charging that Job would become so starved he would eat his own children, La 4:10. Such seems untrue for they seem to have been already slain, Job 1:19; Jas 1:15.
Verse 14 predicts that Job’s confidence will be shaken, uprooted; All that he had hoped for, a home of domestic peace and prosperity should be uprooted permanently, forever, from his lingering hope of release from his affliction and loss. Death is that “king of terrors,” which Jesus came to conquer for every believer, Heb 2:9; Heb 2:14-15; Joh 8:32; Joh 8:36; Rom 8:15; Job 11:20; Pro 10:28; Mat 7:26-27.
Verse 15 adds that “it,” the “king of terror” or fear of death, would dwell or reside in his tabernacle (of clay, his body) to haunt him, as it stalks, haunts all sinners, Heb 9:14-15. When Job’s residence is destroyed only fear can reside there for brimstone and ashes, like that of Sodom, is to haunt Job’s former dwelling according to the “gospel of Bildad,” Gen 19:24; Psa 11:6. Bildad believed Job to be so wicked that fire and brimstone would be needed to purify his polluted tabernacle.
Verses 16, 17 continue to relate what Bildad prophesies will come upon Job as a just judgment. His roots from beneath and branches from above, his entire family tree is to be cut off, without family lineage, leaving them neither root nor branch, Bildad asserts, Job 8:12; Job 15:30; Mal 4:1. Even any remembrance of him would perish from the earth; and no name or monument would be left in the street, any public place to honor him, or in the fields where shepherds met and talked. According to Bildad’s theology Job would soon be gone and forgotten, more than a “tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” But He was omnipotent, see? Psa 34:6; Pro 2:22; Pro 10:7.
Verse 18 declared that he was driven like a beast that was dying, into the darkness, to die alone, to feed the vultures. He was to be chased like a crippled wild beast into the dark, hopeless wilderness to die, to leave the world better off without him, Bildad concluded, like a fool dies, Psa 14:1.
Verse 19 falsely prophesied that he (Job) should neither have “son nor nephew among his people,” nor any abiding in his dwellings, any more; This is attested to have been a false prophecy, Job 42:10-17; See also Isa 14:22; Jer 22:30.
Verse 20 further prophesied that those who should come after Job would be astonished at his day, even as those who went before (or lived with him) and beheld his loss and afflictions were held in horror at what they saw befall him. Bildad judged Job harshly, ignorantly, and sinfully before his time, a very evil thing to do. Against such Jesus warned, Mat 7:24; Rom 14:4; Psa 37:13. See also Oba 1:12; Psa 38:13; Psa 137:7.
Verse 21 concludes Bildad’s second speech affirming that what he has affirmed and prophesied concerns the dwellings of the wicked, and anyone who knows not God. It summarized his feelings that Job was an incorrigible rebel or infidel, living wickedly before God, too stubborn to confess his sins, so that his afflictions might be removed. This is an example of sincere dogmatism of a false prophet, who knows but little about God, and how He deals with His own children, sometimes in chastening for sin, but sometimes permitting them to suffer in innocence for His glory, Exo 20:4-5; Heb 12:5-10; Joh 9:23; Joh 11:4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
BILDADS SECOND ROUND
Job 18:1-21.
HERE again one is tempted to laughter. The humor of the situation grows. Eliphaz is knocked out and Bildad comes to the fray.
He opens by expressing personal injury and insult.
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said,
How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak.
Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight (Job 18:1-3).
When did a debater ever feel the sting of his opponents blow without declaring that he had been injured and insulted?
It has been the writers privilege to have twenty debates on the subject of evolution. He has yet to meet the first opponent that would not take the identical course of Bildad, namely, when he was struck a stinging blow, resent it as personal. This is not because any personality was in the speech, but rather because the sting went home.
He charged Job with a destructive insanity.
He tear eth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.
The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.
For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.
The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him.
The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.
Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.
His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall ready at his side.
It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.
It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.
His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.
He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.
They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted (Job 18:4-20).
That also is a sign of weakness. The man that talks about the ignorance of his opponent and the insanity of his opponent is commonly hard pressed for adequate argument.
He even hinted that Job was an atheist.
Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God (Job 18:21).
He knew perfectly well that Job believed in God, and in all Jobs arguments, while he frankly confessed he had been unable to understand Gods ways, he had never denied Gods existence, nor had he voiced one thing that could be converted into the likelihood of no knowledge of God.
Strange sentences pass mens lips when they are being worsted and become conscious of it. Note the fact also that these men are running short of breath and arguments are not as extensive now as at the beginning. On the other hand, Job shows no weakening.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
BILDADS SECOND SPEECH
Bildad the bitterest and most hostile of the three friends. No speech as yet so insolent and provoking. Full of fiery scathing denunciation againstthe wickedintending, of course, its application to Job, without even the exhortation or promise to repentance.
I. His introduction. Contains only angry and vehement reproof. Reproves Job
1. For his loquacity and captiousness (Job. 18:2). How long will it be are ye make an end of words (or how long will ye lay snares for words?) mark (Heb. understand, i.e., consider, viz., our arguments; perhaps, be temperate, or. speak clearly), and afterwards we will speak (or, that afterwards we may speak). Bildads language and tone not only passionate but contemptuous. How long will ye, &c., instead of thou. A great part of wisdom is to govern ones temper. A fools wrath is presently known; but a wise man keepeth it in till afterwards. Better is he that ruleth his spirit than he that taketh a city. Yet a wise man, from the weakness of human nature, may allow himself to be surprised into angry and contemptuous words. True wisdom characterized by meekness and gentlenessmeekness of wisdom. The tongue and temper never more in need of a bridle than in a controversy. Easy to lose a religious spirit in a religions dispute. Christ, incarnate wisdom, a model in controversycalm, patient, loving; always meek and lowly; reviled, without reviling again. Bildad impatient of Jobs reproof and depreciatory remarks in reference to his and his friends speeches. Represents Job as only catching at words; as like those Jews who lay in wait for Jesus, seeking to catch something out of His mouth, and to entangle Him in His talk. Observe
(1) Passion is seldom truthful.
(2) Loss of temper generally proves weakness in argument. Consciousness of truth gives calmness in dispute. To bully an opponent is to confess yourself beaten.
(3) Patience and courtesy always due to an adversary.
2. For his pride and contempt (Job. 18:3). Wherefore are we counted as beasts (ignorant and brutish), and reputed vile in your sight? Too much ground given in Jobs language for Bildads reproof. His spirit broken by trouble, and exasperated by their unfeeling, unjust, and deceitful conduct, Job had treated his friends with too much severity and contempt. Bildad particularly stung by Jobs contemptuous language in ch. Job. 17:4; Job. 17:10. Observe
(1) Grievous words to be avoided, as always stirring up anger. In controversy, hard things apt to be said, and to be made harder than they are.
(2) Mans moral as well as physical goodliness as the flower of the field. Job not always able to answer with the meekness of wisdom, as in ch. Job. 2:10.
3. For his passion (Job. 18:4). He teareth himself (or, he that teareth himself, or, thou that tearest thyself) in his anger. Job represented as a raging maniac. Probably too much foundation for the remark. Anger, according to a heathen sage, a short madness. Jobs appearance and demeanour probably that of a man not only deeply distressed but greatly excited. Oppression maketh a wise man mad. Arabs usually grave, solemn, unperturbed; yet capable of great excitement. Held highly discreditable for a good man to allow himself to be in a passion. Passion always injurious to the subject of it, both spiritually and physically. He teareth himself in his anger; Heb., he teareth his soul. Wrathful dispositions, says a Greek poet, are justly most painful to the parties themselves. Wrath killeth the foolish man (ch. Job. 5:2).
4. For his self-conceit. Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place? More bitter words. Cruel and unfeeling as addressed to a crushed and afflicted man. Proverbial expressions with the Arabs in reproving pride and arrogance. Reference to Jobs wish for a trial of his case by God, and his complaint of undue severity. Seemed as if he expected some special dispensation in his favour. The government of the world not to be abandoned for the sake of any individuals concerns. The Almighty not to go out of the way of his usual procedure to meet any mans wishes. The course of nature and the principles of the Divine government not to be arrested for any ones special accommodation. For any to think so implies vain conceit of his own importance. Yet Jobs wish and complaint excusable. His circumstances peculiar. His treatment not in accordance with Gods ordinary procedure, and with the consciousness of his own character. Bildads questions founded in ignorance. Unnecessary for God to neglect the government of the universe, or contravene the course of nature, in order to attend to the concerns of an individual. Such attention a part of that government. The fall of a sparrow, as well as of an empire, included in Gods providence. Numbers the hairs of our head equally with the stars of the firmanent. Man, in ignorance or forgetfulness, transfers his own weakness and limitation to Gods Almightiness and infinity. The Divine government based on unchanging principles. Judgment and justice the habitation of Gods throne. Impossible and unnecessary to depart from these principles to meet any particular case. God is a rockHis work is perfect; a God of truth and without iniquity. God Himself, and the principles of His government, an immovable rock. His own unchangeableness, and that of His immortal government, the foundation of His peoples confidence.
II. Body of the Speech. Describes the experience and fate of the wicked (Job. 18:5-20).
A favourite subject with these wise men in their dealing with Job. The object to terrify him into a penitent acknowledgment of guilt and supplication for forgiveness. The description meant to depict Jobs circumstances, and so to suggest, if not prove, his guilt. This and those similar ones in ch. Job. 8:11-22, and ch. Job. 15:20-25, probably recitations from the ancients, or the productions of the inspired poet, the author of the book. Extemporary versification, however, a highly valued accomplishment among Arab poets and philosophers. The object of Satan in these horrifying descriptions to irritate Job to cast off his religion in despair, as of no use to him. The class describedthat of hardened transgressors, secret or open, who had enriched themselves by oppression or abused their power to the injury of othersmen who neither feared God nor regarded men.Job notoriously the reverse. Hence the mystery. The solution, according to the friends, in the secret iniquity of his heart and life. Job himself, conscious of his integrity, perplexed and distressed, and longing for a Divine explanation which should vindicate his character. Hence his occasional excitement and apparently extravagant language. Had to fight against appearances, manifest facts, and popular belief, or to confess himself a bad man. His outward and inward experience seldom, if ever, found except in notorious transgressors. Probably more frequent then than now. The following a highly-wrought picture, full of tragically sublime poetry. One image of horror followed by another still more terrific. The description that of a guilty man chased by the avenging justice of Godthe Furies of the Greeks. The elements in the description
1. Great reverse in circumstances (Job. 18:5). Yea (notwithstanding your complaint; or also, take another description of the fate of the ungodly), the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark (or flame) of his fire shall not shine. Perhaps more than a mere figure for the extinction of his prosperity and affluence. Probable allusion to the practice of rich Arabs kindling, towards evening, a fire in the neighbourhood of their dwelling, to invite and direct travellers to their hospitality. Such fires the glory of a wealthy Arab. Mark of the deepest adversity when no longer sustained. A frequent allusion in Arab poetry
Now by deepest want opprest;
Though once my hospitable light
Was blest by travellers at night.
Hariri.
Jobs fires of hospitality also now extinguished. (Job. 18:6).The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle (or lamp) shall be put out with him (or over him; Arab houses and tents always having a lamp burning during the night, that of the principal apartment hanging from the ceiling or from the centre of the tent; hence the lamp a figure for prosperity and happiness, its extinction indicating utter desolation). Death and misfortune darken the dwelling. Jobs present bitter experience. The experience of most at times. Only Jehovah himself an an everlasting light. Is so to His people, even in the midst of trouble. When I sit in darkness the Lord shall be a light unto me (Mic. 7:8).
2. Removal of power and dignity (Job. 18:7). The steps of His strength (his steps formerly strong, as of a man in full health, prosperity, and power) shall be straitened (confined as of a man in chains or imprisonment, or suffering from personal affliction). Image taken from a noble lion caught in the toils, and now lying prostrate. Picture of the contrast between Jobs former and present condition. For his former steps see ch. Job. 29:6-7. Now lying on an ash-heap. Steps of strength soon changed into the feebleness of disease. Plans the most likely to succeed often, in Divine providence, impeded and rendered abortive. The misfortune of the wicked referred to their own sin as the cause. His own counsel shall cast him down. The lion caught in the toil when wandering about for prey. The wicked snared in the work of their own hands. Pharaohs counsel against Israel his own destruction. Cruel thrust at Job as a secret transgressor now caught in the midst of his ill-gotten gains.
3. Sudden and accumulated calamity (Job. 18:8). He is cast into a net by his own feet. (entangled with his feet in a net); he walketh upon a snare (walks unconsciously into a pit fall). The gin (or trap) shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him (or, the snare lays hold upon him, so that he is unable to escape). The snare (or cord) is laid (or hidden) in the ground for him, and a trap for him in the way. Image of a wild beast caught by the various stratagems of the hunter. Mens calamities, especially those of the impenitent transgressor, often sudden. As the fishes that are taken in an evil net, and as the birds that are caught in the snare, so are the sons of men snared in an evil time when it falleth suddenly upon them (Ecc. 9:12; see also Luk. 21:34-35, and 1Th. 5:3). The worst troubles those which come unforeseen. Jobs actual circumstances. Overtaken by sudden calamities in the very heyday of his prosperity. Variety of expression in the text to indicate the certainity and terribleness of the doom. He who fleeth from the noise of the fear shall fall into the pit, and he that cometh up out of the midst of the pit shall be taken in the snare (Isa. 24:17-18).
5. Inward terrors (Job. 18:11). Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet. The terrors of an awakened and alarmed conscience among the consequences of persistent sin. Such terrors known in every land as overtaking the secret or notorious transgressors. Who intent on evil ways will be able to defend his mind against the darts of conscience? [Sophocles]. Gods scourge in the sinners own bosom. No rest or peace under its lashes. Attempts made to escape these terrors, but in vain. All flight ineffectual except flight through the cross. The terrors of conscience only quenched in the atoning blood of Christ. Job distressed at present by the terrors of God, but not those of an evil conscience (ch. Job. 6:4).
6. Dreadful disease (Job. 18:12-13). His strength shall be hunger-bitten (famished; or, his disease shall be voracious), and destruction shall be ready at his side (or, prepared for his side, or body,ready to devour him). It shall devour the strength of his skin (the firm members of his body); even the first-born of death (one of the most dreadful of mortal diseases) shall devour his strength (or, prey upon his powerful limbs.) Disease, with its feebleness and emaciation, personified as the executioner of Divine vengeancethe hungry hound of justice. Disease the result of sin; and often inflicted as a chastisement on the good and a punishment on the bad. Herod, the persecutor, seized and devoured by one of these dogs of vengeance in the midst of his pride and splendour (Act. 12:21-23). Jobs terrible disease also, a first-born of death, to all appearance, and in the thought of his three friends, preying on him as a guilty transgressor. No creature, animate or inanimate, but may be made the instrument of Divine justice in punishing obstinate and impenitent offenders. Creatures, animal or vegetable, invisible to the naked eye, often the cause of most dreadful diseases. Cholera and the plague among the first-born of death.
7. Utter want and desolation (Job. 18:14-15). His confidence (whatever he trusted inwealth, power, family) shall be rooted out of his tabernacle (utterly, violently, and for ever removed, as a tree torn up by the roots), and it shall bring him to the king of terrors (or, terrors like a king shall urge him forward). It (the terror or desolation) shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his; brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation (as that of a man lying under Divine wrath, or as a place doomed to a perpetual curse; made, like the Cities of the Plain, a monument of Divine vengeance). The rich mans wealth is his strong city, and as an high wall in his own conceit (Pro. 18:11). This implied to have been Jobs case. Expressly denied, however, by him (ch. Job. 31:24). Such confidence to be rooted out, as his now appeared to be. Chaldeans, Sabeans, and the fire of God had left only a single servant to carry the tale. Terror and desolation, like a victorious and relentless general, had marched him out of his strong city, to sit like a captive among the ashes. Observe
(1) Riches profit not in the day of wrath. A mans house is his castle, but is unable to hold out against the judgments of God. Chaldeans and Sabeans only Gods instruments in stripping a man of his ill-gotten wealth, and sending him out of a dwelling to which he has no just right.
(2) Alas for him of whom it is to be said: Lo, this is the man that made not God his strength, but trusted in the abundance of his riches (Psa. 52:7). The lightning that strikes down his cattle as truly Gods messenger as the brimstone that was scattered on the houses of Sodom and Gomorrha.
(2) Death emphatically a king of terrors to the impenitent. The terrors of death only to be dissipated by faith in Him who through death destroyed him that had the power of death, that is the devil; and delivered them, who through fear of death, were all their lifetime subject to bondage (Heb. 2:14-15).
8. Ruin of family and estate (Job. 18:16-19). His roots shall be dried up beneath (as under the influence of a mighty curse), and above his branch shall be cut off. His property and family alike annihilated by divine judgments. The narrative in Chap. 1, a mournful commentary on this verse. Jobs case apparently the doom of the wicked; destroyed root and branch (Mal. 4:1). He shall be driven from light into darkness (violently driven away out of life and luxury into death and despair), and chased out of the world (as a malefactor not fit to live). He shall neither have son nor nephew (or progeny) among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings (either as relations to inherit his estate, or dependents who had been supported by his bounty). His remembrance shall perish from the earth (or the land), and he shall have no name in the street (in the places of concourse in the city, or in the fields among shepherds and husbandmen). The great desire among the godless rich to make themselves a name, and perpetuate their memory and their family in the world. They call their lands after their own names (Psa. 49:11). But the memory of the wicked shall rot. Only the righteous are worthy to be, and shall be, held in everlasting remembrance. Job formerly the greatest man in the East, and his praise in everybodys mouth. Now likely soon to be forgotten, and his name never to be mentioned but with a shudder. So his friends thought. But Job was not a wicked man, and a different fate awaited him. His patience and piety have diffused a fragrance throughout the world. His name one of the brightest constellations in the firmament of Holy Scripture.
9. An astonishment and horror to contentpories and posterity (Job. 18:20). They that come after him (succeeding generations, or those in western regions) shall be astonished at his day (his history, and the awful fate that overtook him), as they that went before (his contempories, or those in eastern regions), were affrighted. Men in opposite quarters of the world, and even future generations should be struck with horror at his secret or open wickedness, and the terrible doom that followed it. Sufficiently harrowing to poor Job, who might see his present experience pourtrayed in the description. His calamities already a cause of astonishment and horror, as they have been in all ages
(1) For their terribleness and extent;
(2) Their unlikeliness to happen to such a man;
(3) Their suddenness;
(4) The rapidity with which they followed each other;
(5) Their singularity and unusualness;
(6) Their contrast with his former prosperity;
(7) The mark they bore of the Divine anger, notwithstanding his pious and upright character. Job already a byword by his own confession. Awful prospect of what would be the case hereafter, unless God vindicated his character in time. Oppression in all this description sufficient to drive a wise man mad. Observe(i.) Satan terribly skilful in the means he employs to allure a man to his ruin, or goad him to despair. (ii.) Blessed proof of the reality of religion, that Job, notwithstanding all this, still held fast his integrity. (iii.) Gods thoughts in regard to his people not as mans thoughts. Jobs sufferings have thrown around his name a halo of imperishable glory, while man thought they would only surround it with horror.
III. Conclusion of the speech
Bildad clenches the terrible description with an emphatic application, by which Job was to appropriate it to himself, or at least to take warning from it. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God. This with Jobs desolate dwelling before his eyes! Not always true, however, in this life. Bad men not always haunted with terrors and tracked with misfortunes in this world. All the worse, however, if the vengeance is deferred to another. Awful picture presented in this description, of the experience awaiting the impenitent transgressor in a future state. The New Testament, as well as the Old, declares that God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. Righteous vengeance to overtake all that know not God, and obey not the Gospel of his Son Jesus Christ. To sin wilfully after receiving the knowledge of the truth is to bring down a fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries.
