Job · chapter 18 of 42
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In Job 18 Bildad speaks for the second time. Offended that Job treated him like an animal, he asks when Job will stop talking and says the earth will not be altered for him. He describes the fate of the wicked with images of extinguished light, nets, traps and terrors, who loses his offspring and his memory, and concludes that such is the dwelling of one who does not know God.
In the second cycle Bildad no longer advises Job to seek God; he only describes what happens to the wicked, leaving Job to draw the conclusion. His speech is the longest poetic description of the fate of the wicked in the book and is full of images: light going out, nets, snares, fire and uprooting. The tension is that Bildad speaks of a man without naming him, and everyone knows whom he means.
Bildad asks Job when he will put an end to words: consider, and then we will speak. Why are we counted as cattle and regarded as stupid in your sight? You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you, or the rock be removed from its place?
Then Bildad describes the fate of the wicked. The light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. The light is dark in his tent, and his lamp above him is put out. His strong steps are shortened, and his own counsel throws him down. He is cast into a net by his own feet and walks onto a snare. A trap seizes him by the heel and a snare lays hold of him. A rope is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the path. Terrors frighten him on every side and chase him at his heels. His strength is famished and calamity is ready for his stumbling. It consumes the skin of his body; the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.
He is torn from the tent in which he trusted and brought to the king of terrors. In his tent dwells what is not his, and sulfur is scattered over his habitation. His roots dry up beneath, and his branch withers above. His memory perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the street. He is thrust from light into darkness and driven out of the world. He has no offspring or descendant among his people, and no survivor where he used to live. They of the west are appalled at his day, and the east is seized with horror. Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, such is the place of one who knows not God.
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Bildad asks Job whether, for his sake, the earth shall be forsaken or the rock removed from its place. With irony he says the order of the world will not change because of one man's complaint, and that Job must accept the rule of retribution.
The light of the wicked is put out, and the flame of his fire does not shine. Extinguished light is an image of total ruin, and Bildad uses it to hint that Job is on the road to that fate.
His memory perishes from the earth, and he has no name in the street. In the ancient world, vanishing from memory was a form of death, and so Bildad proposes it as the final punishment of the wicked.
Bildad concludes that such are the dwellings of the unrighteous and the place of one who knows not God. It is an apparently pious statement, but applied to Job it sounds like a sentence, and the reader knows it is unjust.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: Bildad the Shuhite, for the second time. — Job 18:1
Answer: That they are counted as cattle and regarded as stupid in Job's sight. — Job 18:3
Answer: It is put out, and the lamp above him goes out. — Job 18:5-6
Answer: The net, the snare and the trap in his path. — Job 18:8-10
Answer: It perishes from the earth and he has no name in the street. — Job 18:17
Answer: By saying that such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, the place of one who knows not God. — Job 18:21
Bildad's speech is beautiful and cruel. It describes with powerful images what happens to the wicked, and if we read it alone it would seem like wisdom. But it is addressed to a man who is suffering and who has already said that he is innocent. It reminds us that a general truth, used without discernment, can wound.
In church we must take care how we apply teachings about God's judgment. It is a truth we must know, but we do not use it to pass sentence on someone going through a calamity. Before another's pain, let us ask God for wisdom to speak prudently and, many times, to keep silent.
Job 18 ends with the shadow of the wicked, nameless and without descendants, falling over Job. In Job 19 Job will answer with one of the most moving pages of the book: he will describe his loneliness and declare that he knows his Redeemer lives.
It is a poetic expression that probably designates a deadly disease or death personified. Bildad uses it to say that a terrible illness will consume the wicked. Like so many images in this speech, it should not be taken literally.
He speaks of the wicked in the third person to imply that Job is in that situation without accusing him directly. It is a rhetorical device that makes the speech crueler: each image of ruin seems like a description of what Job is already living.
It is an expression understood as a personification of death, the ruler of what causes terror. Bildad describes the wicked dragged before him. It is poetic language and not a teaching about a specific being.