Job 18:1-4, Be sensible! says a "friend"
Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
"When will you end these speeches?
Be sensible, and then we can talk.
Why are we regarded as cattle
and considered stupid in your sight?
You who tear yourself to pieces in your anger,
is the earth to be abandoned for your sake?
Or must the rocks be moved from their place?
Bildad is insulted. "Do you think we are as dumb as cattle?" he asks. Bildad's complaint echoes Job's earlier complaint that the "wisdom" his friends provide is obvious and simplistic. Bildad argues that Job's attempts to justify himself are equivalent to asking that the earth be changed or rocks moves from their place (as in an earthquake.) The natural order (suggests Bildad) will not be changed by Job's outrageous claims.
Job 18:5-13, Wicked snuffed out
"The lamp of the wicked is snuffed out;
the flame of his fire stops burning.
The light in his tent becomes dark;
the lamp beside him goes out.
The vigor of his step is weakened;
his own schemes throw him down.
His feet thrust him into a net
and he wanders into its mesh.
A trap seizes him by the heel;
a snare holds him fast.
A noose is hidden for him on the ground;
a trap lies in his path.
Terrors startle him on every side
and dog his every step.
Calamity is hungry for him;
disaster is ready for him when he falls.
It eats away parts of his skin;
death's firstborn devours his limbs.
The wicked are destroyed at every step, defeated, trapped, devoured, eaten. Job, who is suffering, needs to be reminded of the suffering of the wicked. At every turn, Job's friends are almost correct. Proverbs 13:9 agrees with verse 5 of Bildad's argument. How can we criticize Bildad for quoting a proverb?
In verse 11, Job says that "terrors startle [the evil man] on every side." Hartley points out that this echoes Job's complaint in Job 3:25-26. In response to the terrors Job expresses, his "friend" Bildad says that, Yes, the evil man has terrors.
Snares and traps are described in six ways in verses 8-10, in three verses of parallel descriptions of various traps. The Hebrew words translated "net", "mesh", "trap", "snare", "noose" are all distinct: sebakah, resheth, tsammim, pach, malkodeth, chebel, displaying a colorful variety of ways an animal (or a man) could be brought down. The concept of the traps being set out is echoed in other places: David begs for protection from the snares of the wicked in Psalm 140:4-5.
Job 18:14-21, Evil torn away
He is torn from the security of his tent
and marched off to the king of terrors.
Fire resides in his tent;
burning sulfur is scattered over his dwelling.
His roots dry up below
and his branches wither above.
The memory of him perishes from the earth;
he has no name in the land.
He is driven from light into darkness
and is banished from the world.
He has no offspring or descendants among his people,
no survivor where once he lived.
Men of the west are appalled at his fate;
men of the east are seized with horror.
Surely such is the dwelling of an evil man;
such is the place of one who knows not God."
The wicked do indeed suffer for their evil, insists Bildad. Men everywhere (whether in the east or the west) will be shocked by the fate of the evil man. His name will be removed from the earthly memory. Once again, we are close to a proverb (points out Hartley) for Proverbs 10:7 exalts the name of the good man but assures us that the name of the evil man will rot. Bildad and his friends are almost correct; their arguments have significant truth but no compassion.
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