Bildads vehemence, however, overshot itself. His closing sentence such as unintentionally to bring consolation rather than despair. Conscience could whisper,Thou art not the man. Job neither wicked nor one who knew not God. This certain to himself, though perhaps more than doubtful to his vehement assailant. Observe:
(1) Certainty as to our character and standing needful to bear up against Satans terrible blasts. The scathing storm of Bildads fiery denunciations Keenly felt, but Job conscious he was a child and servant of God.
(2) Blessed to be able, amidst Satanic buffetings, still to cling to God as a Father.
(3) The believer safe even in the pelting of the most pitiless storm. The righteous in Christ is an everlasting foundation, which floods of temptations and hellish assaults are unable to sweep away. The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous runneth into it, and is safe. That name blessedly known to Job (ch. Job. 19:25). Is it so to the reader?
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
C.
THE GRANDEUR AND MISERY OF MAN OR IMPOSSIBILITY OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION (Job. 18:1-21)
1.
Sharp rebuke of Job (Job. 18:1-4)
TEXT 18:14
1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
2 How long will ye hunt for words?
Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts,
And are become unclean in your sight?
4 Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger,
Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?
Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?
COMMENT 18:14
Job. 18:1Bildads second speech (Job. 18:1-21) reveals a consciously restrained lack of feeling. He attacks Job for his lack of appreciation for ancient wisdom, his abusive language, and also implies that Job cannot expect to be exempted from the universal lawthat suffering is inevitably punishment for sinJob. 12:6. The content of the speech is largely composed of a legalistic tirade concerning the fate of those who know not God. The tone of the speech is exhausted by a warning and threat syndrome. There is not one word of consolation to be found in it. Bildad always addresses Job in the plural (you as plural is obscured in our translations), perhaps as a member of the class of unrighteous persons. His speech is divided into two parts: (1) Job. 18:2-4; and (2) Job. 18:5-21.
Job. 18:2The first part of his speech seeks an answer to the question: Why is Job so contemptuous of his friends? He charges that Job is so egocentric that he expects God to change the laws of creation for him. Bildad suggests that Job has spoken long enough and should stop long enough for his friends to give rebuttal. Dhorme suggests that the Hebrew word translated in A. V. as consider is a rhetorical device which is used to ask Job to be intelligent, i.e., if the dialogue is to continue, Job must show some signs of intelligence, thus far absent.
Job. 18:3Bildad resents Jobs comparison of his friends as dumb beastJob. 16:9-10. Line two in A. V. hardly conveys what the text saysWhy are we stupid from tamah, to be stopped up intellectually, not unclean as A. V. (so Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Lexicon)Psa. 73:22.[197]
[197] Blommerdes, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job remarks do not seem to be helpful in understanding this verse.
Job. 18:4Bildad asserts, without feeling, that Job is the cause of his own suffering because he refuses to take the proper means to remove Gods judgment from himself and his household. The rock is sometimes an epithet of God, probably so here. The law of retribution is as solid and firm as a rock and is part of the structure of the universe. Bildad alludes to Jobs remarks in Job. 16:9to the effect that God has torn me in His wrath. He retorts that Job has torn himself. If the established order of the universe dictates that suffering is the empirical proof of sin, does Job think that this order is to be modified for him?[198] The last phrase is a quotation from Job. 14:18 b.
[198] M. Dahood, JBL, 1959, p. 306, for analysis of this theme.
2. The certain dreadful doom of the hardened evildoer (Job. 18:5-21)
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
XVIII.
(1) How long?Bildad begins very much as Job himself had done (Job 16).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
BILDAD’S SECOND REPLY.
1. Then answered Bildad The wicked man, inflated with vanity, may rage like a wild beast, but nature will keep on in her course. God, however, does not forget or neglect him, as is evident in the extinction of the lamp within his home and in the many snares laid for his ruin. Bildad proceeds to paint the doom of a miserable sinner his darkest colours he draws out of the misfortunes of Job. That doom is inevitable, full of terror, overwhelming. Heaven fights against him with its fires, destroys his children, crushes all hope, chases him into the outer darkness, and sets him as a monument of perpetual desolation. “The description is terribly brilliant, solemn, and pathetic, as becomes the stern preacher of repentance, with haughty mien and pharisaic self-confidence, a masterpiece of the poet’s skill in poetic idealizing.” Delitzsch.
Job’s Dialogue with Three Friends – Job 3:1 to Job 31:40, which makes up the major portion of this book, consists of a dialogue between Job and his three friends. In this dialogue, Job’s friends engage in three rounds of accusations against Job, with him offering three defenses of his righteousness. Thus, Job and his friends are able to confirm each of their views with three speeches, since the Scriptures tell us that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The underlying theme of this lengthy dialogue is man’s attempt to explain how a person is justified before God. Job will express his intense grief (Job 3:1-26), in which his three friends will answer by finding fault with Job. He will eventually respond to this condemnation in a declaration of faith that God Himself will provide a redeemer, who shall stand on earth in the latter days (Job 19:25-27). This is generally understood as a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins.
Job’s declaration of his redeemer in Job 19:23-29, which would be recorded for ever, certainly moved the heart of God. This is perhaps the most popular passage in the book of Job, and reflects the depth of Job’s suffering and plea to God for redemption. God certainly answered his prayer by recording Job’s story in the eternal Word of God and by allowing Job to meet His Redeemer in Heaven. I can imagine God being moved by this prayer of Job and moving upon earth to provide someone to record Job’s testimony, and moving in the life of a man, such as Abraham, to prepare for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps it is this prayer that moved God to call Abraham out of the East and into the Promised Land.
The order in which these three friends deliver their speeches probably reflects their age of seniority, or their position in society.
Scene 1 First Round of Speeches Job 3:1 to Job 14:22
Scene 2 Second Round of Speeches Job 15:1 to Job 21:34
Scene 3 Third Round of Speeches Job 22:1 to Job 31:40
Bildad Attacks Job
v. 1. Then answered Bildad, the Shuhite, v. 2. How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? v. 3. Wherefore are we counted as beasts, v. 4. He teareth himself in his anger, EXPOSITION
Job 18:1-21
Bildad’s second speech is no improvement upon his first (Job 8:1-22.). He has evidently been exceedingly nettled by Job’s contemptuous words concerning his “comforters” (Job 16:2, Job 16:11; Job 17:10); and aims at nothing but venting his anger, and terrifying Job by a series of denunciations and threats. Job has become to him “the wicked man” (verses 5, 21), an embodiment of all that is evil, and one “that knoweth not God.” No punishment is too severe for him.
Job 18:1, Job 18:2
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? (So Rosenmuller, Gesenius, Welte, Merx, Lee, and Canon Cook.) Others render, “How long will ye lay snares for words?” which is a possible translation, but does not give a very good sense. Bildad, a tolerably concise speaker himself (see Job 8:2-22; Job 25:2-6), is impatient at the length of Job’s replies. He had already, in his former speech (Job 8:2), reproached Job with his prolixity; now he repeats the charge. The employment of the second person plural in this and the following verses is not very easily accounted for. Bildad can scarcely mean to blame his friend Eliphaz. Perhaps he regards Job as having supporters among the lookers-on, of whom there may have been several besides Elihu (Job 32:2). Mark; rather, consider; i.e. think a little, instead of talking. And afterwards we will speak. Then, calmly and without hurry, we will proceed to reply to what you have said.
Job 18:3
Wherefore are we counted as beasts? The allusion is probably to Job 16:10, where Job spoke of his “comforters” as “gaping upon him with their mouths.” And reputed vile in your sight! or, reckoned unclean. Job had spoken of his “miserable comforters” as “ungodly and wicked” (Job 16:11), without wisdom (Job 17:10) and without understanding (Job 17:4). But he had not said that they were “unclean.” Bildad, therefore, misrepresents him.
Job 18:4
He teareth himself in his anger. The Hebrew idiom, which allows of rapid transitions from the second to the third person, and vice versa, cannot be transferred without harshness to our modern speech. Our Revisers have given the true force of the original by discarding the third person, and translating, “Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger.” There is probably an allusion to Job 16:9, where Job had represented God as “tearing him in his wrath.” Bildad says it is not God who tests himhe tears himself. Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? i.e. “Shall the course of the world be altered to meet thy wishes, to suit thy case?” Job had wished for all manner of impossible things (Job 3:3-6; Job 9:32-35; Job 13:21, Job 13:22; Job 16:21; Job 17:3). Bildad’s reproach is thus not wholly unjust. But he makes no allowance for the wild utter-shoes of one who is half distraught. And shall the rock be removed out of his place? Shall that which is most solid and firm give way, and alter its nature?
Job 18:5-21
Bildad, from this point, turns wholly to denunciation. He strings together a long series of menacesprobably ancient saws, drawn from “the wisdom of the Beni Kedem” (1Ki 4:30), and descriptive of the wretched fate of the wicked man, with whom he identifies Job.
Job 18:5
Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out. Whatever the wicked man may at any time have acquired of splendour, glory, honour, wealth, or prosperity, shall be taken from him, and as it were extinguished. And the spark of his fire shall not shine. Not a single trace of his splendour, not a spark, not a glimmer, shall remain.
Job 18:6
The light shall be dark in his tabernacle. This is not, as Rosenmuller asserts, a mere repetition of the thought contained in the preceding verse with a change of terms, and a variation of metaphor. It is a denunciation of woe to the whole house of the ungodly man, not to himself only. As Schultens says, “Lumen ob-tenebratum in tentorio est fortuna domus extincta.” And his candle shall be put out with him; rather, as in the Revised Version, his!amp above him shall be put out; i.e. the lamp which swings above him in his tent, or in his chamber, shall be extinguished. Darkness shall fall upon the whole house of the wicked man.
Job 18:7
The steps of his strength shall he straitened. In the time of his prosperity the wicked man had a wide sphere within which to exercise his activity, and strode hither and thither at his pleasure. When punishment falls on him, his “steps will be straitened,” i.e. his sphere narrowed, his activity cramped, his powers “cabined, cribbed, confined.” And his own counsel shall cast him down (see Job 5:13; and comp. Psa 7:14,-16; Psa 9:16; Psa 10:2; Hos 10:6).
Job 18:8
For he is cast into a net by his own feet. He walks of his own accord into a snare, not necessarily into one that he has himself set for others, as in Psa 7:15; Psa 9:15; Psa 35:8; Psa 57:6; and Pro 26:27; but either into one of his own setting, or into one laid for him by others (see Pro 26:10). And he walketh upon a snare. A mere repetition of the idea expressed in the preceding hemistich.
Job 18:9
The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber (rather, the man-trap) shall prevail against him. Fifty years ago man-traps were commonly set at night in gardens and orchards in this country, which held intending thieves until the proprietor came and took them before a magistrate in the morning. (On the employment of such traps in antiquity, see Herod; 2:121. 2.)
Job 18:10
The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way; or, the noose is hid for him in the ground (see the Revised Version). Six different kinds of traps or snares are mentioned, “the speaker heaping together every word that he can find descriptive of the art of snaring.” The art had been well studied by the Egyptians long before the age of Job, and a great variety of contrivances for capturing both beasts and birds are represented on the very early monuments. We may conclude from this passage that it had also been brought to an advanced stage of excellence in Syria and Arabia.
Job 18:11
Terrors shall make him afraid on every side. Vague fears, panic terrors, no longer subjective, but to his bewildered brain objective, shall seem to menace the wicked man on every side, and shall affright him continually. There is an allusion, doubtless, to what Job has said of the gloomy and terrifying thoughts which come over him from time to time (Job 3:25; Job 7:14; Job 9:28; Job 13:21) and fill him with consternation. And shall drive him to his feet; rather, shall chase him at his heels (see the Revised Version). Like a pack of hounds, or wolves, or jackals. Jackals are common in Palestine and the adjacent countries. They hunt in lacks, and generally run down their prey; but do not, unless hard pressed by hunger, attack men.
Job 18:12
His strength shall be hunger-bitten. (So Dillmann, Cook, and the Revised Version.) To the other sufferings of the wicked man shall be added the pangs of hunger. His bodily strength shall disappear, as destitution and famine come upon him. And destruction shall be ready at his side. Ready to seize on him at any moment. Some translate, “ready for his halting” i.e. ready to seize on him in ease of his tripping or halting (so the Revised Version).
Job 18:13
It shall devour the strength of his skin; literally, the bars of his skin, by which some understand “the muscles,” some “the members,” of his body. The general meaning is plain, that destruction shall always be close to him, and shall ultimately make him its own. Even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength. By “the firstborn of death” is probably intended, either some wasting disease generally, or perhaps the special disease from which Job is suffering.
Job 18:14
His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle; rather, he shall be rooted out of his tabernacle (or, tent), which is his confidence, or wherein he trusteth; i.e. he shall be torn from the home, where he thought himself secure as in a stronghold. And it shall bring him; rather, one shall bring him, or, he shall be brought. To the king of terrors. Probably death, rather than Satan, is intended. None of Job’s “comforters” seems to have had any conception of Satan as a personal being, nor even Job himself. It is only the author. or arranger, of the book who recognizes the personality and power of the prince of darkness.
Job 18:15
It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his; either, it (i.e. terror) shall dwell in his tabernacle, which is no longer his; or, they shall dwell in his tabernacle that are none of his; i.e. strangers shall inhabit the place where he dwelt heretofore (compare the Revised Version). Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation. As God rained fire and brimstone out of heaven upon the cities of the plain (Gen 19:24), so shall brimstone be scattered upon his habitation to ruin and destroy it (comp. Deu 29:23; Psa 11:6).
Job 18:16
His roots shall be dried up beneath. He shall be like a tree whose roots no moisture reaches, and which, therefore, withers and dries up (comp. Job 14:8, Job 14:9; Job 29:19). And above shall his branch be cut off; or, be withered (comp. Job 14:2, where the same verb is used).
Job 18:17
His remembrance shall perish from the earth (comp. Psa 34:16; Psa 109:13). This is always spoken of in Scripture as a great calamity, one of the greatest that can befall a man. It was felt as such, not only by the Jews, but by the Semitic people generally, whose earnest desire to perpetuate their memory is shown by the elaborate monuments and lengthy inscriptions which they set up in so many places. Arabian poetry, no less than Jewish, is penetrated by the idea. In one point of view it may seem a vulgar ambition; but, in another, it is a pathetic craving alter that continuance which the spirit of man naturally desires, but of which it has, apart from revelation, no assurance. And he shall have no name in the street; or, in the world without (comp. Job 5:10).
Job 18:18
He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world (comp. Job 10:21, Job 10:22; Job 17:16). What Job represents as a welcome retreat, whither he would gladly withdraw himself, Bildad depicts as a banishment, into which he will be driven on account of his sins.
Job 18:19
He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people; rather, nor grandson; i.e. “his posterity shall be clean put out” (Psa 109:14). Nor any remaining in his dwellings; rather, in the places where he sojourned (compare the Revised Version, which gives “in his sojournings”). It is implied that the wicked man shall be a vagabond, without a home, sojourning now here, now there, for a short time. Neither among his own people, nor in these places of his temporary abode, shall he leave any descendant. Bildad probably intends to glance at the destruction of Job’s children (Job 1:19).
Job 18:20
They that come after him shall be astonied at his day; i.e. “at the time of his visitation” (comp. Psa 37:13, “The Lord shall laugh at him, for he seeth that his day is coming;” and Psa 137:7, “Remember the children of Edom in the day of Jerusalem,” i.e. the day of its overthrow). As they that went before were affrighted. His fate shall alarm equally his contemporaries and his successors, at possibly “the dwellers in the West and the dwellers in the East”
Job 18:21
Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked. “Such as I have described is the general condition and manner of life of the man who is wicked.” and this is the place (or, position) of him that knoweth not God. The singular number used both in this clause and the preceding indicates that the whole series of denunciations (Job 18:5-21) is levelled against an individualviz. Job.
HOMILETICS
Job 18:1-21
Bildad to Job: an Arabian orator’s discourse.
I. THE FAULTY INTRODUCTION. Bildad possessed at least three qualifications indispensable to successful speakingfervid imagination, glowing eloquence, and vehement passion. He was characterized also by three fatal defectswant of calmness, or self-containment, want of prudence, and want of sympathetic tenderness. Being destitute of these, he blundered like an inexperienced amateur, starting out on his oration in a hurricane of passion and ill humour, planting daggers in the breast he hoped to win by his eloquence, and forfeiting, by the very keenness of his invective, all possibility of effecting good impressions by his words. He impeached Job of:
1. Senseless verbosity. Of speaking at an undue length; of talking for talking’s sake; of hunting after words in order to overwhelm his opponents; of speaking without consideration, talking when he ought to have been thinking, making words do duty for ideas; of speaking instead of listening to his betters (verse 2). The first is the error of the facile-tongued; the second, of the shallow-pated; the third, of the conceited egotist. If Job sinned in either of these respects, he was not undeserving of reproof, much more if he erred in all. But Bildad, whose genius was not original, was probably moved to use the language of censure as much by a desire to imitate Eliphaz (Job 15:2), or to retort upon Job (Job 16:3), as by strong repugnance to the patriarch’s offence.
2. Unjustifiable contempt. Job had accused the friends of lacking spiritual discernment (Job 7:4). Bildad interpreted the charge to mean that Job regarded them as brute beasts, devoid of sense and reason (verse 3). If Job did so, he was guilty of altogether unwarranted depreciation of his fellows. That nature, which God made only a little short of Divinity (Psa 8:5; Heb 2:6), must for ever be parted by a wide gulf from the irrational creation. Only when men voluntarily extinguish all spiritual susceptibility by continuance in sin can they be legitimately compared to the beasts that perish (Psa 49:12, Psa 49:20). This the friends had not done; and it is certain Job had not called them beasts. But, being men of a high spirit, they were quick to take offence.
3. Self-devouring rage. An old insinuation of Eliphaz’s reproduced (Job 5:2), with a specific allusion to Job’s language charging God with tearing him in his anger (Job 16:9), in contradistinction to which Bildad averred that Job tore himself, literally, “his soul,” in his anger (verse 4), meaning that the patriarch’s misery was the fruit of his own frantic and excited behaviour, which again was the immediate result of his soul’s fretful and wrathful resentment against God’s providential inflictions. That Job’s behaviour under his unparalleled calamities was not perfect, is obvious; that his impatience was such as to call for censure from men, may be doubted (Jas 5:11). Yet Bildad’s reproach suggests that while all “anger is a short madness,” it is supreme insanity to fume and fret at the Divine dispensations, and that the most miserable man on earth must surely be he whose soul swells with rage against God because of his paternal chastisements.
4. Egotistical presumption. In the judgment of Bildad, Job appeared to imagine that the Divine Law, which connected suffering with sin, should in his case be suspended; but that, Bildad assured the patriarch, would be as likely to occur as that, in order to oblige him, the earth which God had appointed for man’s habitation should become tenantless, or the rock which Heaven’s ordinance has rendered fixed and immovable should be suddenly transported from its place (verse 4). The reign of law in the material universe, and the fore-ordination of events in human history, have been frequently employed exactly as they are here used by Bildad, viz. to demonstrate the non-credibility of miracles, the inefficacy of prayer, the impossibility of such a thing as a special providence, and the intolerable arrogance of a being so mean and insignificant as man imagining that in any of the ways implied in these doctrines God would, in his behalf, interfere with the established order of things. But it h; no presumption to believe in what Scripture teachesthe possibility of miracles (Mat 19:26), the efficacy of prayer (Psa 65:2; Mat 7:7; Jas 1:5), the reality of a special providence (Psa 40:17; Mat 10:30); since the first can be proved by adequate testimony, while the second and third are supported and confirmed by the inner witness of conscience. Even the case pronounced by Bildad to be impossible, viz. the suspension of the moral law of retribution, has come to pass. The salvation of man through the cross of Jesus Christ attests the fallacy of Bildad’s fundamental assumption. And now Bildad, having proceeded thus far with his oration, for any good he was likely to do to Job, might and should have prudently relapsed into silence. Nevertheless, he preached an eloquent discourse.
