Bible Commentaries
Job 18

Verses 1-21

Bildad’s Second Speech

Bildad replies with a rebuke to Job and a reassertion of the miserable lot of the wicked already asserted by Eliphaz; not so much, however, with covert reference to Job, to whose case the description is largely unsuitable, as in answer to his impeachment of God’s moral government.

1-4. Bildad protests against Job’s violent language.

2. RV ’How long will ye lay snares for words’; i.e. hunt for arguments. Mark] RV ’consider (the matter).’

3. Cp. Job 17:2, Job 17:4-5, Job 17:10.

4a. RV ’Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger,’ a rebuke to Job’s rash utterance in Job 16:9. Shall the earth, etc.] Did Job imagine that God’s universal law that sin must be followed by suffering would be reversed in his case, because of bis expressions of indignation?

5-21. He insists on the misery in the present life and the dishonour after death, which are the portion of sinners.

5, 6. The sinner’s house shall be desolate.

Tabernacle] RV ’tent.’

7b. His crafty plans shall be his ruin.

9. Gin] i.e. trap. The word was originally ’grinne.’

9b. RV ’a snare shall lay hold on him.’

11. Drive him to his feet] RV ’chase him at his heels.’

12. Hunger-bitten] exhausted by hunger.

13. Strength of his skin] RV ’members of his body.’ Firstborn of death] i.e. a deadly disease.

14a. Render, ’He shall be rooted out of the tent he trusted was his own.’ King of terrors] death.

15a. RV ’There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his,’ i.e. his possessions will pass into the hands of strangers. Some read, ’Lilith shall dwell in his tent.’ Lilith is a nocturnal demon, that plays the part of a vampire. Brimstone shall be scattered] a sign of God’s wrath (cp. Genesis 19:24; Psalms 11:6; Isaiah 34:9).

17. No name in the street] he is quite forgotten.

19. Nephew] RV ’son’s son.’

20. Render, ’They of the west shall be astonished at his day (i.e. fate), and horror shall seize those on the east.’ His name will be a byword throughout the world.