Job 18:1

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said. Who, next to Eliphaz, spoke before, and now in his turn attacks Job a second time, and more roughly and severely than before; now he gives him no advice or counsel, nor any instructions and exhortations for his good, nor suggests that it might be better times with him again, as he had done before; but only heaps up charges against him, and describes the miserable circumstances of a wicked man, as near to Job's as he could; thereby endeavouring to confirm his former position, that wicked men are punished of God, and to have this conclusion drawn from it, that Job must needs be a wicked man, since he was so greatly afflicted.

Job 18:1 . Then answered Bildad the Shuhite — Bildad, irritated to the last degree that Job should treat their advice with so much contempt, is no longer able to keep his passions within the bounds of decency, He proceeds to downright abuse; and, finding little attention given by Job to his arguments, he tries to terrify him into a compliance. To that end he draws a yet more terrible picture of the final end of a wicked man than any preceding; throwing in all the circumstances of Job’s calamities, that he might plainly perceive the resemblance; and, at the same time, insinuating that he had much worse still to expect, unless he prevented it by a speedy change of behaviour. That it was the highest arrogance in him to suppose that he was of consequence enough to be the cause of altering the general rules of providence, And that it was much more expedient for the good of the whole, that he, by his example, should deter others from treading in the same path of wickedness and folly. — Heath.

1 . Job had used very hard words regarding his friends; he had called them annoying comforters (ch. Job 16:2 ) and scorners (ch. Job 16:20 ), and complained of being beset by their illusory mockeries (ch. Job 17:2 ); and said that God had sent blindness and want of understanding upon them, and that there was not one wise man among them (ch. Job 17:4-10 ). But he had gone further. He had appeared to regard himself and them in their treatment of him as types of two classes—himself as the type of the “upright” and “innocent” and “clean of hands” (ch. Job 17:8-9 ), exposed to the contumely and spitting of the “peoples,” the “godless” (ch. Job 17:6-8 ) and the ruthless (ch. Job 17:5 ).

Verses 1-21. - Bildad's second speech is no improvement upon his first (ch. 8.). He has evidently been exceedingly nettled by Job's contemptuous words concerning his "comforters" ( Job 16:2, 11 ; Job 17:10 ); and aims at nothing but venting his anger, and terrifying Job by a series of denunciations and threats. Job has become to him "the wicked man" (vers. 5, 21), an embodiment of all that is evil, and one "that knoweth not God." No punishment is too severe for him. Verses 1, 2. - Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? (So Rosenmuller, Gesenius, Welte, Merx, Lee, and Canon Cook.) Others render, "How long will ye lay snares for words?" which is a possible translation, but does not give a very good sense. Bildad, a tolerably concise speaker himself (see Job 8:2-22 ; Job 25:2-6 ), is impatient at the length of Job's replies. He had already, in his former speech ( Job 8:2 ), reproached Job with his prolixity; now he repeats the charge. The employment of the second person plural in this and the following verses is not very easily accounted for. Bildad can scarcely mean to blame his friend Eliphaz. Perhaps he regards Job as having supporters among the lookers-on, of whom there may have been several besides Elihu ( Job 32:2 ). Mark; rather, consider ; i.e. think a little, instead of talking. And afterwards we will speak . Then, calmly and without hurry, we will proceed to reply to what you have said. Job 18:1

They shall go down - That is, my hopes shall go down. All the expectations that I have cherished of life and happiness, will descend there with me. We have a similar expression when we say, that a man "has buried his hopes in the grave," when he loses an only son. To the bars of the pit - "Bars of Sheol" - שׁאול בד bad she'ôl. Vulgate, "Profoundest deep." Septuagint, εἰς ᾅδην eis hadēn - to Hades. Sheol, or Hades, was supposed to be under the earth. Its entrance was by the grave as a gate that led to it. It was protected by bars - as prisons are - so that those who entered there could not escape; see the notes at Isaiah 14:9. It was a dark, gloomy dwelling, far away from light, and from the comforts which people enjoy in this life; see Job 10:21-22. To that dark world Job expected soon to descend; and though he did not regard that as properly a place of punishment, yet it was not a place of positive joy. It was a gloomy and wretched world - the land of darkness and of the shadow of death; and he looked to the certainty of going there not with joy, but with anguish and distress of heart. Had Job been favored with the clear and elevated views of heaven which we have in the Christian revelation, death to him would have lost its gloom. We wonder, often, that so good a man expressed such a dread of death, and that he did not look more calmly into the future world. But to do him justice, we should place ourselves in his situation.