II. THE LOFTY THEME. The subject descanted on by Bildad was the inevitable retribution which sooner or later overtook the wicked. Set forth under an emblem familiar to Oriental poetry, viz. the extinction of the fire in a dwelling, and of the lamp depending from the roof of a tent (verses 5, 6), it was depicted as:
1. Delayed. The evil-doer was not arrested by the hand of Providence the moment he set forth on his career, but was allowed for a season to thrive by his ungodliness, to amass wealth, acquire power, and secure friends, to become the head of a family or the chief of a clan, and to possess a tent, or rather a circle of tents, with his own commodious, well-furnished, richly ornamented, brilliantly lighted tabernacle in the midst. So Eliphaz saw the foolish taking root (Job 5:3), and David beheld the wicked spreading like a green bay tree (Psa 37:35), and Asaph witnessed the ungodly prospering until at last they were suddenly overwhelmed (Psa 73:13).
2. Certain. Nevertheless, i.e. notwithstanding all contrary appearances, the sinner’s own security, his determination to resist or evade the pursuing Nemesis, his fierce resentment when the hand of the destroyer should apprehend him, “the light of the wicked should be put out.” Not absolutely and universally true of their terrestrial career, it is yet positively sure that the prosperity of the ungodly shall decline, if not on earth, at least in the future world.
3. Complete. The glow upon the sinner’s hearth and the lamp from his roof should be equally extinguished. The light in which he sunned himself, i.e. his personal comfort and happiness, and the light in which he shone to others, i.e. his greatness and glory, should alike fade and become dark. Sometimes such experience is the lot of God’s people, as the case of Job testifies. Happy they to whom Jehovah is an everlasting Light (Isa 60:19), and who, when they sit in temporal darkness, can rejoice in his cheering beams (Mic 7:8).
III. THE BRILLIANT ILLUSTRATION. The wicked man’s career, from the moment of his apprehension by misfortune till the hour of his complete destruction, was next represented in a series of graphic pictures. In these he appears as:
1. Snared by calamity. (Verses 7-10.)
(1) Unexpectedly; when, at the height of prosperity, in the fulness of pride, and conscious of strength, he stalks forth with giant strides to execute the wicked counsels he has formed (Job 5:3; Ecc 9:12; Luk 21:34, Luk 21:35; 1Th 5:3).
(2) Willingly; as if disdainfully defiant of every attempt to arrest his career, marching deliberately into the toffs, so that practically “his own counsel casts him down,” and “his own feet thrust him into a net” A melancholy example of that “vaulting ambition which o’erleaps itself and falls on the other side;” of that self avenging Nemesis which slumbers in the bosom of every sin, but especially of a great sin; of that terrible infatuation which sometimes seizes on the souls of wicked men, and impels them, with stupid blindness to, or reckless disregard of, consequences, forward to their own destruction.
(3) Effectually; the gin taking him by the heel, and the noose holding him fast, so that first his proud steps become straitened, and finally himself is cast down.
(4) Inevitably; the snare that is to arrest him lying already in the ground and only waiting his arrival, the import of which seems to be that the moment a transgressor enters on his evil path he starts upon a road that must sooner or later conduct him to ruin.
2. Haunted by terrors. (Verses 11, 12.) The evil conscience that he carries in his bosom, though long slumbering, at last awakes, inspires him with fearful forebodings of impending disaster, peoples all the atmosphere around him with ghostly apparitions which dog his footsteps, summons up before his startled vision, well-nigh every moment of his wretched existence, spectral shadows of coming woe, which paralyze his strength and utterly unman his wicked soul. (Cf. Eliphaz’s picture of a guilty conscience (Job 15:21), of which Bildad’s appears to be an echo and imitation.)
3. Arrested by disease. (Verses 13, 14.) (On the expression, “the firstborn of death,” see Exposition.) The obvious allusion is to such a malady as Job’s leprosy, which, when it apprehends a sinner,
(1) devours the strength (or bars) of his skin, i.e. consumes either the members of the body (Delitzsch), or” the muscles which are to the skin what bars are to a gate, or those passages and orifices, those inlets and outlets of the body, at which many forms of disease first display their presence and power (Cox);
(2) ejects him from his house, causing him who formerly sat in confident security within his tent to remove, as under the ban of Divine displeasure, from the presence and habitations of his fellow-men; and
(3) conducts him to the king of terrors, which death must ever be to the ungodly and impenitent, though to them who believe in Christ, who hath conquered death, its character and aspect are completely changed (1Co 15:55; Heb 2:14, Heb 2:15).
4. Overwhelmed with destruction. (Verses 15-17.) And this in three particulars:
(1) the desolation of his homestead, which, being doomed, like Jericho, to remain ununhbited, is henceforth tenanted by “creatures and things strange to the deceased rich man, such as jackals and nettles” (Delitzisch), or haunted ever afterwards by ghostly terrors (Cox)a thought which Bildad again copies from the preceeding speech of Eliphaz.
(2) the extirpation of his family, even to its utter destruction, root and branch, so that neither he, the root, shall remain, nor any of the branches, his offspring, shall survive (verses 16, 19)”the most terrible calamity that can happen to a Semite” (Wetstein, quoted by Delitzsch);
(3) the extinction of his memory, the complete perishing of all remembrance of him, so that his name is never mentioned in the land or on the street (Pro 2:22; Pro 10:7; Psa 34:16)a pitiable doom for those to contemplate who have no hope of any immortality beyond the posthumous renown which their great power, extensive fame, or notorious wickedness may enable them to secure, though a comparatively small deprivation for them whose names are registered in heaven, and will be held in everlasting remembrance by God even if they should be forgotten by man.
5. Thrust into darkness. (Verse 18.) Chased from the world as unfit to live longer on the earth (Pro 14:32), as afterwards, though falsely, Christ (Luk 23:18) and St. Paul (Act 22:22); driven away from the light of day into the darkness of death, from the light of prosperity into the darkness of misfortune, from the light of happiness into the darkness of miserya terribly true picture of the fate of the impenitent.
6. Loaded with infamy. (Verse 20.) Transformed into an object of horror and amazement to
(1) the people of all lands”those who dwell in the East and those who dwell in the West” (Delitzsch); and
(2) the people of all times”them that come after,” i.e. posterity, and “them that went before,” i.e. the wicked man’s contemporaries. In this sense “the evil that men do lives after them,” and “some men’s sins are open beforehand, going before to judgment, and some men they follow after” (1Ti 5:24). The language of Bildad is true of the Sodomites (2Pe 2:6), Balsam (2Pe 2:15, 2Pe 2:16), Judas (Act 1:18), and transgressors of a like order.
IV. THE MISTAKEN APPLICATION. That Job was the subject of Bildad’s sombre sketch is apparent from the portrait of Job’s character prefixed by the speaker to his dismal harangue, the resemblance in many points of Bildad’s imaginary picture to the actual history of the patriarch, and the sharp incisive manner in which the moral of his tale is pointed out (verse 21). Yet the preacher completely misdirected his discourse. For:
1. The character he portrayed did not belong to Job. Job was not a wicked man, and a man that knew not God, as Bildad was perfectly aware; but, as Job contended, and God himself allowed, “a perfect man and an upright, one that feared God and eschewed evil.”
2. The sermon he preached did not apply to Job. Even of wicked men it was not always and universally true that retribution overtook them on account of their misdeeds. But of Job it was wholly incorrect that he was suffering for his sins.
3. The future he predicted was not experienced by Job. In part it seemed to be, but in its principal ingredients it was not. He was cast down from his prosperity, but he was not chased out of the world. The light was for a season extinguished in his dwelling, but it was afterward rekindled with greater brilliancy than before. His homestead was ruined, but not cursed, being afterwards re-erected and blessed. His first family was taken from him, but a second was bestowed. His name was not consigned to infamy, but has been crowned with everlasting renown.
Learn:
1. That no preacher should carry personalities to the pulpit.
2. That a great text should, if possible, be followed by a great sermon.
3. That an orator should study to be true rather than brilliant in his illustrations.
4. That discourses otherwise good are sometimes delivered to the wrong hearers.
5. That the predictions of angry prophets are seldom fulfilled.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Job 18:1-21
Renewed rebukes and warnings.
Bildad again replies, mentioning that the passionate outbreaks of Job are useless. He holds fast to his original principle, that, according to the Law of God, the hardened sinner will suddenly meet his doom. And some secret sin, he persists, must be the cause of the present suffering.
I. INTRODUCTION: DENUNCIATION OF JOB AS A FOOLISH AND VIOLENT SPEAKER. (Verses 1-4.) He is one who “hunts after words.” Let him be truly sensible and rational, begs this confident Pharisaic preacher. “Why do you treat us as stupid beasts? ‘ he indignantly expostulates. “You tear yourself to pieces in your anger, and think yourself lacerated by God” (comp. Job 7:16). Does Job exact the earth to be depopulated and rocks to be removed for his sake? Bildad thinks that Job’s repeated assertion of his innocence aims at the subversion of the moral order of the worldthe holy order given by God (comp. Rom 3:5, Rom 3:6). It is a grand thought, though misapplied by the speaker. The order of God, alike in nature and the human spirit, is unchangeable, and admits of no exception. But this order is not to be misunderstood by drawing conclusions from the outward to the inward life. Where the higher, the spiritual, is concerned, reason, Scripture, and conscience, rather than any outward tokens, must decide the truth.
II. DESCRIPTION OF THE DREADFUL DOOM OF THE HARDENED SINNER. (Verses 5-21.) Most solemn and pathetic; a masterpiece of dramatic representation. A series of striking figures is made to pass before the eye of imagination.
1. The light of the wicked is put out; no flame leaps from his fire, no cheerful lamp hangs from his tent-roof. This is a favourite image (Job 21:17; Job 29:3; Psa 18:28; Pro 13:9). The Arabs say, “Fate has put out my lamp” (verses 5, 6).
2. Another figure: his steps are hemmed incurrent in the Eastand his own counsel overthrows him (verse 7).
3. Again, the figure of the nets and snares and pitfalls, by which he meets his ruin (verses 8-10). Terrible thoughts and dread events throng around him, and pursue him, like the Erinnyes of the Greek mythologymessengers from God to disquiet his guilty soul (verse 11).
4. Disaster and ruin are personified in the poetic description. The one has an eager hunger for him; the other stands ready, like an armed foe, to cast him down (verse 12).
III. The description now TAKES A MORE PERSONAL DIRECTIONPOINTING TO THE STATE OF JOB.
1. His diseasethe terrible elephantiasisthe “first-born of death,” devours him piecemeal (verse 13).
2. Expelled from his secure abode, he advances into the power of the “king of terrors” (verse 14). He dwells in the tent of another, while brimstone from heaven desolates his former habitation (comp. Job 15:34; Deu 29:22, Deu 29:23; Psa 11:6). This, it is said, is still at the present day the most dreadful of images to the mind of the Semitic peoplesthe desolation of the home (verse 15).
3. Another figure: he is like a tree, withered at the root, and topped above (verse 16). An imprecation was written on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, “Let him have neither roots below nor branches above]” (comp. Isa 5:24; Amo 2:9).
4. His memory passes away from the land, and his name is known over the wide steppe no more (verse 17; comp. Job 13:12). He is thrust out of the light of life and happiness into the darkness of calamity and death, and is hunted from the round habitable earth (verse 18). No scion nor shoot springs from him among the people; none escaped from his utter ruin in his dwellings (verse 19).
5. An awful impression is felt by all, in East and West alike, who contemplate so dreadful a doom. “Thus,” concludes Bildad, “it befalleth the dwellings of the unrighteous, and the place of him that knew notrecognized and honoured notGod” (verses 20, 21).
Detaching this address from its inappropriate application to the sufferer, it is in itself a noble piece of warning and exhortation. Letus gather from it a few lessons.
1. The curse of the wicked is the extinction of the light of God, who is the Light and Brightness of the righteous (verses 5, sqq.; Psa 36:9, Psa 36:10; Psa 119:105). The light, again, may be taken as a figure for the clear knowledge of man’s destiny, a clear consciousness in the whole life (Mat 6:22, Mat 6:23). Then the light in the tent enhances the figure, and beautifully points to this clear consciousness in the daily relations of the house.
2. (Verses 17, sqq.) The memory a man leaves behind is not of so much consequence as the consciousness in life of being known to God. There are many true and hidden ones in the world, whose deeds are done in secret for God’s sake (Joh 3:21); and many godless ones, who make so great a stir and noise in the world that they are talked of after they are gone. It is a peculiar blessing to the child of God if he be made an example to any, and after his death a sweet savour ascends from his life to God’s praise (Pro 10:7).
3. The repeated descriptions of the doom of the ungodly are intended to quell our envy at the sight of unhallowed prospering, and direct our thoughts to the inward, the only real life. How can we judge whether any one is a true fearer of God? Not from his religious observances, not from the external fortunes which befall him, not from his individual good works; but from the faith which he owns, from the whole direction of his life to the Divine, from the frame of mind in which he dies (Psa 73:17, Psa 73:19, etc.; Wohlfarth).J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Job 18:5-14
The fruits of impiety.
Again Bildad speaks. He is not the sufferer, hut the judge. Be who came as a comforter utters but miserable words in the ears of the afflicted one. His words are true in themselves, but wrongly applied. Justly he describes the fruits of impiety.
I. To THE IMPIOUS THE LIGHT OF PROSPERITY IS EXCHANGED FOR THE DARKNESS OF MISFORTUNE. His “lamp is put out.” Sorrowfulness, sooner or later, overtakes him. For a time he is in great prosperity; but his sin finds him out. The ill-gotten gain of ungodliness has no blessing upon it, but a withering curse. Sooner or later the heyday of wicked rejoicing is exchanged for the blackness of dark night. Universal experience affirms this. It is a just punishment of wrong, and a warning to the tempted; while it admonishes the obedient, and declares “there is a God that judgeth in the earth.”
II. THE EVILLY FORMED PURPOSE OF IMPIETY FAILS. His “steps are straitened,” how strong soever they may seem to be. Even his very counsel itself shall be a stumbling-block to cast the wicked down. The hope cherished without God must be disappointed; the selfish design is itself a trap for the feet of the ungodly.
III. IMPIETY ENTANGLES IN DIFFICULTIES. “The snare is laid for him in the ground.” The whole kingdom of right and truth is against him. Judgment waits on his steps. Sooner or later his feet will be in “the trap” that is laid “for him in the way.” His course is not a plain, direct, clear course. His motives are confused. He hedges himself with difficulties. One wrong exposes him to another. At last “the gin takes him by the heel”
IV. IMPIETY EXCITES TO FEAR AND DREAD. “Terrors make him afraid on every side.” The awakened conscience makes a coward of him. He fears the rustling of the leaf. Judgment is passed in the secret chambers of his soul. He cannot escape.
V. IMPIETY WASTES THE STRENGTH AND BRINGS THE LIFE DOWN TO DESTRUCTION. Sin is the transgression of law. Laws of life cannot be broken without the health failing. An impious spirit, unruled and uncontrolled by righteous principle, will pursue evil and dangerous courses, will yield to evil habits, and the strength of the life will be undermined. Then “the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.” He becomes the prey of. destruction. He is brought “to the king of terrors.” Thus the course of impiety ends in ignominy, shame, and destruction. “This is the portion of their cup.” Darkness, difficulty, fear, wasted purpose and wasted strength finally issuing in death, are the inevitable fruits of impiety.R.G.
Job 18:15
The home of the wicked insecure.
The blessing of the Lord is upon “the habitation of the just.” This is the reward of righteousness. But the Divine judgment against the wicked is shown in permitting his house to become desolate. One of the oft-repeated promises to Israel is the blessing of the Lord upon the habitation. But “the curse of the Lord is in the house of the wicked.” The practice of iniquity tends to destruction. It has no element of stability in it. The habitation of the wicked is insecure because
I. IT LACKS THE DEFENCE OF RIGHT PRINCIPLES. The righteousness which exalteth a nation establishes a house. On the health, the pursuits, the habits, the business, the family, right principles exert a beneficent influence. The absence of them is the precursor of evil of all kinds. The wall is broken down; protection is wanting. The home is a prey to evil.
II. IT LACKS THE PROMISE OF THE DIVINE PROTECTION AND BLESSING. It is as a field unwatered. There is no spring of hope within it. In the blessing of the Lord lies hidden the secret germ of all true prosperity, and all safety and permanence. Where that blessing is not, the house is as a tender plant unsheltered beneath a scorching sups. The Divine providence cannot be expected to work for the promotion of ends directly contrary to its own. The whole world, with its innumerable laws and its wise administration, is on the side of right, on the side of virtue and goodness. The blessing of the Lord, which makes the field to be fruitful, makes the abode of the righteous to be an abode of safety, of peace, and of blessing. The home of wickedness has none of these things.
III. The home of the wicked finds NO ENCOURAGEMENT TO ITS PROSPERITY IN THE GOOD WILL OF MEN AROUND. The evil companions are not trustworthy. They turn aside as a deceitful bow. They are as likely to rejoice and make sport out of their companion’s downfall as to pity him under it; while the ungodly, having separated himself from the righteous, can find no sympathetic spirit amongst them. That the home of evil should be broken up is rather a cause of rejoicing, for it is the putting aside a cause of evil. This is the portion of the man that maketh not God his trust. He fights against his own best interests. He forsakes the only true and safe way. He puts himself in opposition to the great forces of righteousness which ever in the end prevail. He links his interests with that on which the withering curse of God rests, and “brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.” “His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.”R.G.
Job 18:16-21
The curse upon the family of the wicked.
The permanent continuance of the family was one of the most coveted blessings of Eastern nations. Very deeply was this embedded in the minds of the peoples. It was, therefore, a signal curse of God to cut off the remembrance of a family from the earth. With cruel error Bildad points to the cutting off of Job’s familyat least, such is the presumption, otherwise his words are inappropriate hereand he seems to charge upon Job the sin of which the punishment was to be found in the death of his children. That Bildad states a true principle of Divine retribution all agree; his error was in its application. The cutting off the family of the ungodly is
I. A PRINCIPLE OF THE DIVINE JUDGMENT AGAINST EVIL–DOING. It is frequently announced in Holy Scripture. God, the jealous God, visits “the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation.” It is part of his holy and wise and just retribution. As he blesses the sons of the faithful for their fathers’ sakes, so he visits upon the children the offences of their fathers. The evil-doer withers as a plant without water. “His roots shall be dried up beneath.” Therefore his branches spread not; but they are “cut off.” The remembrance of him perishes from the earth, and his name from the street (verse 17). He dies away without descendant and without remembrance.
II. This judgment is seen to be A NATIONAL CONSEQUENCE OF WRONG–DOING. For evil is visited in various ways by the avenging Nemesis that hovers over all life. Evil undermines the health; it tends to habits and pursuits which are destructive of the peace arid security and progress of home. It puts man in conflict with his neighbour, and so men drive the evil-doer “from light into darkness.” He is “chased out of the world.” Even should his posterity be perpetuated, it is lost to sight. It sinks down in the world till it sinks out of view.
