Bible Commentaries
Job 18

Verse 2

How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak.

Ye — Thou, O Job; of whom he speaks here, as also verse3, in the plural number, as was a common idiotism of the Eastern language, to speak thus of one person, especially where he was one of eminency.

Mark — Consider the matter better.

Verse 3

Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?

Beasts — Ignorant, and stupid men, chap17:4,10.

Verse 4

He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?

He — Job. Thou art thy own tormentor.

Forsaken — Shall God give over the government of the earth for thy sake, to prevent thy complaints and clamours? Shall the counsels of God, which are more immoveable than rocks, and the whole course of his providence be altered to comply with thy humours?

Verse 7

The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.

Steps — His strong steps, by a vulgar Hebraism: his attempts and actions; such of them as seem to be contrived with greatest strength of understanding, and carried on with greatest resolution.

Straitened — Shall be hindered and entangled. He shall be cast into difficulties and perplexities, so that he shall not be able to proceed, and to accomplish his enterprizes.

Verse 8

For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.

Feet — By his own designs and actions.

Verse 13

It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.

First-born — A terrible kind of death. The first-born was the chief of his brethren, and therefore this title is given to things eminent in their kind.

Verse 14

His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.

Confidence — All the matter of his confidence, his riches, and children.

Terrors — To death, which even Aristotle called, The most terrible of all terribles. And this it will do, either because it will expose him to his enemies, who will kill him; or because the sense of his disappointments, and losses, and dangers, will break his heart.

Verse 15

It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.

It — Destruction, expressed verse12, shall fix its abode with him.

Because — Because it is none of his own, being got from others by deceit or violence.

Brimstone — It shall be utterly destroyed, as it were, by fire and brimstone. He seems to allude both to the destruction of Sodom, which happened not long before these times, and to the judgment which befel Job, chap1:16.

Verse 18

He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

Darkness — From a prosperous life to disgrace and misery, and to the grave, the land of darkness.

Verse 20

They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted.

Astonied — At the day of his destruction. They shall be amazed at the suddenness, and dreadfulness of it.

Before — Before the persons last mentioned. Those who lived in the time and place where this judgment was inflicted.

Verse 21

Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.

The place — The condition.