Bible Commentaries
Job 18

Verses 1-21

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.