ChristadelphianBooksOnline
David Baird
The Education of Job

Chapter 18 - The Second Cycle of Speeches - Bildad



18:1-4
Job indignantly reproved for his words

The Doom of the Wicked


18:5-6
The light of the wicked extinguished

18:7-16
His fate is exact retribution for his folly

18:17-21
The complete extinction of the wicked

Bildad's first speech was an appeal. His second is a rebuke. It is very straightforward and does not require a detailed commentary to understand it. After rebuking Job for, as he regarded it, Job's insulting remarks, he utters a lengthy diatribe on the doom of the wicked.

Bildad is openly angry with Job. His forceful speech is cluttered with vicious references to Job's manifest circumstances. Whereas Eliphaz is not as harsh and inclines more to a consideration of the mental worries of the wicked, Bildad focuses on their outward calamities.

18:1-4         Job indignantly reproved for his wORDs

Bildad is incensed by Job's remarks and his short, sharp rebuke of Job is replete with allusions to Job's response to Eliphaz.

He begins with, "How long will ye lay snares for words" (RV, Gibson, Roth mg) and in doing so uses the plural "ye." Job is no longer a unique individual. He is merely part of the multitude of wicked who lay traps with their words to snare the unsuspecting. And how dare Job complain about their long-winded speeches (16:3). Bildad exhorts Job to "be sensible" (NIV) and then they could talk. If only Job would acknowledge their wisdom, and genuinely receive the accepted theology of the time, then they could work through a solution for him.

This is not possible while Job counts them as beasts and regards them as stupid (18:3 NKJV). This was how Bildad interpreted Job's words of 17:4 as only an animal is deprived of understanding by God. Job's comment that upright men are perplexed, not comprehending why Job should be so afflicted (17:8), did not sit well with his friends who thought they had all the answers. Furthermore, Job in attesting the cleanness of his hands (17:9) had, as far as Bildad was concerned, implied that Bildad and his friends were unclean.

"Does Job think we are stupid?" infers Bildad, "We know exactly who his barbs are being hurled at. How dare he state that he cannot find a wise man among us" (17:10).

Job had even suggested that God was tearing at Job in His anger (16:9). "What presumption," Bildad tells him, "You are tearing yourself in your anger." Did Job expect the laws of nature to be reconstructed for him (18:4)? The doctrine of exact retribution is, in Bildad's estimation, precisely that - a law of nature. Should such principles be changed for Job's benefit?

The Doom of the Wicked

The principles are very simple and straightforward. The wicked suffer horribly, the righteous are blessed. As Job did not accept this entrenched, heartfelt tradition, Bildad believes another description of the fate of the wicked is required. Bildad adds layer upon layer as his declared destiny of the wicked incorporates:

18:5-6         The light of the wicked extinguished

Bildad's exasperation is palpable as he, in an allusion to a lamp in a tent, flings Job's words back at him, says the same thing ("the wicked's light will be darkened") four different ways as well as reinforcing the words of Eliphaz.

Job had accused his friends of inverting the truth. He claimed they taught light when it was dark (17:12). But Job, according to Bildad, had missed the point. "The light (same word as in 17:12) of the wicked (rasha) shall be put out." Rasha was used by Job in 16:11 where he alleged that God had turned him over to the wicked. Bildad was not in any way impressed by this comment. How dare Job label Bildad and his friends as wicked when it is obvious that Job is the wicked one.

The flame (AV "spark" - shabib - only here) of the wicked's fire no longer glows. This is in direct contrast with God's fire that destroyed Job's sheep and his servants (1:16) and, as presented by Eliphaz, consumes the tents of those who take bribes (15:34). Indeed the light will be dark in the wicked's tents (15:34) and their lamps suspended above them shall be put out. Such a symbol is used in Scripture to refer to the continuance or extinction of the household (1Kings 11:16, 15:4; 2Kings 8:19). I am sure Job needed no reminding that his household was snuffed out way back in the opening chapter.