III. This judgment STANDS IN DIRECT CONTRAST TO THE LOT OF THE RIGHTEOUSthe man who knoweth God. Over his house is the Divine protection. “When a man’s ways please the Lord, he maketh even his enemies to be at peace with him.” The blessing of God rests upon the home and the doings of the righteous. Even though chastisement and calamity may fall upon him, they do not destroy him; rather, he, as a pruned tree, groweth the more and more fruitful God’s promise is unto the good, and unto their children after them. The family of the good man has the advantage Of a holy example. They are screened from a thousand perils, while innumerable blessings descend upon them in response to the prayer of faith. This will in the end be proved to be true of Job.
IV. These judgments STAND AS A WARNING TO ALL PARENTS. They make the duty of parental piety more and more obvious. They illustrate the solemn responsibility of heads of houses, since their doings descend in their effects upon their children. They owe it to their offspring that they so live as rightly and beneficently to affect their lives. The blessing of God which rests upon the just, and the curse and condemnation of God upon the evil, are warnings to all. Upon those the eye of God rests, but upon these the curse of God. The abodes of wickedness, over which no blessing from on high hovers, are abodes of death and destruction. “Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.”R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Job 18:4
The individual need and the universal order.
Bildad accuses Job of being unreasonable in expecting that the universal order should bend to suit a man’s individual need. He suggests a common difficulty in regard to the harmony between the particular and the general in the dispensations of Providence.
I. THE INDIVIDUAL MAN IS TEMPTED TO THINK SUPREMELY OF HIS OWN NEED. We are all naturally self-centred, and trouble magnifies our sense of personality and peculiarity. Thus it comes about that each person is inclined to feel his own wants as of paramount importance, and to expect that the whole order of things must shape itself to meet his requirements. If that is not the case, and the world goes on in its large way, treating him as but a unit among the millions, a drop in the ocean of humanity, he feels himself slighted and wronged. A more reasonable view of the whole of God’s world and its interests should remove this foolish notion; but it can only be conquered when its moral character is attacked, and selfishness is made to give place to love.
II. GOD GOVERNS THE WORLD FOR THE GOOD OF THE WHOLE CREATION. We cannot judge of it till we can take a large and fair view of the wide field. The shadow which makes a corner look gloomy by itself is necessary for the completion of the whole picture. God-is not partial, selecting one for favour and neglecting a multitude. He is not like the aristocratic Roman, who looked down with scornful indifference on the ignoble plebs. There is nothing so democratic as nature. Here all alike are under exactly the same laws. As the great ship ploughs her way through the ocean, though children are crying and women are ill, the watch calls out his cheery word, “All’s well!” for the vessel is going right in spite of these individual distresses.
III. THE GENERAL CONSTITUTION OF THE WORLD CANNOT BE UPSET TO SUIT INDIVIDUAL NEEDS. Should the earth be depopulated for the sake of one man’s convenience? That is Bildad’s extravagant way of putting the thought; but the extravagance is only a magnifying of an idea which is foolish even within the smallest dimensions. That a man should ever expect a rock to move out of his path is absurd. As the massive rock will not stir, and as the traveller must either climb over it or go round it, so the course of nature generally will not budge before man’s will. He may dash himself against it, but the results will only be bruises and pain. As God has made all things well, and as the laws of nature make for life and welfare, it is a matter of profound thankfulness that foolish, selfish men cannot set them aside.
IV. THE INDIVIDUAL MAN IS HELPED THROUGH THE GENERAL COURSE OF THE WHOLE WORLD. There is a special providence. God does not deal with masses, but with men. The very hairs of our head are all numbered. It is in accordance with God’s perfect mind that he should so govern the whole that the result should be good for each. We have to learn to take our places in the great family of God with humility and sympathy for our brethren. Then we shall see that the rules of the household, which cannot be set aside to suit our whims and capricious fancies, are really good for us. It is better the rock should not be carried away. We are trained and strengthened by having to overcome the difficulty. Finally, it is in accordance with these principles thatthrough his atonement which magnifies the Law and makes it honourableChrist brings a salvation for each soul which does not disarrange the general course of God’s government of the universe.W.F.A
Job 18:5, Job 18:6
The light extinguished.
This is a favourite idea of Bildad’s, that occurs more than once in his harangue (e.g. Job 18:18). As usual, we may here follow the imagery of the Shuhite without applying it to Job. Wickedness extinguishes light.
I. THE LIGHT OF KNOWLEDGE. Bad men may be learned and good men may be ignorant in regard to the knowledge of the schools and the world. But there is a deeper knowledge from which sin excludes, a light to which wickedness simply blinds the eye.
1. The knowledge of God. Spiritual knowledge depends on sympathy. But God is holy. Therefore the unholy, being out of sympathy with him, cannot understand his thoughts or his ways.
2. The knowledge of goodness. The wicked life is spent in a state of ignorance concerning the very nature of the Christian life. No one knows what that better life is till he has tried to live it.
3. The knowledge of the largest truth. Sin degrades and narrows the soul. It shuts off that wide, comprehensive vision which is only possible when passion and lust and all dark experiences are removed.
II. THE LIGHT OF LOVE. All sin is selfishness. The wicked man degrades the very name of love. Its true meaning is quite unknown to him; or if it dawn upon him in his better moments, as when he takes his little child upon his knee and looks into its innocent eyes, it is like a light from a far-off world, which only makes the foul darkness of the regions his soul inhabits the more visible to his startled apprehension.
III. THE LIGHT OF JOY. There is a mad pleasure in sin, and for a while it seems to fulfil its deceitful promises. But it is not long before its dupe discovers his folly, and finds that his so-called pleasure is a mockery. Of real unalloyed gladness he has none. There are bitter dregs at the bottom of the cup of self-indulgent pleasure which he drinks so greedily. All that he delights in is superficial, transient, unreal. When he has made the most of it, it leaves the deeper hunger of his soul unsatisfied.
IV. THE LIGHT OF LIFE. Light vitalizes; darkness is akin to death. The sinful soul is on the road to the gates of darkness, through which the road loads to the dreadful death which is its rightful wages. Already much of the light of life has faded away, and dim shadows as from the tomb hover about the career of wickedness. He who has chosen sin for his inheritance has chosen a sunless territory overshadowed by the dark wings of death.
V. THE LIGHT OF GOD‘S FAVOUR. When God lifts up his countenance upon any one, his light shines forth; for God is Light (1Jn 1:5). But the wickedness that offends the Law of God necessarily removes the light of his favour. A certain temporary prosperity may remain, so that the foolish sinner may think himself a favourite of fortune. But there is no grace of God in it; and even in the glaring brightness of its immediate presence it is possible to see the meretricious tinsel, which is very different from the true glory of God’s goodness.W.F.A.
Job 18:8-10
The sinner entrapped by his own feet.
According to Bildad’s representation, the wicked man needs no huntsman to run him to earth. His own fatuous course will lead him to ruin. his own foolish feet walk into the snare.
I. THE READY SNARE. “The snare is laid for him in the ground.”
1. Its author. It is laid for him. He does not make and set it; he does not know where it is. If he knew, of course he would avoid it. He does not even think of its existence. Were he to do so, he would be on his guard. Another has laid the snare. Man has a great enemy, watching to pounce on hima robber of souls, who sets traps and gins for the unwary. Let us be on our guard. Like the Pilgrim, we are on the enchanter’s ground; this earth has become our foe’s territory.
2. Its character. A snare is a hidden device. The net is set among the bushes, the wires are hidden by the grass. Men are deluded into ruin. Deceitful appearances lure them to destruction.
3. Its condition. The snare is already laid. If we are not ready to meet our foe, he is ready for us. No one can accuse Satan of dilatoriness. He is beforehand with his schemes. He was prepared to entrap the first man. The snare was ready almost as soon as Eden was planted.
4. Its position. “In the way.”
(1) The bad man’s way. This is its most usual place. The snares are most numerous on the broad road.
(2) The common way. The snares are also to be found on the narrow way that leads to life. The Christian is not out of danger. Bunyan’s enchanted ground lay right in the road to the Celestial City. We do not escape the dangers of temptation by becoming Christians.
II. THE UNWARY FEET. The wicked man walks straight into the snare. Here is the difference between this man and the good man. There are snares about the path of the man of God; but a Divine light reveals them, and a Divine hand draws him back from his great peril. It is otherwise with the godless man. Note the reasons why his feet go straight for the snare.
1. Darkness. His light is put out (Job 18:5). If he started with a lantern, the foul atmosphere through which he has travelled has extinguished it. Now that he needs it in the place of peril, it is but a useless impediment.
2. Desertion of God. We are too blind to see all the snares that are set for our feet, but we may have the help of an unerring Guide. The sinner rejects the heavenly Guide. In proud independence he prefers to go alone.
3. Proneness to coil. The sinner sees a fascination in the region of the snare. Perhaps it is set in a bed of flowers, or in an orchard of fruit. It may be that some pleasant shady dell conceals it, or possibly it is hidden by a mossy couch that invites repose. At all events, it is most deceptive and powerful where sin most abounds.
4. Destiny. A sort of fatality dogs the footsteps of the sinner. Start how he may, he is sure to direct his feet at last straight for the snare. He is like one mesmerized. He can but walk into the net. The hideous explanation of his fascination for ruin is that he is no longer his own master. He has made himself the slave of Satan. Yet even he may find safety in the mighty deliverance of the Christ who came to destroy the works of the devil.W.F.A.
Job 18:14
The king of terrors.
Men regard death as the king of terrors. Let us consider first the grounds of this notion, and then how it may be dispelled.
I. LET US CONSIDER WHY DEATH IS REGARDED AS THE KING OF TERRORS. Men instinctively think of death as “the grisly terror.”
“I fled, and cried out, ‘Death!’ 1. It is opposed to the natural love of life. “All that a man hath win he give for his life.” Therefore death appears as his enemy. Every living creature shuns it. The fear of it makes a tragedy of the chase.
2. It is irresistible. A veritable monarch. We may maintain a state of siege for a time, but we know we must all capitulate at last. When death storms the citadel in real earnest, no power can keep it out.
3. Its territory is unknown. The mystery of death adds to its terrors. If we saw more we might fear less. We launch our vessel on a dark sea, not knowing what surges beat on the further shore.
4. It comes in pain. We often say that the worst is over with the poor sufferer before the end has come. The bitterness of death has passed before death itself has been reached. Still there is suffering at the end of most lives, and we instinctively shrink from this. We cannot bring ourselves to face the thought of the death-struggle.
5. It takes us from all the light and joy of earth. The natural love of life is confirmed by experience. To die is “to lie in cold obstruction.” All the sunshine and flowers of this fair world are gone, all the sweetness of companionship with the loved on earth. The soul is severed from its earthly delights.
6. It comes to each singly. Each soul must venture alone into the dread unknown.
7. It ushers us into future judgment. “After death the judgment” The sinner who dares not give an account of himself before God dreads to hear the summons from the messenger of the unseen. “The sting of death is sin.”
II. LET US SEE HOW DEATH CAN BE SOBBED OF ITS TERRORS. Christ dethrones the king of terrors, and wrests his dark kingdom away, flooding it with the light of his grace. The Christian can do more than the Roman hero and the Stoic philosopher who had learnt to me, t death “with an equal mind.” He can say, “To me to die is gain.”
1. Christ removes the causes of the fear of death. He does not lull the fear as with an opiate, He dissipates it by abolishing its source, as one dissipates a malarious fog by draining the marsh from which it rises. He goes to the root by conquering sin, which is the most fundamental cause of the terror of death. Bringing pardon for past sin, he dispels the alarm of future judgment; and bringing purification of soul, he removes the indwelling sin that always shrinks from death as the foe of man. Then Christ helps us to face the pain, the darkness, and the mystery of death, by assuring us of his own supporting presence: “It is I; be not afraid.”
2. Christ throws light on the region beyond death. He would not have us fix our attention on death. That is but a transient experience. At the worst it is a dark door to be passed through. The Christian will never dwell in the kingdom of death. To him death is
“That golden key There is a triumph over death for those who, sleeping in Christ, wake to the life eternal. For them the king of terrors has ceased to be. “The last enemy that shall be destroyed is death” (1Co 15:26).W.F.A.
Job 18:16
Root and branch.
Bildad dwells upon his favourite topic of the withering doom of the wicked. It is completeroot and branch are destroyed. A truth again, though inapplicable to Job.
I. THE ROOTS DRIED UP. The roots stand for the sources of life and strength. Roots nourish the tree and hold it in its place. If they fail, all else must perish.
1. The roots are out of sight. The most important things are not the most prominent. The secret springs of toe soul are of vital interest. All that is visible to the eye may be untouched; yet if the hidden roots of our being fail we must be utterly undone.
2. The roots depend on nourishment. They are dried up for lack of moisture in the soil. There may be no defect in the roots; yet if the soil is drained dry they cannot perform their natural function of nourishing the soul. We are all dependent on what is outside us, in soul as well as in body. If the food of the soul is withdrawn, if the water of life no longer flows near to the roots of our spiritual being, no vigour of constitution, no inherent personal life, can survive.
3. The waters may fail. The course of the river may be deflected, or there may be a season of drought. We have nothing in ourselves or in the constitution of things to guarantee a continuance of supply in this case of our deepest wants. We have no right to that supply, no claim on the grace of God. The hand that gives may withhold. Therefore our continued prosperity depends absolutely on God’s continued favour. The insolent and rebellious independence that forfeits God’s grace withers the roots of the soul.
II. THE BRANCH CUT OFF. The branch stands for the external growth. It is seen by all, snowed with blossoms and freshening with new green in the spring, or laden with luscious fruit in the autumn. When the root is dried up, leaves and fruit wither on the branch. But a more untimely fate may overtake it. It may be severed from the tree. Perhaps it is too stout and tough to be torn off in the gale, but it cannot resist the woodman’s axe.
1. The branch is cut off by an external calamity. This is what had happened to Job. His prosperity was suddenly wrenched away from him. The family into which his life had branched out was smitten; this branch was cut off from the parent stem. What we most love, rejoice in, and pride ourselves upon may be removed by the hand of death, or by some misfortune of life.
2. The cutting off of the branch may not be an unmitigated evil. It may be a pruning process. The tree may be running to wood rather than producing fruit. Mere growth of wealth and external prosperity may be taking the place of fruit-bearing in regard to the real good of life. Then it is to be observed that pruning a tree is not felling it. Though the branch is cut off, the trunk is left, and the life of the tree will yet be seen in a new and healthier growth. We must not despair at external disaster. If the life of God is in us, we shall survive it, and even triumph over it.
3. The most fatal condition is when the dying of the roots goes with the cutting off of the branch. If the internal resources are dried up when external calamity falls upon us, our condition is desperate. There is then nothing to fall back upon. External ruin only crowns and completes internal decay.
CONCLUSION. The gospel of Christ is as deep-searching and as far-reaching as the evil of in. It saves roots and branches, giving life to the soul, and also a Divine growth and prosperity.W.F.A.
CHAP. XVIII.
Bildad accuses Job of presumption and impatience: he shews that the light of the wicked shall be put out; that brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation, and that none of his posterity shall survive.
Before Christ 1645.
Job 18:1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite Bildad, irritated to the last degree that Job should treat their advice with so much contempt, is no longer able to keep his passions within the bounds of decency. He proceeds to downright abuse; and, finding little attention given by Job to his arguments, he tries to terrify him into a compliance. To that end, he draws a yet more terrible picture of the final end of a wicked man than any preceding, throwing in all the circumstances of Job’s calamities, that he might plainly perceive the resemblance; and, at the same time, insinuating that he had much worse still to expect, unless he prevented it by a speedy change of behaviour: Job 18:2 to the end; that it was the highest arrogance in him to suppose that he was of consequence enough to be the cause of altering the general rules of Providence: Job 18:4 and that it was much more expedient for the good of the whole, that he, by his example, should deter others from treading in the same path of wickedness and folly: Job 18:5-7. Heath.
II. Bildad and Job: Ch. 1819
A.Bildad: Jobs passionate outbreaks are useless, for the Divine ordinance, instituted from of old, is still in force, securing that the hardened sinners doom shall suddenly and surely overtake him
Job 18
1. Sharp rebuke of Job, the foolish and blustering boaster:
Job 18:1-4
1Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said:
2How long will it be ere ye make an end of words?
Mark, and afterwards we will speak.
3Wherefore are we counted as beasts,
and reputed vile in your sight?
4He teareth himself in his anger!
shall the earth be forsaken for thee? 2. Description of the dreadful doom of the hardened evil-doer:
Job 18:5-21
5Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out,
and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
6The light shall be dark in his tabernacle,
and his candle shall be put out with him.
7The steps of his strength shall be straitened,
and his own counsel shall cast him down.
8For he is cast into a net by his own feet,
and he walketh upon a snare.
9The gin shall take him by the heel,
and the robber shall prevail against him.
10The snare is laid for him in the ground,
and a trap for him in the way.
11Terrors shall make him afraid on every side,
and shall drive him to his feet.
12His strength shall be hunger-bitten,
and destruction shall be ready at his side.
13It shall devour the strength of his skin;
even the first-born of death shall devour his strength.
14His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle,
and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.
15It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his;
brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
16His roots shall be dried up beneath,
and above shall his branch be cut off.
17His remembrance shall perish from the earth,
and he shall have no name in the street.
18He shall be driven from light into darkness,
and chased out of the world.
19He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people
nor any remaining in his dwellings.
20They that come after him shall be astonished at his day,
as they that went before were affrighted.
21Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked,
and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. In opposition to Jobs solemn appeal to God as a witness of his innocence, Bildad continues fixed in his former preconceived opinion, that a secret crime must be the cause of his heavy burden of suffering. After a short, sharp, censorious introduction, in which he pays back Jobs bitter and harsh reprimands in the same coin, (Job 18:2-4), he shows that, notwithstanding Jobs passionate bluster, the old divine decree was still in force, by virtue of which a sudden merited punishment from God carries off the hardened sinner, and with him his entire household and race (vers 521). He thus presents a companion piece to that description of the doom of the ungodly with which Eliphaz had closed his preceding discourse (Job 15:20-35), this delineation of Bildads being new only in form, but being similar to that of Eliphaz throughout as to its substance and tendency. The whole discourse is divided into six strophes of three to four verses each, of which the first forms the introductory section spoken of above, while the remaining five belongs to the long main division, Job 18:5-21.
2. Introduction and First Strophe: A short, sharp rebuke of Job as a foolish boaster, raving with passion; Job 18:2-4.
Job 18:2. How long will ye yet hunt for words?Let it be observed that Bildads former discourse began with a like impatient question, Job 8:2 (there , here ) and further, that he addresses his opponent in the plural, for the reason that the latter had himself first made his cause identical with the cause of all the righteous, and had thereby himself provoked this representative association of his person with all who were like-minded. [Some say that he thinks of Job as one of a number; Ewald observes that the controversy becomes more wide and general [representing two great parties or divisions of mankind]; and Schlottmann conjectures that Bildad fixes his eye on individuals of his hearers, on whose countenances he believed he saw a certain inclination to side with Job. This conjecture we will leave to itself; but the remark which Schlottmann also makes that Bildad regards Job as a type of a whole class, is correct, only one must also add, this address in the plural is a reply to Jobs sarcasm (Job 12:2) by a similar one. As Job has told his friends that they act as if they were mankind in general, and all wisdom were concentrated in them, so Bildad has taken it amiss that Job connects himself with the whole of the truly upright, righteous, and pure; and he addresses him in the plural because he, the unit, has puffed himself up as such a collective whole. Delitzsch], Still further Job had also begun his last discourse (see Job 16:3) with a complaint about the useless interminable discourse of the friends,a complaint which Bildad here retaliates, although to be sure in an altered form. [Jobs speeches are long, and certainly are a trial of patience to the three, and the heaviest trial to Bildad, whose turn now comes on, because he is at pains throughout to be brief. Hence the reproach of endless babbling with which he begins here, as at Job 8:2. Del.]. is not to put an end to words, to make an end of speaking (so the ancient versions, Rabbis, Rosenm., Gesen. [E. V. Umbreit. Lee, Carey, Renan]), etc.; for a plural (with a resolved Daghesh for , [see Green, 54 3]), for . cannot be shown elsewhere. Moreover in that case we should rather look for the singular construction (see Job 28:3). [Merx introduces the sing, into the text. Rodwell renders as an exclamation, and the following Imperf. (like that of b) as an Imperative,How long? Make an end of words. So substantially Bernard, except that he supplies the clause following in Job 8:2. This construction however still leaves the plural unaccounted for. According to the usual construction the clause should have after , to render which with E. V., etc. How long will it be ere, etc., is forced and gratuitous.E.]. We are to take (with Castell., Schult., J. D. Michaelis, Ewald, Hirzel, Del. [Dillm., Schlottm., Con., Words.], etc.), as plur. constr. of laqueus (a hunters noose, a snare), so that the phrase under consideration signifies, making a hunt for, hunting after words (laqueus verbis tenders, verba venando capere). By this however is intended not contradiction and opposition perpetually renewed, but only uninterrupted, yet useless speaking. [Frst, while agreeing with the above derivation of , explains it here as fig. for perversion, contortion: how long will ye make a perversion of words? But this explanation of the figure is less natural and appropriate. Bildads charge against Job and his party is that they were hunting after words, straining after something to say, when there was really nothing to be said.E.]Understand, and afterwards we will speak., will you understand, voluntative for the Imperative ; comp. on Job 17:10 a.
