Chapter Eighteen

Bildad’s speech in the second conversation. 1–3. Introductory remarks. 4. The stability of the laws of retribution. 5–21. The destruction of the wicked—his inevitable fate.

Job 18:1. And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: Job 18:2. When will you put an end to such words? Consider, and then we will speak. Job 18:3. Why are we counted as beasts and become vile in your sight? Bildad’s call (cf. Job 8:2) to a cool-headed, thoughtful (“consider, and then we will speak”—verse 2) discussion of the question is motivated by the fact that in the heat of dispute, in a state of irritability, the friends reproach each other for lack of judgment (“why do you count us as beasts and regard us as creatures without sense”—verse 3; Job 12:2-3). A preconceived notion of “mutual foolishness” prevents one from agreeing with another; it hinders the clarification of truth.

Job 18:4. O you, who tears your soul in your anger! Will the earth be emptied for you, and a rock move from its place? The harmful consequences of such a disposition are evident in Job himself. Not agreeing with his friends, being confident in his own righteousness and meeting only objections, he “tears his soul in anger,” becomes irritated and tormented (cf. Job 17:2). But however passionate his words may be, they are not able to change the law of moral world order, according to which sinners are punished on earth. It is as unchangeable as the laws of the physical world. The earth appointed by God for human habitation (Isa 45:18) will always remain inhabited; at man’s word a rock will not move from its place; likewise the law of retribution for sins will not be annulled.

Job 18:5. Yes, the light of the wicked will go out, and no spark will remain from his fire. Job 18:6. The light in his tent will grow dark, and his lamp will be extinguished over him. The law of retribution is manifested in the fact that the happiness (“light,” “lamp”—cf. Job 21:17; Prov 13:9) of the wicked is never lasting. It disappears completely: “no spark will remain from his fire” (verse 5), or in literal translation: “the flame of his hearth will cease to shine.”

Job 18:7. The steps of his strength will be shortened, and his own scheme will cast him down, Job 18:8. for he will be caught in a net by his feet, and he will walk in snares. Job 18:9. A snare will catch him by the heel, and a robber will seize him. Job 18:10. Hidden snares are spread for him on the ground, and traps are on the road. All manifestations of the wicked’s strength and might will come to nothing, and the cause of this is his own deeds (verse 1). Without noticing it (verse 10), he will become entangled in them like a bird in snares and traps (cf. Prov 5:22).

Job 18:11. Terrors will frighten him from all sides and will make him run to and fro. Job 18:12. His strength will be exhausted by hunger, and ruin is ready at his side. The closer his ruin approaches, the stronger grows its presentiment, and greater efforts are made for deliverance (“will make him run to and fro”—verse 11). But the latter is impossible: on all sides of the wicked there are terrors—forewarnings of disaster. The effort to escape from them only weakens him, as hunger weakens a man: and ruin is ready.

Job 18:13. His limbs will be eaten by disease, and the first-born of Death will devour his members. In preparing destruction for himself, the wicked dies in terrible agony. “His limbs will be eaten, the first-born of Death will devour...,” that is, his body will be destroyed by the most terrible diseases (cf. Isa 14:30: “the first-born of the poor”—the poorest), in which, as it were, all the destructive power of death is concentrated, just as in the first-born the strength of his parents is concentrated (Gen 49:3).

Job 18:14. His hope will be driven from his tent, and this will bring him down to the king of terrors. According to the exact translation from the Hebrew, the first half of this verse should read: “he will be driven from his tent, which served as his safety.” Stricken by an incurable disease, the wicked dies (“descends to the king of terrors”—death, cf. Job 10:21-22) in that very tent in which, dwelling, he thought himself safe. Job 18:15-21. Punishment overtakes not only the wicked himself but his dwelling and family.

Job 18:15. They will dwell in his tent, for it is no longer his; his dwelling will be sprinkled with sulfur. Since regions sprinkled with sulfur are uninhabitable for people (Deut 29:22-23), by those who will dwell in the wicked’s tent it is more natural to understand not people but wild animals, including jackals, with which the prophets fill the ruins smitten by God’s anger (Isa 13:20-22).

Job 18:16. His roots will wither below, and his branches will wither above. The complete destruction of a tree with branches and roots (Isa 5:24; Amos 2:9) is an image of the destruction of the wicked’s family, which is discussed below (verse 19).

Job 18:17. The memory of him will disappear from the earth, and his name will not be on the city square. Job 18:18. He will be driven from light into darkness and swept from the face of the earth. From the wicked, as from his dwelling, no trace remains: the memory of him disappears, which was considered the greatest misfortune (Deut 25:6; Sir 46:14-16), and his name falls into oblivion “on the city square,” literally from the Hebrew “on the face of the field”—“on the fields” (Job 5:10; Prov 8:26), in regions lying outside the country in which the wicked lived. Verse 18 is a figurative expression of the thought of verse 17.

Job 18:19. Neither a son of his nor a grandson will be among his people, and no one will remain in his dwellings. From the wicked, no descendants remain.

Job 18:20. Those of his day will be appalled, and his contemporaries will be seized with terror. Forever, only the day of the wicked’s destruction will be remembered by both his descendants and his contemporaries, or according to the explanation of others (Delitzsch), by the peoples of the east and the west, because the Hebrew word “aharonim” (“descendants”) is used in the sense of “west,” and “kadmonim” (“contemporaries”) means “east.” Such an interpretation finds confirmation in the remark of verse 17, that the name of the wicked falls into oblivion in regions lying outside his homeland.

Job 18:21. Such are the dwellings of the lawless, and such is the place of the one who knows not God. In view of Job’s perhaps claim (Job 17:11-16), Bildad does not find it necessary to conclude his speech with words of comfort, as he did the first time (Job 8:21).