We should lay aside all that is cheerful and glad in the views of heaven which Christianity has given us. We should look upon the future world as the shadow of death; a land of gloom and spectres; a place beneath the ground - dark, chilly, repulsive; and we shall cease to wonder at the expressions of even so good a man at the prospect of death. When we look at him, we should remember with thankfulness the different views which we have of the future world, and the source to which we owe them. To us, if we are pious in any measure as Job was, death is the avenue, not to a world of gloom, but to a world of light and glory. It opens into heaven. There is no gloom, no darkness, no sorrow. There all are happy; and there all that is mysterious in this life is made plain - all that is sad is succeeded by eternal joy. These views we owe to that gospel which has brought life and immortality to light; and when we think of death and the future world, when from the midst of woes and sorrows we are compelled to look out on eternity, let us rejoice that we are not constrained to look forward with the sad forebodings of the Sage of Uz, but that we may think of the grave cheered by the strong consolations of Christian hope of the glorious resurrection. When our rest together is in the dust - The rest of me and my hopes. My hopes and myself will expire together.

1 Then began Bildad the Shuhite, and said: 2 How long will ye hunt for words?! Attend, and afterwards we will speak. 3 Wherefore are we accounted as beasts, And narrow-minded in your eyes? Job's speeches are long, and certainly are a trial of patience to the three, and the heaviest trial to Bildad, whose turn now comes on, because he is at pains throughout to be brief. Hence the reproach of endless babbling with which he begins here, as at Job 8:2, when he at last has an opportunity of speaking; in connection with which it must, however, not be forgotten that Job also, Job 16:3, satirically calls upon them to cease. He is indeed more entitled than his opponents to the entreaty not to weary him with long speeches. The question, Job 18:2, if קנצי six derived from קץ, furnishes no sense, unless perhaps it is, with Ralbag, explained: how long do you make close upon close in order, when you seem to have come to an end, to begin continually anew? For to give the thought: how long do you make no end of speaking, it must have been לא עד־אנה, as the lxx (μέχρι τίνος ου ̓ παύσῃ:) involuntarily inserts the negative. And what should the plur. mean by this rendering? The form קנצי equals קצּי would not cause doubt; for though קצּים does not occur elsewhere in the Old Testament, it is nevertheless sufficient that it is good Aramaic (קצּין), and that another Hebr. plural, as קצי, קצוי, קצוות, would have been hardly in accordance with the usage of the language.

But the plural would not be suitable here generally, the over-delicate explanation of Ralbag perhaps excepted. Since the book of Job abounds in Arabisms, and in Arabic qanaṣa (as synon. of ṣâd) signifies venari, venando capere, and qanṣun (maqnaṣun) cassis, rete venatorium; since, further, שׂים קנצים (comp. שׂים ארב, Jeremiah 9:7) is an incontrovertible reading, and all the difficulties in connection with the reference to קץ lying in the עד־אנה for עד־אנה לא and in the plur. vanish, we translate with Castell., Schultens, J. D. Mich., and most modern expositors: how long (here not different from Job 8:2; Job 19:2) will ye lay snares (construction, as also by the other rendering, like Job 24:5; Job 36:16, according to Ges. 116, 1) for words; which, however, is not equivalent to hunt for words in order to contradict, but in order to talk on continually. (Note: In post-bibl. Hebrew, קנצים has become common in the signification, proofs, arguments, as e.g., a Karaitic poet says, ויחוד שׁמך בקנצים הקימותי, the oneness of thy name have I upheld with proofs; vid., Pinsker, Likute Kadmoniot. Zur Gesch. des Karaismus und der karischen Literatur, 1860, S. קסו.) Job is the person addressed, for Bildad agrees with the two others.