Job 18:3. Why are we accounted as the brute?a harsh allusion to Job 17:4; Job 17:10; comp. also Psa 73:22.Are regarded as stupid in your eyes?, from = ,, to stop up, hence lit. are (are treated as) stopped up in your eyes, i. e. are in your opinion stupid, blockheads (comp. the similar phrase in Isa 59:1). The LXX. exchange the word, which does not appear elsewhere, for , ; the Targ. gives , are sunk. The Vulg. finally (followed by many moderns, including Dillmann [Ewald, Noyes, Lee, Con., Car., Rod., and so E. V.]) derives the word from = , to be impure (Lev 11:43), and translates accordingly: et sorduimus coram vobis. But this meaning would be a stronger departure from that of the first member than is allowed by the structure of the verses elsewhere in this discourse, which exhibit throughout a thoroughly rigid parallelism. Moreover it would obscure too much the antithetic reference to Job 17:8-9.
Job 18:4. O thou, who tearest thyself in thy rage.This exclamation, which is prefixed to the address proper to Job, and put in the third person ([so apud Arabes ubique fere, Schult.], comp. Job 17:10 a), is in direct contradiction to the saying of Job in Job 16:9, which represents him as torn by God, whereas he proves that the cause of the tearing is his own furious passion.For thee [LXX. probably reading , which Merx adopts into the text, render ] should the earth be depopulated [lit. forsaken] (comp. in Isa 7:16; Isa 6:12) [on the form , with Pattach in the ultimate, see Green, 91, 6], and a rock remove out of its place (comp. Job 14:18; Job 9:5). Both these things would come to pass if the moral order of the world, established by God as an unchangeable law, more especially as it reveals itself in rewarding the good and punishing the wicked, were to depart from its fixed course; or in other words, should God cease to be a righteous rewarder. For that, as Bildad thinks, is what Job really desires in denying his guilt; his passionate incessant assertion of his innocence points to a dissolution of the whole sacred fabric of universal order as established by God (comp. Rom 3:5-6). [A fine and most effective stroke of sarcasm. On the one side, the puny, impotent storming of Jobs wrath; on the other, the calm, unalterable movement of Divine Law. How foolish the former when confronting the latter! And by what right could he expect the Divine Order to be overthrown for his sake? For thee (emphatic) is everything to be plunged into desolation and chaos?E.]
3. The terrible doom of hardened sinners, described as a salutary warning and instruction, for Job: Job 18:5-21.
Second Strophe: Job 18:5-7. [The destruction of the wicked declared.]
Job 18:5. Notwithstanding, the light of the wicked shall go out. adding to that which has already been said something new and unexpected, like , equivalent to notwithstanding; comp. Psa 129:2; Eze 16:28. The light going out is a figure of prosperity destroyed (comp. Job 30:26); so also in the i second member: and the flames of his fire shine not. As to , flame, comp. Dan 3:22; Dan 7:9. Also as to the transition from the plural in a (wicked ones) to the sing, in b (his fire), see on Job 17:5; Ewald, 319, a.
Job 18:6. The light darkens (lit. has darkened, , Perf. of certainty, as in Job 5:20) in his tent (comp. Job 21:17; Job 29:3; Psa 18:29 [28]; Pro 13:9),and his lamp above him (i. e., the lamp hanging down above him from the covering of his tent, comp. Ecc 12:6) goes out.this figure of the extinction of the light of prosperity which is repeated again and again, is alike familiar to the Hebrew and to the Arabian; the latter also says: Fate has put out my light.
Job 18:7. His mighty steps [lit. the steps of his strength] are straitened: another figure which is just as Arabic as it is Biblical (Del.). Comp. in regard to it Pro 4:12; Psa 18:37 [36]. Also as regards the form (not from , as Gesen. [Frst], and Hirzel say, but Imperf. form , see Ewald, 138, b. [The meaning is clearly: his movements are hampered, his powers are contracted by the pent-up limits which shut him in],And his own counsel casts him down: comp. Job 5:12 seq., and as regards in the bad sense of the counsel of the wicked, see Job 10:3; Job 21:16.
Third Strophe: Job 18:8-11. [Everything conspires to destroy the sinner.]
Job 18:8. For his feet drive him into a net: lit. he is driven, sent forth (, precisely as in Jdg 5:15) [by or with his own feet. A vivid paradoxical expression, conveying also a profound truth. The sinner is driven, and yet rushes on to his ruin. He is divided against himself. He pursues his course at once with and against his will.E.]And he walks over pitfalls., net-like, cross-barred work, or lattice-work, applied here specially to a snare (as in Arabic schabacah, snare), hence a cross-barred covering laid over a deep pit. [He thinks he is walking upon solid ground, but he is grievously mistaken; it is but a delicate net-work, spread over an unfathomable abyss, into which, therefore, he every moment risks to be precipitated. Bernard.]
Job 18:9-10 continue still further the same figures derived from hunting, snare, cord and noose. In Job 18:8-10 there are six different implements mentioned as being in readiness to capture the evil-doer; a vivid variety of expression which reminds us of the five names given to the lion by Eliphaz, Job 4:10 seq.; comp. also on Job 19:13 seq.
Job 18:9. A trap holds his heel fast, and a snare takes fast hold upon him.To the simple , to hold, corresponds in b the significantly stronger which, however, is used with [instead of ], thus giving expression to the idea of a mighty, overpowering seizure, [The jussive form is used simply by poetic license.] On , snare [which is not plur., but sing., after the form , from ], comp. on Job 5:5. [The rendering of E. V.: robbers is to be rejected here, as well as in Job 5:5.]
Job 18:10. Hidden in the ground is his cord, and his gin upon the pathway.[The suffixes here undoubtedly refer to the sinner, and not, according to Conants renderingits cordits nooseto the snare of Job 18:9. The continuation in Job 18:10 of the figure of the fowler affirms that that issue of his life, Job 18:9, has been preparing long beforehand.; the prosperity of the evil-doer from the beginning tends towards ruin. Del.]
Job 18:11 unites the figures by way of explanation in a more general expression.On every side terrors affright him. signifies two things at onceterrible thoughts and terrible circumstances, here naturally such as are sent by God upon the wicked to disturb him.And scare him at his footsteps;i. e. pursuing him: meaning step for step, close behind; comp. Gen 30:30; 1Sa 25:42; Isa 41:2; Hab 3:5.[E. V. shall drive him to his feet is ambiguous.] , lit. diffundere, dissipare, hence requiring a collective for its object (as e. g. host in Hab 3:14), or a word representing a mass (as e. g. cloud, smoke, comp. Job 37:11; Job 40:11, etc.); here, however, exceptionally connected with a single individual as its object, and hence synonymous with , to chase, scare (comp. Job 30:15). [It would probably not be used here, but for the idea that the spectres of terror pursue him at every step, and are now here, now there, and his person is multiplied. Del.]
Fourth Strophe: Job 18:11-14. Description of the final overthrow of the wicked in its three stages: outward adversity, mutilation of the body by disease, and deathhence manifestly pointing at Job.
Job 18:12. His calamity shows itself hungry.The voluntat. used for the finite: comp. Job 18:9, also below Job 24:14., defective for , is more correctly derived from in the sense of calamity, misfortune, than from , strength. The latter rendering, which is adopted by the Vulgate, Rosenm., Ewald, Stickel, Schlottm., Dillm. [E. V., Umbreit, Good, Lee, Wem., Noyes, Con., Car., Rod., Elz.], yields a sense which is in itself entirely appropriate: then does his strength become hungry. [But this rendering is unsatisfactory, for it is in itself no misfortune to be hungry, and does not in itself signify exhausted with hunger. It is also an odd metaphor that strength becomes hungry. Delitzsch.] But the rendering favored by the Peshito, Hirzel, Hahn, Del. [Renan, Words.], etc.his calamity shows itself hungry (towards him); it seems greedy, eager to devour him agrees better both with the second member of the parallelism, and with the actual course of Jobs adversity, which began with a series of external calamities suddenly bursting upon him, to which Bildad manifestly refers. The explanation of the Targ. [and Bernard]the son of his manhoods strength (comp. in Gen 49:3) becomes hungry destroys the connection [and sounds comical rather than tragic, Del.]; and Reiskes translationhe is hungry in the midst of his strengthassumes the correctness of the conjectural reading , which is entirely without support.And destruction (, lit. a heavy burden, a load of suffering, hence stronger than , comp. Job 21:17; Oba 1:13) is ready for his fall. might of itself signify at his side (lit. rib), being thus equivalent to , Job 15:23 (Gesen., Ew., Schlottm., Dillm.), [E. V., Good, Lee, Bernard, Wem, Words., Noy., Ren., Con., Car., Rod., Elz.]; but a more forcible meaning is obtained, if in accordance with Psa 35:15; Psa 38:18, we take to mean limping, fall, and so find destruction represented as in readiness to cast down the wicked.
Job 18:13. There devours the parts of his skin ( elsewhere cross-bars, or branches of a tree, comp. Job 17:16; used here of the members of the body: here for the body; comp. on Job 2:4), there devours his parts the first-born of death [or with a smoother English construction, by inverting the order of clauses, as Rodwell: The first-born of death shall devourdevour the limbs of his body]. According to this rendering, which is already justified by the ancient versions, and which has of late been quite generally adopted, is the subject of the whole verse, and is placed for emphasis at the end. By this first-born of death, we are to understand not the angel of death as the Targum explains it, nor again death itself, as Hahn thinks, but a peculiarly dangerous and terrible disease, [in which the whole destroying power of death is contained, as in the first-born the whole strength of his parent. Del.]. Comp. the Arabic designation of fatal fevers as bent el–menjeh, daughters of fate or death. The whole verse thus points with indubitable clearness to Jobs disease, the elephantiasis, which devours the limbs and mutilates the body,an allusion which is altogether lost, if, with Umbreit and Ewald, we make the wicked himself the subject of the verse, understanding him to be designated in b by way of apposition as the first-born of death, i. e., as surely doomed to death, and to be compared in the rest of the verse to one in hunger devouring his own limbs, as in Isa 9:19 [20].
Job 18:14. He is torn out of his tent, wherein he trusted: as in Job 8:14. is taken as the subject of the sentence by E. V., Rosenm., Umbr., Ewald. Noyes, Bernard. Good, Lee, Wemyss, Carey, Barnes, Rod., Merx, Delitzsch; the meaning being as explained by the latter: Everything that makes the ungodly man happy as head of a household, and gives him the brightest hopes of a future, is torn away from his household, so that he, who is dying off, alone survives. The rendering of our Comm. is adopted by Dillmann, Schlottm., Conant, Renan, Hirzel, Hahn, Heiligst.It is defended by Dillmann on the ground that according to the order of the description the fate of his tent and household is not mentioned until verse 15; and also that by its position stands in apposition to , whereas according to the other construction the order should have been inverted, as subject coming immediately after the verb: grounds which seem satisfactory.E.].And he must march to the king of terrors: lit., and it makes him march ( fem. used as neuter), viz., his calamity, the dismal something, the secret power which effects his ruin [After the evil-doer is tormented for a while with temporary , and made tender and reduced to ripeness for death by the first-born of death, he falls into the possession of the king of himself; slowly and solemnly, but surely and inevitably (as implies, with which is combined the idea of the march of a criminal to the place of execution), he is led to this king by an unseen arm. Delitzsch]. The king of terrors is death himself, who is here, as in Psa 49:15 [14]; Isa 28:15 personified as a ruler of the underworld. He is not however to be identified with the king of the under-world in the heathen mythologies (e. g., with the Yama of the Hindus, or the Pluto of the Romans, with whom Schrer and Ewald here institute a comparison), nor with Satan. For although the latter is in Heb 2:14 designated as , in our book according to Job 1:6 seq., he appears in quite another character than that of a prince of death. Neither can the Angel of the abyss, Abaddon (Rev 9:11) be brought into the comparison here, since the king of terrors is unmistakably the personification of death itself. We produce an unsuitable enfeebling of the sense if, with the Pesh., Vulg., Bttcher, Stickel, [Parkhurst, Noyes, Good, Wemyss, Carey] disregarding the accentuation we separate from , and render it as subj. of and destruction makes him march onward to itself, as to a king [or: Terror pursues him like a king, Noyes]a rendering which is made untenable by the disconnected and obscure position which, in the absence of a clause more precisely qualifying it, it assigns to (instead of which we might rather look for ).
Fifth Strophe: Job 18:15-17. Description of the influence of the calamity as extending beyond the death of the wicked man, destroying his race, his posterity, and his memory.
Job 18:15. There dwells in his tent that which does not belong to him: or again: of that which is not his. For may be rendered in both ways, either partitively (Hirzel), or, which is to be preferred, as a strengthened negation , that which is not his (comp. the adverbial in Exo 14:11; also the similar, yet more frequent ; and in general Ewald, 294, a). In any case in Job 39:16 may be compared with it. The fem. (for neuter) is explained on the ground that the forsaken tent is thought of as being inhabited not by human beings, but by wild beasts (Isa 13:20 seq.; Job 34:11 seq.), or wild vegetation (Zep 2:9).Brimstone is scattered on his habitation, viz., from heaven (Gen 19:24) in order to make it, the entire habitation of the wretched man ( as in Job 5:3) a solitude, the monument of an everlasting curse; comp. Job 15:34; Deu 29:22; Psa 11:6; also the remark of Wetzstein in Delitzsch, founded on personal observation of present modes of thought and customs among the orientals: The desolation of his house is the most terrible calamity for the Semite; i. e., when all belonging to his family die, or are reduced to poverty, their habitation is desolated, and their ruins are become the by word of future generations. For the Bedouin especially, although his hair tent leaves no mark, the thought of the desolation of his house, the extinction of his hospitable hearth, is terrible.
Job 18:16. His roots dry up from beneath, and his branch ( as in Job 14:9) withers above (not, is lopped off, Del. [E. V., Conant, etc.] comp. above on Job 14:2): [the derivation from to cut off, is here altogether untenable, for the cutting off of the branches of a tree dried up in the roots is meaningless. Dillm.]. The same vegetable figure, in illustration of the same thing; see above, Job 15:32 seq.; comp. Amo 2:9; Isa 5:24, also the inscription on the sarcophagus of Eschmunazar: Let there not be to him a root below or a branch above!
Job 18:17. His memory perishes out of the land, and he has no (longer a) name on the (wide) plain.As in the first member denotes the land with a settled population, so denotes the region outside of this inhabited land, the wide plain, steppe, wilderness. Comp. on Job 5:10, also the parallel phrase in Pro 8:26 (see on the passage).
Sixth Strophe (together with a closing verse): Job 18:18-21. [After his destruction the wicked lives in the memory of posterity only as a warning example].
Job 18:18. He is driven out of the light into the darkness (i. e., out of the light of life and happiness into the darkness of calamity and death), and chased out of the habitable world. , from the Hiph. of the verb ; used of the inhabited globe, the . The third plural of both verbs expresses the subject indefinitely, as in Job 4:19; Job 7:3; Job 19:26. It would be legitimate to take as the object referred to by the suffixes, not the wicked man himself, but his and (Seb. Schmidt, Ewald). The following verse however makes this interpretation less probable.
Job 18:19. No sprout, no shoot (remains) to him among his people.The phrase sprout and shoot will most nearly and strikingly reproduce the short and forcible alliteration of , which is found also in Gen 21:23; Isa 14:22.And there is no escaped one (, as in Deu 2:34, etc.), in his dwellings. , lodging, dwelling, elsewhere only in Psa 55:16. The whole verse expresses, only still more directly and impressively, what was first of all said figuratively above in Job 18:16.
Job 18:20. They of the West are astonished on account of his day (i. e., the day of doom, of destruction; comp. in Psa 37:13; Psa 137:7; Oba 1:12, etc.), and they of the East are seized with terror (lit., they take fright, seize upon terror, in accordance with a mode of expression employed also in Job 21:6; Isa 13:8; Hos 10:6. The , as well as the , might certainly, according to the general usage of the words elsewhere, denote posterity, together with the ancestors (i. e., the fathers, now living, of the later generations), hence the successors of the wicked, together with his contemporaries. So, besides the ancient versions [and E. V.], many moderns, e. g. Hirzel, Schlottmann, Hahn [Lee, Bernard, Noyes, Conant, Wordsworth, Renan, Rodwell], etc. A more suitable meaning is obtained, however, if (with Schultens, Oetinger, Umbreit, Ewald, Delitzsch, Dillmann), [Wemyss, Barnes, Carey, Elzas, Merx], we take the words in a local sense: the men of the west, the men of the east, the neighbors on both sides, those who live towards the east, and those who live towards the west [Dillmann inelegantly: those to the rear, and those to the front]. Comp. the well-known designation of the Mediterranean as (the western sea), and of the Dead Sea as (the eastern sea). [Del. objects to the former rendering: The return from the posterity to those then living is strange, and the usage of the language is opposed to it; for is elsewhere always what belongs to the previous age in relation to the speaker; e. g.1Sa 24:14; comp. Ecc 4:16. Schlottmann, on the other hand, argues that the temporal sense is much better suited to the entire connection than the local.]