18:7-16         His fate is exact retribution for his folly

But it is all Job's fault. Job had blamed God for the fact that "His athletic pace becomes a shuffle" (18:7 Andersen). Job was once full of vigour and energy. Now he shuffles around, horribly afflicted, because of his own schemes.

According to Bildad the wicked are hoist with their own petards. Bildad warms to this theme because in the space of three verses (18:8-10) he catalogues no fewer than six different forms of trap. It is as if Bildad has extracted every synonym from his thesaurus as he sermonises how the wicked are caught in:

1.
the net (reshet) - 18:8;
2.
the snare (sebaka - another form of net. Sebaka also used of lattice work - 2Kings 1:2) - 18:8;
3.
the gin (pah - "bird trap" TWOT) - 18:9;
4.
the robber (sammin - "snare" TWOT, Ges) - 18:9;
5.
the snare (hebel - "cord, rope" TWOT "noose" RSV, NIV) - 18:10; and
6.
the trap (malkodet - "a catching instrument" TWOT) - only in 18:10.

Job knew that Bildad was referring to his plight. His clever, almost cheeky, response in 19:6 sees Job using yet another synonym and repeating his view that God is the hunter. Bildad, of course, has no time for such sentiments. He sees the wicked living in terror, his evil conscience plaguing him (confirmation of Eliphaz's words of 15:20-24), as every step could result with his own carefully concealed snares entangling him.

The wicked is alone, exposed to wild beasts. "Calamity is hungry for him, disaster is ready for him when he falls" (18:12 NIV). And one of the distinguishing characteristics of an ensnared wicked person is affliction with a vile disease. Not just any disease, a disgusting skin disease, the "firstborn of death" (18:13). The "firstborn of death" is the most terrifying and horrible of all diseases and surely Job's revolting affliction qualified as such.

He will be torn from the tent in which he trusted (see comments on 4:21 - The tent is probably a reference to his body) and have a meeting with the king of terrors: Death (18:14). His tent will be completely plundered. Death will be absolutely final as brimstone (Gen 19:24; Psa 11:6) will be strewn so that there is not the slightest prospect of recovery (Isa 34:9-10).

So thorough will be the extermination of the wicked that his last state will be devoid of offspring. According to Bildad, God will, in repeating the almost clichéd allegory of the uprooted garden growth (8:18 - also alluded to by Job in 14:9 and Eliphaz in 15:30), ensure the total extinction of the wicked man's family (18:16).

18:17-21         The complete extinction of the wicked

Yes, the wicked reaps what he sows. His terrorised life and humiliating death can only be the inevitable outcomes of his unrestrained evil. Bildad moves to his conclusion with a picture that could not be gloomier nor of any comfort whatsoever to the man Job.

The wicked will suffer the greatest indignities imaginable. His name will be eradicated. Nobody will have any positive regard for him. He will be forgotten in his homeland (18:17). Because of his wickedness he will be isolated from society (18:18). Perhaps, implies Bildad, the wicked will sit in the town rubbish dump with lepers and lunatics. He will be without posterity, "neither son and son's sons" (18:19 RV) and, like Job, he will be driven from his home.

Is there anything to gain from the wicked's desolation? "Yes," opines Bildad, "They provide an example!" "Men of the west are appalled at his fate; men of the east are seized with horror" (18:20 NIV). Shock waves will reverberate throughout the known world. It will be clear who is godless and who is good. It will send out warnings to those who do not wish to serve God (18:21).

Bildad has finished his second speech. The message of hope that concluded his first address (8:20-22) is absent. His mind is made up. Job is the worst of sinners. The evidence of God's punishment is so unmistakably manifest there can be no doubt.

Unfortunately for Bildad, Job does not agree. His conscience is clear and Bildad's sermon has missed its target. Bildad certainly stung Job with his words but he has not altered Job's position that he initially espoused in 1:21 - "The LORD gave, the LORD hath taken away."

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