Job 18:1-21
1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
2 How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak.
3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?
4 He teareth himselfa in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
5 Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.
6 The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candleb shall be put out with him.
7 The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.
8 For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.
9 The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him.
10 The snare is laidc for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.
11 Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drived him to his feet.
12 His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.
13 It shall devour the strengthe of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
14 His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.
15 It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
16 His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.
17 His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.
18 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.
19 He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.
20 They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted.
21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.
Bildad now returned to the charge, and as was the case with Eliphaz it is perfectly evident from his opening rebuke that he was speaking under a sense of annoyance. He was wounded at the wrongs done to himself and his friends in that Job had treated them as "beasts," as "unclean."
He was angry, moreover, because he considered that Job's attitude threatened the moral order with violence, and he reminded Job that stable things could not be changed for his sake.
He then plunged at once into an elaborate declaration that the wicked are punished. This punishment he described in great detail, and with much force. He first declared the preliminary experience of the wicked. His light is "put out." It is a graphic description. His own spirit, "the spark of his fire," does not shine; and the light without is extinguished. Therefore, his steps are straitened, and "his own counsel" destroys him. His pathway without light to death is portrayed. Lacking the light, he falls into all kinds of snares and traps. Following his death he becomes extinct so far as earth is concerned. "His remembrance" perishes. He is "chased out of the world." He leaves behind him no children to enter into his inheritance.
Finally, Bildad declared:
Such are the dwellings of the unrighteous, And this is the place of him that knoweth not God.
The application is evident. He had described the circumstances through which Job had been passing as to all outward appearance; and finally said that such circumstances were those of the wicked.