Job 18:21. A concluding verse, which properly lies outside of the strophe-structure of the discourse, similar to Job 5:27; Job 8:19.Only thus does it befall the dwellings of the unrighteous, and thus the place of him who ( without , comp. Job 29:16; Gesen, 116 [ 121], 3), knew not God:i. e. did not recognize and honor God, did not concern himself about Him (Job 24:1). Hahn, Dillmann, etc., correctly render at the beginning of this verse not affirmatively,=yea, surely, but restrictivelyonly so, not otherwise does it happen to the dwellings of the unrighteous, etc. For it is only by this rendering that Bildads whole description receives the emphatic conclusion which was to be expected after its solemn and pathetic opening, Job 18:5 seq.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. Bildad appears here again, as in his former discourse, Job 8., as essentially an imitator of Eliphaz, without being able to present much that is new in comparison with his older associate and predecessor. So far as his picture of the restless condition and irretrievable destruction of the wicked (Job 18:4 seq.) is in all essentials a copy of that of Eliphaz in Job 15:20 seq., while at the same time this, instead of being the subject of a particular section, runs through his entire argument as its all-controlling theme, he appears poorer in original ideas than his model. At the same time he rivals, and indeed surpasses, his associate now again, as before, in wealth of imagery and in the variety of his illustrations derived from the life of nature and humanity, for the vivid and skilful handling of which the speaker is pre-eminently distinguished among the three friends. He uses the peculiar phraseology of the Chokmah with consummate art; and this aptness and elegance of style compensates in a measure for its lack of originality. Especially does his terrible portraiture of the wicked man encountering his doom, like that of Eliphaz in Job 15., or even in a higher degree than that in some particulars, acquire by virtue of these qualities a peculiar significance as regards its sthetic beauty, its relation to scriptural theology, and its parenetic value. The description is terribly brilliant, solemn and pathetic, as becomes the stern preacher of repentance with haughty mien and pharisaic self-confidence; it is none the less beautiful, and, considered in itself, also truea masterpiece of the poets skill in poetic idealizing, and in apportioning out the truth in dramatic form. (Delitzsch i. 332). Especially are the gradual steps in the destruction of the wicked (Job 18:12 seq.), and the participation of all that he leaves behind him, of his posterity, his property, and his memory, in his own sudden downfall and total ruin (Job 18:15 seq.), described with masterly power. All this is presented with such internal truth, and in such harmony with the experiences of all mankind, that the description, considered in itself, and detached from its connections, is well adapted to exert a salutary influence for all time in the way of warning and exhortation, and edification even for the Christian world.
2. It is true nevertheless that the malignant application to the person of Job of the sharp points and venomous stings of this portraiture, wonderful as it is in itself, destroys the pure enjoyment of the study of it, and warns the thoughtful reader at every step to exercise caution in the acceptance of these maxims of wisdom, which, while sounding beautifully, are applied solely and altogether in the service of an illiberal legal pharisaic and narrow view of life. [Bildad knows nothing of the worth and power which a man attains by a righteous heart. By faith he is removed from the domain of Gods justice, which recompenses according to the law of works, and before the power of faith even rocks remove from their place (see Job 18:4). Delitzsch.] The unmistakable directness of the allusions to Jobs former calamities (in Job 18:12-14 which point to the frightful disease which afflicted him; in Job 18:15, where the shower of brimstone is a reminder of Job 1:16 seq., and in Job 18:16, where the withering of the branch points to the death of the children) takes away from the description, although true in itself, that which alone could constitute it a universal truth, and lowers it to the doubtful rank of a representation having a partisan purpose. It compels us to regard its author, moreover, as a preacher of morality entangled in a carnal, external, legal dogmatism, destitute of all earnest, deep and pure experience of the nature of human sin, as well as of the divine righteousness, and for that very reason misunderstanding the real significance of Jobs sufferings, and doing gross injustice to his person. We are thus constrained to put Bildad, as a practical representative and teacher of the Divine wisdom of the Old Testament, far below his opponent. The practical commentator, especially when engaged in the continuous exposition of the whole poem, cannot help keeping in view these considerations, which impair the religious and ethical value of this discourse. In its characteristic traits and motives, it yields comparatively little that is directly profitable and edifying.
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Job 18:3 seq. Oecolampadius: Truly the ungodly are vile in the eyes of the godly, and are recognized as being more stupid than brutes; but this is in accordance with a healthy judgment, and free from contempt. For the world was even crucified to Paul, yet what did he not do that he might benefit those who were in the world? The godly therefore seem vile to the ungodly in quite a different sense from that in which the ungodly seem vile to the godly; for to the one class belongs charity, which the other class in every way neglect; the former act without pride, the latter with the utmost pride.Brentius (on Job 18:4): It is no common trial of faith, that we must think of ourselves as not being of such consequence with God that He for our sakes should change common events, and His own pre-established order. We seem to think that God rather will change His usual course on our account.Wohlfarth: Gods plan is indeed unchangeable and without exceptions, alike in the realm of nature, and in that of spirit. But we must beware of erring by arguing from that which is external to that which is internal. In that which pertains to the spiritual, the higher, that which is to decide is, not external indications, but reason, Scripture, and conscience.
Job 18:5 seq. Brentius: These curses on the wicked are that his light may be put out, and that the spark of his fire may not shine. For the Lord and His Word are true light and splendor, as David says (Psa 36:10 [Psa 36:9]; Psa 119:105). The wicked have neither, for they say in their heart: There is no God.V. Gerlach: The light is here in general the symbol of a clear knowledge of mans destiny, of serene consciousness in the whole life (Mat 6:22 seq.); the light of the tent carries the symbol further, and points to this clearness, even in a mans daily household affairs, as something which ceases to be for the ungodly.
Job 18:17 seq. Lange: The memory which a man leaves behind him is of little consequence; it is enough if we are known to God in respect of that which is good. Many righteous souls are hidden from the world, because they have wrought their works in the most quiet way in God (Joh 3:21); while, on the contrary, many an ungodly man makes noise and disturbance enough, so that he is talked about after his death. But to the believing child of God it is still granted as his special beatitude that he shall see God, who will make his life an example, bringing it forth into the light, and causing it even after his death to shed a sweet savor to the praise of God (Pro 10:7).
Job 18:21. Brentius: Truly it is not without purpose that the Holy Spirit so often, even ad fastidium sets forth in this book the judgment which befalls the ungodly; it is to admonish us, lest we should be disturbed by the prosperity of the ungodly, knowing that the judgment hangs over their head, and will be executed most speedily, as you have most impressively set forth in regard to this matter in Psalms 73. For although the application of these judgments to Job by the friends is altogether forced, their opinions nevertheless are most true, and are written for our instruction.Wohlfarth (on Job 18:5-21): By what tokens can we determine that any one truly reveres God? Not by his scrupulous attention to the external observances of religion, not by the external events which befall him, not by the individual good works which he does, but by the faith which he confesses, by the whole direction of his life toward that which is Godlike, by the composure with which he dies: Psa 73:17; Psa 73:19, etc.
CONTENTS
In this Chapter Bildad comes forth to a second attack upon the man of Uz, and more violent than before. Chap. 8. His chief scope, through the whole of his discourse is, to fasten upon Job the conviction of wickedness and hypocrisy.
(1) Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, (2) How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak. (3) Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?
There is nothing new in these observations, except in the different manner of expression. Bildad seems mighty angry, that what he had said before had been so little regarded. He chargeth Job with idle unprofitable talk, and with observing contempt towards him and his friends. But he advanceth no one proof to make good that charge, and there the matter seemeth to rest.
The Second Speech of Bildad
Job 18
We now begin to see in what a little world the three comforters lived. There are men who can only go on for a time; then they resign their ministry, and go elsewhere to repeat the few tunes they know. It was so with Job’s three friends. They began eloquently; they seemed as if they were about to fly straight away into higher levels than had ever yet been attained in eloquence or in music. But we now see them returning: we now notice, what had escaped us before, the tether which binds them to the earth. They repeat themselves; even their cursing becomes commonplace by repetition; the sharp accent is no longer felt; we begin to expect the fury, the little whirlwind, and the brutum fulmen . “Bildad reproveth Job of presumption and impatience.” So says the heading of the chapter. But this is precisely what the comforters have been doing all the time. All their eloquence is but a variety of denunciation. They have never gone into far-reaching philosophy; they have beaten Job with the rods which have chastised all preceding generations, but they have not touched with curing balm, with soothing sympathy, the wound which has rent his heart. All literalists live in a little world. We cannot stretch the alphabet beyond a certain point. The comforters told Job all they knew, and they knew nothing about his case when all was told. They had wise words to speak, but they were speaking them to the wrong man. A word fitly spoken how good it is when it just fits the occasion, when it says enough but not too much, when it soothes but not excoriates. The heart knows such a word when it is well spoken. There are many things we know which we were not aware of. Some tunes seem to belong to us; soon we come to think that we ourselves invented them; the authorship is forgotten in the fascination of the music, so that were we charged with singing another man’s tune, we might for the moment resent the impeachment, feeling that the melody came so naturally and swingingly into our lives that we might have made it, if we did not. It is even so with Christ’s great gospel: it becomes part of us; chapter and verse we have forgotten; nor need we remember them; the great life-principle is in the blood, in the heart-beat, in the new prayer which surprises every day the tongue that utters it. But Job’s comforters had a lesson, and not a teaching rooted in eternity, and stretching on through all infinities of thought and feeling and want. There is a difference between a recitation and a speech; there is an indescribable difference between that which we recite from our memory and that which God creates for us in the heart, and enables us to hurl from the lip with ringing and gracious power. The three comforters would have talked just the same to any other man in suffering as they talked to Job. They had not special insight into particular cases. Any one can tell the difference between night and day: but what is the difference between twilight and twilight? What is the difference between colours that shade into one another, as if slyly and invisibly, as if to cheat the eyesight and the fancy of the world? Great spiritual teaching depends upon this insight, this discrimination, so that there shall be seven Gospels in a family of seven people, and yet all the Gospels shall be one, but they shall be so distributed, and coloured, and represented, and focused, as to suit our necessity and satisfy our eye, every beholder seeing what he needs, and being fascinated by the celestial beauty. This is the difference between Jesus Christ and all other teachers. Jesus Christ never repeated himself. He had a parable for every case. He knew the right word to speak to every individual man, woman, or little child. He, too, could outcurse Bildad; when it came to objurgation and fire-speech all the comforters of Job stood back to give him space enough. Yet how gentle, how sweet, how tender, how gracious! Touching a flower only to make it blush in some deeper beauty, lifting up a child only to touch it into some higher consciousness of life, and touching trembling tears only to make them into quivering jewels. Never man spake like this man! Every man said to Jesus Christ for himself my Lord and my God. Such was the administration of Jesus Christ, that he seemed to belong exclusively to every man as each man’s sole and entire possession.
How comes it, then, that three men, not without large sense and power of words, should thus have walked round and round Job and left no blessing behind them? It is the misery of the world which has puzzled the philosophy of the world. Oh, this misery! The books of the philosophers have nothing in them to touch the world’s misery. Reading all other books but Christ’s, one would imagine that this was a healthy world, a world all sunshine, steeped in summer, painted or belted with rainbows; every river exhaling heavenly odours, every fountain filled with the gold of the new Jerusalem! But this misery red-eyed, tear-stained misery; this gaping wound, this infinite sorrow, this Gethsemane of woe! Before that spectacle philosophy looks poor, shrivelled, empty-handed. Philosophy does well in a world that is all summer; philosophy then talks largely, wisely, in long, long words; philosophy then invents words, puts syllable to syllable like joint to joint, and goes on with the long vertebration: but this horrible misery, these agonies that will not bear to be talked to in polysyllables, these pierced hearts, these wounded spirits, what is to be said of them? It is in sight of these that Jesus Christ shines forth in all the mildest radiance of his love; he is able to speak a word in season unto him that is weary; to speak as if he were not speaking; to breathe eloquence rather than to articulate it. It is the misery of the world that perplexes agnostics and secularists, and inventors, and tricksters of every name and colour. They would have an open highway were they not blocked back by misery. It was so with Job’s three comforters. They could not speak to such misery as his. They had seen sorrow before, but a kind of sorrow that might have been laughed out of its melancholia; they had seen instances of men in loss and trouble, but a sort of every-day loss and commonplace trouble, and a word of good cheer might bring back memory enough, and kindle hope enough to meet the occasion: but here is a man whose gall is shed upon the ground, and whose root is cleft with lightning, and they can only walk round him, and abuse him, and shoot hard words at, his poor weary head; and he cries to be saved from his friends, for they are but an addition to his sorrow. Whenever you hear of any man who has any nostrum to offer for the good of the world, inquire what he proposes to do with the world’s misery. Never let any empiric run away with the idea that he is treating a healthy world; ask him what he will do with the churchyards. He wants to sail on blue rivers, on seas ruled by a halcyon spirit; he wants to take you away into groves and waving woods and odorous gardens: ask him what he intends to do with the cemeteries, with the sick at heart, with men of shattered vows, with lives that have lost the centre, with souls that have been caught in the infernal gravitation, and are being drawn downwards to hell. Be impatient with all the men who would heal the world’s wound slightly; be wrathful with the men who would daub the wall with untempered mortar. There is nothing that can meet the whole necessity but the evangelical faith. We have heard that faith jeered at, but the faith still remains, large, noble, holy, unresentful. The evangelical faith must not be touched, except that it may be redefined, delivered from some of its friends who have unduly narrowed it, and who have interfered with the music of its expression: but in its soul it is right; it touches every day’s history; it has an answer to every day’s necessity; it has a blessing for every moment’s labour. The three friends of Job did not understand the case, or had not at hand the remedy; and therefore they talked much, denounced much, and tried to talk themselves into some new power of dealing with an unfamiliar instance.
The poorest of all explanations is personal wickedness. That was the pice de resistance of which the three friends always availed themselves. They said in effect: We can always abuse Job; we can always make general speeches on human depravity, and allow him to appropriate them to himself; we can at least suggest that he has hidden under his ample cloak some big black sin; we can tell him, in varied expression, that all this is but his desert; he has done something to deserve this; that must be our weapon; we must keep to that; we must hunt him down; we must tell him what a villain he is. The world has grown no better by such violent assault. The poor world takes heart again when we say to it “things are not what they seem.” It is true there is none righteous, no, not one; but that applies to us all; there is something beyond all that we see; by-and-by it will be revealed; we are undergoing educational processes, we are being pruned that we may bring forth more fruit; all this misery, sorrow, necessity, pain, death, has a meaning. Let us wait for it; it may come at any moment:; no one can tell when the Son of man will come at midnight, at cock-crowing, or in the full noonday; but come he will, and with him he will bring the books which will clear up every mystery. Then we should continue our great speech and say, “In one sense, this is a little world; in another sense, it is a great world; it is to us the beginning of worlds, the first step upon a staircase infinite. Get your foot well upon the first step, then the rest will come with comparative ease. Thou knowest not what a day may bring forth; at any moment you may pass into a new world; tomorrow we may wake in heaven. We need, therefore, more cheerfulness; and the Gospel of Jesus Christ is emphatically a cheerful word; it comes to the heart like music in the night time. We know what it is to sit in great desolation, and to hear a footfall on the stair which we recognise as the step of a strong friend. When he comes in he seems to bring with him new breath, new hope; whilst he tarries in the room we shall not be afraid of death; yea, we feel if he were present we could die happily; his very nearness would give us courage. Knowing this socially, we also know it religiously: given a heart that is sure of the presence of Jesus Christ to comfort and sustain, and death is abolished, the grave is no longer deep and cold, it is as a vase filled with flowers from heaven’s paradise. It is useless, therefore, merely to denounce the sin of the world; it is aggravating to have nothing to say to the world but that which is of the nature of denunciation. The world has been well cursed by its brilliant Carlyles; it needs now to be blessed and comforted by its more brilliant evangelists.
How wonderfully well the three comforters painted the portrait of wickedness! Nothing can be added to their delineation of sin. Every touch is the touch of a master. If you would see what wickedness is, read the speeches which are delivered in the Book of Job. Nothing, let us say again, can be added to their grim truthfulness. But there is a great danger about this: there is a danger that men may make a trade of denouncing wickedness. There is also a danger that men may fall into a mere habit of making prayers. This is the difficulty of all organised and official spiritual life. It is a danger which we cannot set aside; it is indeed a peril we can hardly modify: but there is a horrible danger in having to read the Bible at an appointed hour, to offer a prayer at a given stroke of the clock, and to assemble for worship upon a public holiday. But all this seems to be unavoidable; the very spirit of order requires it; there must be some law of consent and fellowship; otherwise public worship would be impossible: but consider the tremendous effect upon the man who has to conduct that worship! The men to be most pitied in all this wide world are preachers of the gospel. We are aware that there is another side, and that the men who are most to be envied in this world are also preachers of the gospel; still it is a terrible thing to have to denounce sin every Sunday twice at least; it is enough to ruin the soul to be called upon to utter holy words at mechanical periods. The necessity is great, the necessity is tremendous; but may we not become familiar with such words as “God,” “truth,” “love,” “Christ,” “purity “? On the other hand, there are times when all these words shine upon us like new suns, and for all the worlds of God’s universe we would not give up the joy of living under the influence of such words and answering all their music. Could we know what men have to pass through who teach us we should be more lenient with them and get nearer to them with abundance of sympathy and prayer. Who can preach twice on one day? Who can have his heart torn out of him regularly morning and evening, Sabbath by Sabbath? We need the ministry of silence; we need the blessedness of sitting down sometimes in absolute speechlessness. That we might do, and fix the day and the time and the place for silence, but not for speech; then if during the holy silence the fire should burn and the tongue should desire to speak, who knows what blessedness might accrue? But the meaning of this is that it is possible to read the Bible until we read ourselves out of it, merely to repeat its words, and not to feel them or to feel that we ought to feel but cannot feel, and that is a consciousness that lies close by despair.
Punishment does not kill wickedness, otherwise what Bildad has said about it would be concluded with a declaration that wickedness is dead. How does Bildad put the case of punished wickedness? The light is put out, the spark of fire is destroyed, there is no light in the tabernacle; the steps of strength are straitened; his own counsel has cast the man down by leading him into confusion; the wicked man’s feet are in a net, and a gin has taken hold of him by the heel, and the hand of the robber is throttling him; the snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way; terrors like hobgoblins laugh and chatter at him from every hedge in the night-time, and he is startled to his feet by new alarms when he lies down to sleep; his strength is hunger-bitten, and destruction is standing at his side ready to open its pitiless jaws to devour him; his skin has lost its complexion, and the firstborn of death has devoured his power; his confidence is dead, and he is brought to the king of terrors: and what does he do? He still sins. All this some men have proved, and they still plan wickedness for tomorrow at noon and the day after at midnight. Brimstone is scattered upon their habitation; their roots are dried up beneath, above their branch is cut off; their remembrance is perished from the earth, and their name is a loathing in the street: what then? They still sin. They would sin if God stood over them visibly! How mad is sin! What can tame the tiger-heart? What can get at it in one brief hour of confidence? A man will sell his children if they stand in the way of his wicked desires. Yea, a man will defy the spirit of self-slaughter in order to reach that one damned object, and all God’s white angels could not keep him back. He knows what will come. Tell him that if he pursue this course his wife will be brokenhearted, his children will be blighted, his home will be shattered, his fire will be put out, the old, old days of love will never be revived; everybody will shoot out the lip in scorn, and his very name shall be a byword: what will he do? He will look as if he listened, and then he will take a leap into the arms of the devil! Such is the state of things. We are not half-respectable bad men; we are not gone in little fragments and sections of our nature; we would kill the fairest child that ever kissed our cheek rather than not do the thing our heart is set upon. Can this case be met by little theories, human inventions, novel propositions, untried and unintelligible philosophies? If a man will take his fair-haired child, as it were, by the throat and throw it away, so that he may get at the devil’s table, is there any philosophy in creation which he would not clear from his path in order to reach his destination? What, then, is to be done? There is only one thing to be done, and if that fail God fails. There is only one thing that touches the case at its centre, and that one thing is the redeeming Gospel of Jesus Christ, the mystery of the cross, the grace of the atonement, easy enough to ask perplexing questions about, and not difficult to contemn and reject; but it is the only thing that can touch the case. The sun is the only light that can glorify the earth, and yet nothing can be shut out so easily; a child has but to close its eyelids, and the sun is gone. So a man has but to say I do not believe thee, thou bleeding, dying Christ, and the whole blessedness of the cross is lost. On the other hand, a man has but to open his eyes, and the sun seems to have been made for him, and to be all his. A man has but to say, “Lord, I believe, help thou mine unbelief,” and Satan falls before him as if lightning-struck. The devil knows that word, and hates it.
