Bildad’s second speech
18
📚Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said, 2 📚“How long before you put an end to such words? Use some understanding, and afterwards we can talk.
3 📚Why are we regarded as beasts and considered brutish in your sight?
18:3 Bildad’s pride is wounded. So he tries to hit back hard at Job.⚜
4 📚You tear yourself in your anger. Will the earth be abandoned for you? Or will the rock be moved from its place?
18:4 He insists that the reason for Job’s continuing misery is in Job himself. Declaring Job innocent when he is guilty would be like completely turning upside down the natural order of the universe; God cannot be expected to act against His own laws just for the sake of one man.⚜
5 📚“The light of the wicked will certainly be put out; the flame of his fire will no longer shine.
6 📚The light in his tent will become dark, and the lamp beside him will be put out.
7 📚His strong stride will be shortened, and his own scheme will overthrow him.
8 📚For he is hurled into the net by his own feet, as he walks into the snare.
9 📚The trap seizes him by the heel, and the snare catches him.
10 📚A noose is hidden for him on the ground, and a trap awaits him on the road.
11 📚Terrors frighten him on every side, and drives him to his feet.
12 📚His strength becomes famished, and destruction is ready at his side.
13 📚It devours parts of his skin; the firstborn of death devours his limbs.
14 📚His security is uprooted from his tent, and he is brought before the king of terrors.
15 📚In his tent nothing of his will reside; sulfur will be scattered over his dwelling.
16 📚His roots dry up below, and his branch above will be cut off.
17 📚The memory of him will perish from the earth, and he will have no name outside.
18 📚He is driven from light into darkness, chased out of the world.
19 📚He has no son or descendant among his people, nor anyone remaining in his dwelling.
20 📚Seeing his day those in the west are astonished, and those in the east are frightened.
21 📚Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of the one who does not know God”.
18:5-21 Job’s friends simply cannot believe he is innocent of great wrong doing. They ignore all he says about it. Their minds are made up and they don’t want to be confused with facts. They are convinced beyond doubt that there is an unchangeable law of God at work. Their reasoning was very simple and went like this –
Great calamities are sent only on great sinners.
Great calamities have been sent on Job.
Therefore Job is a great sinner.
Let us beware lest our system of theology, like theirs, ignores some of the facts and brings us to false conclusions. In his second speech Bildad follows the lead of Eliphaz. The verses which follow are a vivid description of what happens to the wicked man. Like Eliphaz, Bildad refers to events that have taken place in Job’s life (vs 11-14,19). In v 21 he is saying that Job is an evil man who does not know God.⚜