Job 18
Bildad Rebukes Job's Words 1–4
The Wicked Are Trapped by Darkness 5–10
Terror and Destruction Await the Wicked 11–14
Complete Extinction of Name and Line 15–21
Bible text: American Standard Version (1901) · Public domain
Study Notes for Job 18
Verse 2
How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? — Bildad opens as he did at 8:2, 'How long wilt thou speak these things?' 'End' is qenets, a limit. 'Mark' is bin, to consider or understand: the friends will speak when Job has taken in what has been said, and Job answers in ch.19.
Verse 3
counted as beasts — Job had sent them to the beasts in 12:7 and said in 17:4, 10 that they lacked understanding. 'Vile' is tamah, a form of the word for being unclean. Asaph uses the same picture of his own folly: 'I was as a beast before thee' (Ps 73:22).
Verse 4
He teareth himself in his anger — Taraph, to tear as a beast does its prey, is Job's own word for what God does to him: 'He teareth me in his wrath' (16:9). Bildad turns it on Job. 'The rock is removed out of his place' repeats Job's words in 14:18.
Verse 5
the light of the wicked shall be put out — Daak is the verb for a lamp going out, as in Prov 13:9, 'the lamp of the wicked shall be put out'. From here to v.21 Bildad sets out the fate of the wicked in one sequence. Job disputes it in 21:17: 'How oft is the candle of the wicked put out!'
Verse 6
his candle shall be put out with him — The 'candle' (nir) is the household lamp kept burning in the tent (ohel), and its going out marks the end of the house. The psalmist says the opposite of the one who trusts the LORD: 'thou wilt light my candle: the LORD my God will enlighten my darkness' (Ps 18:28).
Verse 7
The steps of his strength shall be straitened — 'Straitened' is yatsar, made narrow, the verb of Prov 4:12, 'when thou goest, thy steps shall not be straitened'. 'Counsel' is etsah, the word used of God's own counsel in 12:13: here the wicked man's plan casts him down.
Verse 8
cast into a net by his own feet — The verse begins a run of snares that ends in v.10. 'Net' is resheth and 'snare' is sebakah, a mesh. The wicked are caught by what they set: 'in the net which they hid is their own foot taken' (Ps 9:15). Job replies that God 'hath compassed me with his net' (19:6).
Verse 11
Terrors shall make him afraid — 'Terrors' is ballahah, sudden alarms, the word that returns in v.14 in 'the king of terrors'. They come 'on every side', the phrase of Jer 6:25, 'fear is on every side'. 'Drive him to his feet' is puts, to scatter or dash apart.
Verse 13
the firstborn of death — 'Strength' here is bad, a limb or part of the body. 'Firstborn' (bekor) also means chief, as in 'the firstborn of the poor' (Isa 14:30), the poorest. The phrase names death's chief agent, which eats the limbs of the wicked man.
Verse 14
the king of terrors — Death is spoken of as a king, and the loss of the wicked man's confidence brings him to it. 'Rooted out' is nathaq, the verb of 17:11. Christ came to 'deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage' (Heb 2:15).
Verse 15
brimstone shall be scattered — Brimstone is the judgment poured on the cities of the plain: 'the LORD rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire' (Gen 19:24). Ps 11:6 gives it as 'the portion of their cup', and Isa 34:9 as the fate of Edom's land. 'None of his' is the Hebrew beli, 'without' or 'not'.
Verse 16
His roots shall be dried up — The man is described as a tree, root below and branch above. Malachi uses the same pair of the day that 'shall leave them neither root nor branch' (Mal 4:1). Job describes himself later in the same terms: 'My root was spread out by the waters' (29:19).
Verse 17
His remembrance shall perish — Zeker is a memorial, what is recalled of a man. 'The face of the LORD is against them that do evil, to cut off the remembrance of them from the earth' (Ps 34:16). 'The name of the wicked shall rot' (Prov 10:7). Bildad adds the street, where a man's name is spoken.
Verse 19
son nor nephew — Nin and neked are a man's offspring and his son's son, together meaning every descendant. Isa 14:22 uses both of Babylon: 'cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, and son, and nephew'. Job's sons and daughters had died in 1:18–19.
Verse 21
the place of him that knoweth not God — 'Dwellings' (mishkan) are the tents of the wicked, as in 8:22, 'the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought'. Not knowing God is the mark of the wicked elsewhere: 'they know not me, saith the LORD' (Jer 9:3), and a generation 'which knew not the LORD' (Judg 2:10).