Note
The act of taking birds by means of nets, snares, decoys, etc., is frequently alluded to in Scripture, mostly in a figurative and moral way. Birds of various kinds abound, and no doubt abounded, in ancient times in Palestine. Dean Stanley speaks of “countless birds of all kinds, aquatic fowls by the lake side, partridges and pigeons hovering, as on the Nile bank, over the rich plains of Genesareth” ( Sinai and Palestine, p. 427). The capture of these for the table or other uses, would, we might expect, form the employment of many persons, and lead to the adoption of various methods to effect it. Hence we read of the “snare,” Psa 91:3 , Psa 124:7 ; Hos 9:8 : and of the “net,” Pro 1:17 ; Hos 7:2 : “of the fowler” or snarer. In Hos 5:1 , both net and snare are mentioned together. The moksh is used synonymously with pach , Amo 3:5 . This was employed for taking either beasts or birds. It was a trap set in the path, Pro 7:23 , Pro 22:5 ; or hidden on or in the ground Psa 140:6 , Psa 143:4 . The form of this springe or trap net, appears from two passages Amo 3:5 , and Psa 69:23 . It was in two parts, which, when set, were spread out upon the ground, and slightly fastened with a stick (trap-stick), so that as soon as a bird or beast touched the stick, the parts flew up and inclosed the bird in the net, or caught the foot of the animal. Thus Amo 3:5 , “Doth a bird fall into a snare upon the ground, when there is no trap-stick for her? doth the snare spring from the ground and take nothing at all? i.e., does anything happen without a cause?” Kitto’s Cyclopdia of Biblical Literature,
(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).
VI
THE SECOND ROUND OF SPEECHES
Job 15-21.
In this chapter we take up the second round of speeches, commencing with the second speech of Eliphaz. This speech consists of two parts, a rejoinder to Job’s last speech and a continuation of the argument.
The main points of the rejoinder (Job 15:1-16 ) are as follows:
1. A reflection on Job’s wisdom (Job 15:1-3 ). A wise man would not answer with vain knowledge, windy words, nor reason with unprofitable words.
2. An accusation of impiety (Job 15:4-6 ). Job is irreverent, binders devotion, uses a serpent tongue of craftiness whose words are self-condemnatory. (Cf. what Caiaphas said about Christ, Mat 26:65 .)
3. A cutting sarcasm (Job 15:7-8 ). Wast thou before Adam, or before the creation of the mountains, and a member of the Celestial Council considering the creation, that thou limitest wisdom to thyself?
4. An invidious comparison (Job 15:9-10 ). What knowest thou of which we are ignorant? With us are the gray-headed, much older than thy father.
5. A bigoted rebuke (Job 15:11-16 ). You count small the consolation of God we offered you in gentle words [the reader may determine for himself how much “comfort” they offered Job and note their conceit in calling this “God’s comfort,” and judge whether it was offered in “gentle” words]. Your passions run away with you. Here a quotation from Rosenmuller is in point: Quo te tuus animus rapit? “Whither does thy soul hurry thee?” Quid oculi qui tui vibrantes? “What means thy rolling eyes?” It turns against God; this is presumptuous: A man born of woman, depraved, against God in whose sight angels are imperfect and the heavens unclean. How much more an abominable, filthy man drinking iniquity like water.
The points in the continuation of the argument are as follows:
1. Hear me while I instruct thee (Job 15:17 ). I will tell you what I have seen.
2. It is the wisdom of the ancients handed down (Job 15:18-19 ). Wise men have received it from their fathers and have handed it down to us for our special good.
3. Concerning the doom of the wicked (Job 15:20-30 ). This is a wonderful description of the course of the wicked to their final destruction, but his statements, in many instances, are not true. For instance, in his first statement about the wicked (Job 15:20 ), he says, “The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days,” which is in accord with his theory, but does not harmonize with the facts in the case. The wicked does not travail with pain “all his days.” They are not terrified “all the time” as Eliphaz here pictures them. In this passage Eliphaz intimates that Job may be guilty of pride (Job 15:25 ) and of fatness (Job 15:27 ).
4. The application (Job 15:31-35 ). If what he said about the wicked was true, his application here to Job is wrong. It will be seen that Eliphaz here intimates that Job was guilty of vanity and self-deception; that he was, perhaps, guilty of bribery and deceit, and therefore the calamity had come upon him.
The following is a summary of Job’s reply (Job 16-17) :
1. Your speech is commonplace. I have heard many such things. Ye are miserable comforters (Job 16:2 ).
2. You persist when I have urged you to desist. It is unprovoked. Your words are vain, just words of wind (Job 16:3 ).
3. If our places were changed, I could do as you do, but I would not. I would helo and comfort you (Job 16:4-5 ).
4. You ask me to cease my complaint, but whether I speak or forbear, the result is the same. I have not ensnared my feet, but God has lassoed me (Job 16:6 ).
5. He gives a fearful description of God’s assault (Job 16:7-14 ): (1) as a hunter with hounds he has harried me; (2) he has abandoned me to the malice of mine enemies; (3) as a wrestler he has taken me by the neck and shaken me to pieces; (4) as an archer he has bound me to the stake and terrified and pierced me with his arrows; (5) as a mighty conqueror he opened breach after breach in my defenses with batteringrams; and (6) as a giant he rushes on me through the breach in the assault.
6. As a result, I am clothed in sackcloth and my dignity lies prone in the dust; my face is foul with weeping, my eyelids shadowed by approaching death, although no injustice on my part provoked it and my prayer was pure (Job 16:15-17 ).
7. I appeal to the earth to cover my blood and to the heavenly witness to vouch for me. Friends may scorn my tears, but they are unto God. (See passages in Revelation and Psalms.) Note here the messianic prayer, “that one might plead for a man with God, as a son of man pleadeth for his neighbor.” But my days are numbered and mockers are about me (Job 16:18-17:2 ).
8. The plea for a divine surety (messianic) but God has made me a byword, who had been a tabret. Future ages will be astonished at my case and my deplorable condition (Job 17:3-16 ).
There are several things in this speech worthy of note, viz: 1. The messianic desire which finds expression later as David and Isaiah adopt the words of Job to fit their Messiah. 2. Job is right in recognizing a malicious adversary, but wrong in thinking God his adversary; God only permitted these things to come to Job, but Satan brought them.
There are two parts of Bildad’s second speech (Job 18 ), viz: a rejoinder (Job 18:1-4 ) and an argument (Job 18:5-21 ). The main points of his rejoinder are:
1. Job hunts for words rather than speaks considerately.
2. Why are the friends accounted as beasts and unclean in your sight?
3. Job was just tearing himself with anger and altogether without reason.
4. A sarcasm: The earth will not be forsaken for thee nor will the rock be moved out of its place for thee (Job 18:1-4 ).
The argument (Job 18:5-21 ) is fine and much of it is true, but it is wrong in its application. The following are the points as applied to the wicked:
1. His light shall be put out.
2. The steps of his strength shall be straightened.
3. His own counsel shall be cast down.
4. There shall be snares everywhere for his feet.
5. Terrors of conscience shall smite him on every side.
6. He shall be destroyed root and branch and in memory.
There are also two parts to Job’s great reply: His expostulation with his friends (Job 19:1-6 ) and his complaint against God (Job 19:7-29 ). The points of his expostulation are:
1. Ye reproach me often without shame and deal hardly with me.
2. If I have sinned, it is not against you but my error remains with myself.
3. The snares you refer to are not because of my fault but they are from God, for he has subverted me and compassed me with his net.
The items of his complaint against God are as follows:
1. He will not hear me, though I am innocent; surely there is no justice.
2. He has walled me up and set darkness in my path.
3. He has stripped me of my glory and he has broken me down on every side.
4. He has plucked up my hope like a tree and his fiery wrath is against me.
5. He has counted me an adversary and I am besieged by armies round about.
6. He has put away from me my brethren, friends, kindred, family, servants, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.
7. I appeal to you, O ye my friends, for pity instead of persecution.
8. Oh that my words were written in a book or were engraved with a pen of iron in the rock forever, but I know that my redeemer liveth and will at last stand upon the earth, and I shall behold him in my risen body, then to be vindicated by him.
9. Now I warn you to beware of injustice to me lest the sword come upon you, for there is a judgment ahead. Here it may be noted that Job 19:23-24 refer to the ancient method of writing and that Job expresses in Job 19:25-27 a great hope for the future. Compare the several English translations of Job 19:26 with each other and the context and then answer:
1. Does Job intend to convey the idea that he will see God apart from his body) i.e., when death separates soul and body?
2. Or does he mean that at the resurrection he will see God from the viewpoint of his risen body?
3. If you hold the latter meaning, which version, after all, is the least misleading, the King James, the Revised, the American Standard Version, or Leeser’s Jewish translation? The answer is, Job here means that he will see God from the viewpoint of his risen body, as the King James Version conveys.
Zophar’s second speech is harsher than his first, and consists of a rejoinder (Job 20:1-3 ) and an argument (Job 20:4-29 ).
The points of his rejoinder are:
1. Haste is justified because of his thoughts;
2. The reproach of Job 19:28-29 , “If ye say, How may we pursue him and that the cause of the suffering is in me, then beware of the sword. My goel [redeemer] will defend me,” he answers thus: “Thus do my thoughts answer me and by reason of this there is haste in me; I hear the reproof that puts me to shame and the spirit of my understanding gives answer.
The points of his argument are:
1. Since creation the prosperity of the wicked has been short, his calamity sure and utter, extending to his children.
2. The very sweetness of his sin becomes poison to him.
3. He shall not look on streams flowing with milk, butter, and honey.
4. He shall restore and shall not swallow it down, even according to all that he has taken.
5. In the height of his enjoyment the sword smites him and the arrow pierces him,
6. Darkness wraps him, terrors fright him, and heaven’s supernatural fires burn him.
7. Heaven reveals his iniquity and earth rises up against him. This is the heritage appointed unto him by God. Certain other scriptures carry out the idea of milk, butter, and honey, viz: Exo 3:8 ; Exo 13:5 ; Exo 33:3 ; 2Ki 18:32 ; Deu 31:20 ; Isa 7:22 ; Joe 3:18 , and several classic authors refer to them, also, as Pindar, Virgil, Ovid, and Horace. It will be noted that Zophar intimates that Job might be guilty of hypocrisy (Job 19:12 ), of oppressing the poor (Job 19:19 ) and of greediness (Job 19:20 ).
Job’s reply (Job 21 ) is more collected than the former, and the points are as follows:
1. Hear me and then mock. This is only fair and may afterward prove a consolation to you.
2. Do I address myself to man for help? My address is to God and, because I am unheard, therefore I am impatient?
3. Mark me and be astonished. What I say even terrifies me.
4. The prosperity of the wicked who defy God is a well known fact.
5. How seldom is their light put out. They are not destroyed as you say.
6. Ye say God visits it on his children. What is that to him?
7. Here are two cases, one prosperous to the end and the other never so. The grave is sweet to both.
8. God’s reserved judgment is for the wicked. Do you not know this?
9. In conclusion I must say that your answers are falsehoods.
In this second round of speeches we have observed that Job has quieted down to a great extent and seems to have risen to higher heights of faith, while the three friends have become bolder and more desperate. They have gone beyond insinuations to intimations, thus suggesting certain sins of which Job might be guilty. While Job has greatly improved in his spirit and has ascended a long way from the depths to which he had gone in the moral tragedy, the climax of the debate has not yet been reached. Tanner says, “While the conflict of debate is sharper, Job’s temper is more calm; and he is perceptibly nearer a right attitude toward God. He is approaching a victory over his opponents, and completing the more important one over himself.”
QUESTIONS
1. Of what does the second speech of Eliphaz consist?
2. What the main points of the rejoinder (Job 15:1-16 )?
3. What the points in the continuation of the argument?
4. What summary of Job’s reply Job 16:16-17 )?
5. What things in this speech are worthy of note?
6. What the two parts of Bildad’s second speech Job 18:18 )?
7. What the main points of his rejoinder?
8. What can you say of his argument and what the points of it?
9. What the two parts to Job’s great reply?
10. What the points of his expostulation?
11. What the items of his complaint against God?
12. Explain Job 19:23-24 ,
13. What great hope does Job express in Job 19:25-27 ?
14. Compare the several English translations of Job 19:26 with each other and the context and then answer: What great hope does Job express in Job 19:25-27 ?
15. How does Zophar’s second speech compare with the first and what the parts of this speech?
16. What the points of his rejoinder?
17. What the points of his argument?
18. What scriptures carry out the idea of milk, butter, and honey, and what classic authors refer to this?
19. What can you say of Job’s reply (Job 21 ) and what his points?
20. What have we found in the second round of speeches?
Job 18:1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
Ver. 1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said ] Not so much disputing as inveighing against Job in a sharp and angry oration, wherein he elegantly describeth the woe of a wicked man, but wrongfully wresteth the same against good Job, who might well say with him in Tacitus, Tu linguae, ego aurium dominus, If I cannot command thy tongue, yet I can command mine own ears; or with another, Didicit ille maledicere, et ego contemnere, This man hath learned to reproach, and I to slight his contempts and contumelies; unless I should yield, that wicked men only are grievously afflicted in this life present; that they are not to be reckoned wicked who prosper in their way, but those only who suffer extremely.
Job Chapter 18
Then, in the next chapter (18) we have another man, Bildad the Shuhite, and he speaks still more violently than Eliphaz, “How long will it be ere ye make an end of words?” He had no feeling for Job whatever; no understanding. “Mark, and afterwards we will speak. Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight? He teareth himself in his anger; shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of its place? Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out.” There was a thrust, and a bitter thrust, at poor Job – “and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.” That is what he counted Job. “The steps of his strength shall be straitened and his own counsel shall cast him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare” – a mere dream of his own imagination! And this he pursues to the very end of the chapter. I do not dwell upon it, in order to come to Job’s answer. For it was all a mistake.
answered. See note on Job 4:1. Bildad. See note on Job 2:11.
Chapter 18
Then answered Bildad ( Job 18:1 ),
So this is Bildad’s second discourse with him.
How long will it be before you make an end of words? just make the mark, and afterwards we will speak. Why do you count us like beasts, and we are vile in your sight? You tear yourself in your anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place? Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out, and the spark of his fire will not shine ( Job 18:2-5 ).
Job, your lights going to be put out, man. You know, because you’re wicked. The sparks will not shine.
The light shall be dark in his tent, and his candle shall be put out with him. The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, he walks upon a snare. The bear trap will take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him. The snare is laid for him in the ground, and the trap for him in the way. Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side. And it shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength. His confidence shall be rooted out of the tabernacle, and he shall bring him into the king of terrors. It shall dwell in his tent, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his house. His roots shall be dried up from beneath, and above his branch will be cut off. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street. He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings. They that come after him will be astonished at his day, and they that went before him will be frightened. Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God ( Job 18:6-21 ).
Ooh, man, did he lay it on Job. “Job, this is what’s going to happen to you. You know, all of the terrors and all of the fears and all of the destruction and the devouring of your strength and the death of your first born and your confidence be taken away. Brimstone be poured out upon you, your roots dried up from beneath, you’re cut off from above. Man, just going to get you coming and going, man. No way out.”
“
Job 18:1-4
Introduction
Job 18
THE SECOND SPEECH OF BILDAD
“Bildad’s second speech is no improvement on his first (Job 8). He has evidently been exceedingly nettled by Job’s contemptuous words regarding his `comforters’ (Job 16:2; Job 16:11 and Job 17:10); and Bildad’s aim here is simply that of venting his anger and terrifying Job with threats and denunciations. Job has become for Bildad `the wicked man’ (Job 18:5; Job 18:21), and one that `knoweth not God.'” In fact, Bildad consigned Job to hell with the bitterest language that he could command, suggesting that no punishment could be any worse than Job deserved.
Behind the cruel, vituperative language of this chapter, one should recognize the frustration of Satan at his inability to move Job from his integrity. If God had not forbidden it, Satan would no doubt have brought about Job’s murder.
Job 18:1-4
BILDAD’S COMPLAINT AT JOB’S REBUKE
“Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
How long will ye hunt for words?
Consider, and afterward we will speak.
Wherefore are we counted as beasts,
And are become unclean in your sight?
That thou tearest thyself in thine anger,
Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?
Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?”
As Kline stated it, “These later speeches of Job’s friends degenerate into irrelevant harangues on the woes of the wicked.” Bildad’s speech here, especially in Job 18:5-21, demonstrates this characteristic. “His speech has no significance.” It is simply a description of what Bildad supposed would be the fate of the wicked; but, in that description, “He included many allusions that applied particularly to Job.”
“Wherefore are we counted as beasts” (Job 18:3)? “This is an allusion to what Job had said about his comforters `gaping upon him with their mouths’ (Job 16:10).”
“Shall the earth be forsaken for thee” (Job 18:4)? Since Job is beating himself to death against the law of the whole creation (as Bildad viewed his law of retribution), he charged here that, “Job seemed to expect the whole universe to be redesigned just for him.”
E.M. Zerr:
Job 18:1-2. It was Bildad’s turn next to speak. This paragraph means that he wants Job to keep still so the rest of them could speak.
Job 18:3. This was a false accusation. Job had even admitted many of the things they had said, but denied only that they pertained to the case.
Job 18:4. How absurd was the statement in the light of what we have read. Job has been meeting all the claims of the friends with sound reasoning. But such extravagant remarks as these of Bildad give evidence that he is at his limit of his words.
Bildad now returned to the charge, and as was the case with Eliphaz it is perfectly evident from his opening rebuke that he was speaking under a sense of annoyance. He was wounded at the wrongs done to himself and his friends in that Job had treated them as “beasts,” as “unclean.”
He was angry, moreover, because he considered that Job’s attitude threatened the moral order with violence, and he reminded Job that stable things could not be changed for his sake.
He then plunged at once into an elaborate declaration that the wicked are punished. This punishment he described in great detail, and with much force. He first declared the preliminary experience of the wicked. His light is “put out.” It is a graphic description. His own spirit, “the spark of his fire,” does not shine; and the light without is extinguished. Therefore, his steps are straitened, and “his own counsel” destroys him. His pathway without light to death is portrayed. Lacking the light, he falls into all kinds of snares and traps. Following his death he becomes extinct so far as earth is concerned. “His remembrance” perishes. He is “chased out of the world.” He leaves behind him no children to enter into his inheritance.
Finally, Bildad declared:
Such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, And this is the place of him that knoweth not God.
The application is evident. He had described the circumstances through which Job had been passing as to all outward appearance; and finally said that such circumstances were those of the wicked.
Cast into a Net
Job 18:1-21
Bildads second speech reveals how utterly he failed to understand Jobs appeal for a divine witness and surety. Such words were snares to him, Job 18:2, r.v. The deep things that pass in a heart which is enduring sorrow are incomprehensible to shallow and narrow souls.
His description of the calamities which befall the wicked is terrible: their extinguished light, Job 18:5-6; their awful distress, Job 18:7-11; their destruction, Job 18:12-17; the horror with which men shall regard their fate, Job 18:18-21. All this was, of course, intended for Job. It was very severe. Even if the worst had been true, his extreme sufferings should have elicited more tenderness from his friends. Only the strong, wise hand of love can assuage the wounds that sin has made. We are indebted to Bildad for the phrase, king of terrors, as applied to death, Job 18:14. Apart from Christ, it is a significant and appropriate term. Sin has made his monarchy terrible. Yet even he has met his conqueror, Joh 11:25-26; Heb 2:14; 1Co 15:26.
The ancients had a deep presentiment of the punishments which must overtake sin. Probably we make too little of them. The note of fear has almost died out of modern preaching. In this there is a marked divergence from Baxters Call to the Unconverted and from Jonathan Edwards Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God. But the doom of sin can only be terrible, especially for those to whom Calvary has pleaded in vain. A great atonement implies great sin, and this, a great penalty.
Job 18:6
There is a fourfold light in our nature, placed there by our Creator, the Father of our spirits. There is the light of the understanding, the light of the judgment, the light of the conscience, including the whole moral sense, and the light of the religious sensibility. These lights are as branches of one candlestick, and they constitute the natural light in man.
I. This light may be diminished-nay, even extinguished-by wickedness. Never let us forget that sin reduces the natural light within us, and continuous sinning involves constant decrease in that light. By continuing in sin there is a hardening process carried on, so that sin is at length committed without fear, or remorse, or regret.
II. All sin tends to destroy faith in God and to stop intercourse with God. It withers all sense of His presence and of personal relation with Him, so that the whole tendency of sin is to reduce the light within a man. A lessening of the light is necessary before we can sin at all, but following sin is a still further reduction of the light as the expression of a retributive Providence.
III. There is a Deliverer from this position of darkness. Unto us has been born a Saviour. Just as there is a sun in the heavens to give us light by day, so there has been born to us a Saviour; and if our sins ruin us, we shall have destroyed ourselves.
S. Martin, Christian World Pulpit, vol. vii., p. 145.
References: Job 18:10.-Sermons for Boys and Girls, p. 257. Job 18:12.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxv., No. 1510. Job 18-S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. vii., p. 410, and vol. viii., p. 127; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 216. 18-21-A. W. Momerie, Defects of Modern Christianity, p. 116. Job 19:17.-Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 429. Job 19:20.-J. Robertson, Ibid., 2nd series, vol. vi., p. 255.
CHAPTER 18 Bildads Second Address
1. New reproaches (Job 18:1-4)
2. Once again, the wicked and what they deserve (Job 18:5-21)
Job 18:1-4. Bildad has the good sense in this second oration to be very brief. He, like Eliphaz, pays his compliments to Job and reproaches him. How long are you going to speak yet any way! You, you tell us that we are like the beasts, stupid and ignorant! Keep on with your nonsense, you but tear yourself in your anger, it is all unavailing and changes not things for thee. This is the meaning of his rebuke.
Job 18:5-21. Then the favored theme, the wicked and what is in store for them. Apart from the falsity of the application of all Bildad says to Job, his words are certainly true and very poetic. Thus he speaks of the wicked and his fate:
Terrors make him afraid on every side,
And chase him at his footsteps.
Through pangs of hunger his strength declines,
Calamity ever stands ready at his side,
The members of his body to consume,
Yea, deaths firstborn his members shall destroy.
His confidence be rooted out of his tent,
It shall lead him away to the king of terrors.
They that are none of his shall dwell in his tent,
And upon it brimstone shall descend.
All his words, though true, were consummated cruelty. It must have been torture and agony unspeakable for suffering Job to hear himself thus portrayed as the wicked man, whose lot is well deserved.
grave
Heb. “Sheol,” (See Scofield “Hab 2:5”)
Bildad: Job 2:11, Job 8:1, Job 25:1, Job 42:7-9
Job 18:1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite Bildad, irritated to the last degree that Job should treat their advice with so much contempt, is no longer able to keep his passions within the bounds of decency, He proceeds to downright abuse; and, finding little attention given by Job to his arguments, he tries to terrify him into a compliance. To that end he draws a yet more terrible picture of the final end of a wicked man than any preceding; throwing in all the circumstances of Jobs calamities, that he might plainly perceive the resemblance; and, at the same time, insinuating that he had much worse still to expect, unless he prevented it by a speedy change of behaviour. That it was the highest arrogance in him to suppose that he was of consequence enough to be the cause of altering the general rules of providence, And that it was much more expedient for the good of the whole, that he, by his example, should deter others from treading in the same path of wickedness and folly. Heath.
Job 18:6. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle. Darkness is a most ancient figure of speech for all kinds of affliction. But to good men, the Lord will make darkness light before them. Isa 42:16. Yea, when they sit in darkness he will be their light. Mic 7:8.
Job 18:13. The firstborn of death. Chaldaic, the angel of death; others read Satan, who introduced sin and death into the world.
Job 18:14. It shall bring him to the king of terrors. The king of destruction; others read, the king of darkness. Ancient writers often array this king in the densest cloud of darkness, terror, and despair.
Job 18:17. He shall have no name in the street, in publico. Schultens. No reputation; or if men pronounce his name on any occasion, it shall be with a beclouded countenance. But not so with Job. When the ear heard him, it blessed him; when the eye saw him, it gave witness to the pleasure and delight it felt at his presence.
REFLECTIONS.
Why should Bildad be angry, unless he had had some other grounds of warmth beyond presumption. All his flowery figures, how just soever they might be when applied to the wicked, were altogether uncharitable here. God does not, like frail mortals, fly in rage and passion at the wickedness of men. He sits calm in the heavens; he visits for crimes in a thousand ways, often by gentle strokes at first, to bring men to repentance, often by severer strokes of sickness and death, and sometimes by pestilence and wars which sweep the earth.
But in the strokes of an adorable providence, the children are sometimes cut off before their parents, leaving them neither son nor nephew. Extinct peerages, mansions in ruins, or inhabited by other names, like desecrated places, reproach the memory of former times. He only then is truly wise who seeks a heritage in heaven, and a name in the city of God. These portraits of the horrors of darkness, openly intended for the contemplation of Job, were of the most appalling nature. They pierced his soul with empoisoned arrows, and wrung from his heart the appeals we have in the ensuing replies. Oh ye my friends, have pity upon me, have pity upon me, for the hand of God hath touched me. Why add those grievous things to my anguish?
But if the conclusions of Bildad, and the more eloquent rhetoric of Zophar in the twentieth chapter, be correct; if they are inferences fairly deduced from facts, let the reader cleanse his hands and his house from iniquity, lest the moth consume his body, and the worm for ever prey upon his mind. If Job had nothing to fear, assuredly the men that know not God have every thing to dread from his anger.
Job 18. Second Speech of Bildad.Bildad speaks this time at unusual length, but his speech has no significance, since it simply describes the fate of the godless. Into the description of this, however, there are interwoven direct allusions to Jobs case, so that to this degree it serves to increase Jobs perplexity and bring on the crisis (Duhm).
Job 18:2-4 contains the usual personal polemic; in Job 18:2 we must read sing. for plur.; Job 18:4 asks Job if the earth is to be turned upside down to suit him.
Job 18:5-21 contains an extended picture of the fate of the godless. In Job 18:13 the first-born of death is probably the worst pestilence. In Job 18:14 the king of terrors is death.
Job 18:15 perhaps alludes to the fate of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Job 18:20 it is best to translate as mg.
BILDAD’S STRONG REPROOF
(vv.1-3)
Bildad did not learn from Job’s words to be a little more considerate than before, but shows only more strong opposition, reproving Job unjustly. He considered Job’s words as being without understanding and advised him to “gain understanding” so that his friends would be more free to speak to him. He asks, “Why are we counted as beasts and regarded as stupid in your sight?” (v.3). No doubt if Bildad had not acted like a beast, Job would not have spoken to him as he did. Yet Job had not accused them of being stupid, but had rather protested that he was not inferior to them, and that he did not find a wise man among them (ch.12:2; 17:10). Why did Bildad not at least modify his unfair attitude?
BILDAD LIKENS JOB TO A WICKED MAN
(vv.4-7)
Job had spoken of others making him suffer and God apparently doing so too. But Bildad tells him that he tears himself in his anger, in other words, that Job was causing himself all his trouble. Does Job expect the earth or the rocks to yield to his will? This was an exaggeration of what Bildad thought he perceived in Job’s attitude. In verse 5 he refers back to Job’s claim that his friends were changing the night into day, saying the light is near in the face of darkness (ch.17:12). “The light of the wicked indeed goes out,” Bildad says, implying that since Job had no clear light in the darkness of his experience, then Job must be wicked.
Therefore he enlarges on the condition of the wicked, words true enough, but not applicable to Job as though he were wicked. What light the wicked man has is only darkness, and God will see that his lamp is totally put out (v.6). His life will be shortened and his own counsel leads to his downfall (v.7). This graphic description of the expectation of the wicked is right and good, but is no help to Job.
THE WICKED, UNWATCHFUL, ARE SNARED
(vv.8-11)
In these verses Bildad tells Job that the wicked, being unaware of danger because of ignorance, are easily snared by evil. The snare may be a noose hidden on the ground, perhaps covered by leaves, but drawn when one walks into it. Bildad thought that because Job had not expected the evil that came to him, therefore he had not watched against being snared, and had walked into the snare. Of course this was not the case with Job, though it is commonly true of the wicked.
RESULTING DISEASE AND DEATH
(vv.12-15)
Bildad goes farther here to speak of the disease that overtakes the one who is snared. His words are really a description of what Job was suffering at the time, but he embellishes this with additional fearsome afflictions intended to frighten the poor sufferer. His strength is reduced to nothing and his destruction is imminent. Disease breaks out in patches of his skin, and “the king of terrors” (death) is set as the prospect before his eyes. Others who are not of his family will take over his dwelling, scattering brimstone on it, leaving it unfit for him. Everything Bildad said may not have been literally true of Job, but it was close enough that Job knew Bildad was thrusting at him.
ROOT AND BRANCH DRIED UP
(vv.16-19)
Thus, disease will lead to complete stagnation, both root and branch dried up and the very memory of the person perishing from the earth. Nothing is left, no name among those who are renowned, but practically driven from light to darkness, chased out of the world with no children to carry on his name. How desolate a picture! It is true of the wicked, and since all Job’s children had been killed, then Bildad used this as a cruel thrust at Job as evidence that he must be wicked. At the time of course Job had no children to carry on his name; but later on he did have as many children as he had before! (Ch.42:13). Also Bildad intimated that Job would have no name among those who are renowned; but the name of Job has been one of remarkable renown for centuries since that time. As to his possessions too Job was given twice as much as he had before the dreadful experience he was given to bear (Ch.42: 10). Bildad did not consider the possibility of the whole picture changing completely, as did happen before too long.
THE END OF MAN’S DAY
(vv.20-21).
Finally Bildad speaks of people both from the west and the east witnessing in astonished fear the bitter end of the wicked (v.20). He does not even think of a way out for Job, but places him alongside of the wicked who dwell in fear, as all the evidence shows. “This is the place of him who does not know God,” he says. He ignores the fact that Job had spoken much of God and His ways, for he considered that Job’s words have been hypocritical. When God eventually intervened in this matter, how totally astonished Bildad himself must have been, to witness in Job, not “the bitter end of the wicked,” but the wonderful end of an honourable believer who had suffered for a while and who learned patience in his suffering. But that patience was not learned through the help of his friends, rather through the wise dealings of the Lord with him.
Bildad’s criticism of Job 18:1-4
Obviously Bildad was impatient because Job refused to change his mind or admit great guilt (Job 18:1-2). Job had claimed that God was tearing him like a beast tears its prey (Job 16:9), but Bildad said Job was tearing himself (Job 18:4 a). We can see his disgust with what he regarded as Job’s pride in his statement that Job should not expect God to do anything particularly great on Job’s account (Job 18:4 b-c).
"A speaker who has run out of ideas can always resort to satire. No [true] pastor mocks a sufferer by throwing his own words back at him." [Note: Ibid., p. 188.]
XV.
A SCHEME OF WORLD RULE
Job 18:1-21
BILDAD SPEAKS
COMPOSED in the orderly parallelism of the finished mashal, this speech of Bildad stands out in its strength and subtlety and, no less, in its cruel rigour quite distinct among those addressed to Job. It is the most trenchant attack the sufferer has to bear. The law of retribution is stated in a hard collected tone which seems to leave no room for doubt. The force that overbears and kills is presented rather as fate or destiny than as moral government. No attempt is made to describe the character of the man on whom punishment falls. We hear nothing of proud defiance or the crime of settling in habitations under the Divine curse. Bildad ventures no definitions that may not fit Jobs case. He labels a man godless, and then, with a dogged relish, follows his entanglement in the net of disaster. All he says is general, abstract; nevertheless, the whole of it is calculated to pierce the armour of Jobs supposed presumption. It is not to be borne longer; that against all wisdom and certainty this man, plainly set among the objects of wrath, should go on defending himself as if the judgment of men and God went for nothing.
With singular inconsistency the wicked man is spoken of as one who for some time prospers in the world. He has a settlement from which he is ejected, a family that perishes, a name of some repute which he loses. Bildad begins by admitting what he afterwards denies, that a man of evil life may have success. It is indeed only for a time, and perhaps the idea is that he becomes wicked as he becomes rich and strong. Yet if the effect of prosperity is to make a man proud and cruel and so bring him at once into snares and pitfalls according to a rigorous natural law-how then can worldly success be the reward of virtue? Bildad is nearer the mark with description than with reasoning. It is as though he said to Job, Doubtless you were a good man once; you were my friend and a servant of God; but I very much fear that prosperity has done you harm. It is clear that, as a godless man, you are now driven from light into darkness, that fear and death wait for you. The speaker does not see that he is overturning his own scheme of world rule.
There is bitterness here, the personal feeling of one who has a view to enforce. Does the man before him think he is of such account that the Almighty will intervene to become surety for him and justify his self-righteousness? It is necessary that Job shall not even seem to get the best of the argument. No bystander shall say his novel heresies appear to have a colour of truth. The speaker is accordingly very unlike what he was in his first address. The show of politeness and friendship is laid aside. We see the temper of a mind fed on traditional views of truth, bound in the fetters of self-satisfied incompetence. In his admirable exposition of this part of the book Dr. Cox cites various Arabic proverbs of long standing which are embodied, one way or other, in Bildads speech. It is a cold creed which builds on this wisdom of the world. He who can use grim sayings against others is apt to think himself superior to their frailties, in no danger of the penalties he threatens. And the speech of Bildad is irritating just because everything is omitted which might give a hinge or loop to Jobs criticism.
Nowhere is the skill of the author better shown than in making these protagonists of Job say false things plausibly and effectively. His resources are marvellous. After the first circle of speeches the lines of opposition to Job marked out by the tenor of the controversy might seem to admit no more or very little fresh argument. Yet this address is as graphic and picturesque as those before it. The full strength of the opposition is thrown into those sentences piling threat on threat with such apparent truth. The reason is that the crisis approaches. By Bildads attack the sufferer is to be roused to his loftiest effort, -that prophetic word which is in one sense the raison detre of the book. One may say the work done here is for all time. The manifesto of humanity against rabbinism, of the plain mans faith against hard theology, is set beside the most specious arguments for a rule dividing men into good and bad, simply as they appear to be happy or unfortunate.
Bildad opens the attack by charging Job with hunting for words-an accusation of a general kind apparently referring to the strong expressions he had used in describing his sufferings at the hand of God and from the criticism of men. He then calls Job to understand his own errors, that he may be in a position to receive the truth. Perverting and exaggerating the language of Job, he demands why the friends should be counted as beasts and unclean, and why they should be so branded by a man who was in revolt against providence.
“Why are we counted as beasts,
As unclean even in your sight?
Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger-
For thy sake shall the earth be forsaken,
And the rock be moved from its place?”
Ewalds interpretation here brings out the force of the questions. “Does this madman who complained that Gods wrath tore him, but who, on the contrary, sufficiently betrays his own bad conscience by tearing himself in his anger, really demand that on his account, that he may be justified, the earth shall be made desolate (since really, if God Himself should pervert justice, order, and peace, the blessings of the happy occupation of the earth could not subsist)? Does he also hope that what is firmest, the Divine order of the world, should be removed from its place? Oh, the fool, who in his own perversity and confusion rebels against the everlasting order of the universe!” All is settled from time immemorial by the laws of providence. Without more discussion Bildad reaffirms what the unchangeable decree, as he knows it, certainly is.
Nevertheless the light of the wicked shall be put out,
And the gleam of his fire shall not shine,
The light shall fade in his tent,
And his lamp over him shall be put out.
The steps of his strength shall be straitened,
And his own counsel shall cast him down.
For into a net his own feet urge him,
And he walketh over the toils.
A snare seizeth him by the heel,
And a noose holdeth him fast:
In the ground its loop is hidden,
And its mesh in the path.
By reiteration, by a play on words the fact as it appears to Bildad is made very clear-that for the wicked man the world is full of perils, deliberately prepared as snares for wild animals are set by the hunter. The general proposition is that the light of his prosperity is an accident. It shall soon be put out and his home be given to desolation. This comes to pass first by a restraint put on his movements. The sense of some inimical power observing him, pursuing him, compels him to move carefully and no longer with the free stride of security. Then in the narrow range to which he is confined he is caught again and again by the snares and meshes set for him by invisible hands. His best devices for his own safety bring him into peril.
In the open country and in the narrow path alike he is seized and held fast. More and more closely the adverse power confines him, bearing upon his freedom and his life till his superstitious fears are kindled. Terrors confound him now on every side and suddenly presented startle him to his feet. This once strong man becomes weak; he who had abundance knows what it is to hunger. And death is now plainly in his cup. Destruction, a hateful figure, is constantly at his side, appearing as disease which attacks the body. It is leprosy, the very disease Job is suffering.
“It devoureth the members of his skin,
Devoureth his members, even the firstborn of death,
He is plucked from the tent of his confidence,
And he is brought to the king of terrors.”
The personification of death here is natural, and many parallels to the figure are easily found. Horror of death is a mark of strong healthy life, especially among those who see beyond only some dark Sheol of dreary hopeless existence. The “firstborn of death” is the frightful black leprosy, and it has that figurative name as possessing more than other diseases that power to corrupt the body which death itself fully exercises.
This cold prediction of the death of the godless from the very malady that has attacked Job is cruel indeed, especially from the lids of one who formerly promised health and felicity in this world as the result of penitence. We may say that Bildad has found it his duty to preach the terrors of God, and the duty appears congenial to him, for he describes with insistence and ornament the end of the godless. But he should have deferred this terrible homily till he had clear proof of Jobs wickedness. Bildad says things in his zeal of his spirit against the godless which he will afterwards bitterly regret.
Having brought the victim of destiny to the grave, the speaker has yet more to say. There were consequences that extended beyond a mans own suffering and extinction. His family, his name, all that was desired of remembrance in this world would be denied to the evildoer. In the universe, as Bildad sees it, there is no room for repentance or hope even to the children of the man against whom the decree of fate has gone forth.
They shall dwell in his tent that are none of his!
Brimstone shall be showered on his habitation;
His roots shall be dried up beneath,
And above his branches shall wither;
His memory shall perish from the land,
And he shall have no name in the earth-
It shall be driven from light into darkness,
And chased out of the world.
The habitation of the sinner shall either pass into the hand of utter strangers or be covered with brimstone and made accursed. The roots of his family or clan, those who still survive of an older generation, and the branches above-children or grandchildren, as in Job 18:19 -shall wither away. So his memory shall perish, alike in the land where he dwelt and abroad in other regions. His name shall go into oblivion, chased with aversion and disgust out of the world. Such, says Bildad, is the fate of the wicked. Job saw fit to speak of men being astonished at the vindication he was to enjoy when God appeared for him. But the surprise would be of a different kind. At the utter destruction of the wicked man and his seed, his homestead and memory, they of the west would be astonished and they of the east affrighted. As logical as many another scheme since offered to the world, a moral scheme also, this of Bildad is at once determined and incoherent. He has no doubt, no hesitation in presenting it. Were he the moral governor, there would be no mercy for sinners who refused to be convicted of sin, in his way and according to his law of judgment. He would lay snares for them, hunt them down, snatch at every argument against them. In his view that is the only way to overcome unregenerate hearts and convince them of guilt. In order to save a man he would destroy him. To make him penitent and holy he would attack his whole right to live. Of the humane temper Bildad has almost none.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Hell trembled at the hideous name, and sighed
From all her caves, and back resounded, ‘Death!'”
That open the palace of eternity.”
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Expositors Bible Commentary