The Second Speech of Bildad Eliphaz with more inwardness than his fellows had made the punishment of the sinner to come greatly from his own conscience (ch. Job 15:20 _seq_., cf. Job's reply as to himself ch. Job 16:12); Bildad attributes it to the order of nature and the moral instinct of mankind,... [ Continue Reading ]
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 w... [ Continue Reading ]
Then he spoke impiously of God, saying that He tore him in His anger (ch. Job 16:9), and appealed to the earth and nature to rise up on his side (ch. Job 16:18). Such things provoke the personal and moral indignation of Bildad alike. It seems to him that Job holds his brethren and him little higher... [ Continue Reading ]
_and reputed vile_ lit. _and are unclean_. Bildad describes what Job's treatment of his friends suggests to him as Job's idea of them. The reference is to the passages, ch. Job 17:4; Job 17:10, and the words "clean of hands" ch. Job 17:9, which Job had used of himself and other unjustly persecuted m... [ Continue Reading ]
The first clause must be rendered in English, Thou who tearest thyself in thine anger. The Heb. uses in preference the objective form, _One who teareth himself in his anger_, shall the earth be forsaken for thee? See on ch. Job 12:4. The words refer to ch. Job 16:9 it is not God who tears him, it... [ Continue Reading ]
The disastrous end of the wicked, in the moral order of the world, is certain The last verse naturally led over to this idea, which is the theme of the speech. The idea is set out in a great variety of graphic figures, and the speech is studded with sententious and proverbial sayings in the manner... [ Continue Reading ]
_his candle shall be put out with him_ The meaning is either: his lamp shall be put out over him, the idea being that it was hung in his dwelling above him or shone upon him, cf. ch. Job 29:3, "when God's lamp shined upon my head"; or, his lamp shall be put out to him, the prep. being the same refle... [ Continue Reading ]
Another figure for the same thought. His firm, wide steps of prosperity and security, when he walked in a wide place (Psalms 4:1), become narrowed and hampered. Widening of the steps is a usual Oriental figure for the bold and free movements of one in prosperity, as straitening of them is for the co... [ Continue Reading ]
All things hasten on his ruin; the moral order of the world is such that wherever he moves or touches upon it it becomes a snare to seize him. "Snares" do not mean temptations, they are hidden instruments of destruction that seize and hold the hunted creature. His "counsel," and his own feet (Job 18... [ Continue Reading ]
_the robber shall prevail_ Rather, THE TRAP LAYETH HOLD OF HIM, as all the verbs in this passage should be put in the present tense. The word is that occurring ch. Job 5:5. The world of God is one network of snares for the wicked man, he walks upon snares, in the field and in the way alike. The idea... [ Continue Reading ]
This verse does not seem to give a picture of the sinner's conscience, but rather of his consciousness at last. The preceding verses described how he walked on snares unwitting that they were there; now he awakens to the perception of his condition, he feels the complications that surround him, and... [ Continue Reading ]
_hunger-bitten_ A word formed like "frost-bitten," "cankerbit" (Lear, 5.3). The word literally means "hungry," and the figure expresses the idea that his strength shall diminish and become feeble, as one does that is famished; cf. a similar strong figure, Joel 1:12, "Joy is withered away from the so... [ Continue Reading ]
The closing scenes in three steps: his strength is weakened; his body consumed by a terrible disease; he is led away to the dark king.... [ Continue Reading ]
The verse reads, It shall devour the members of his body, Even the firstborn of death shall devour his members. The subject _it_in clause one is the "firstborn of death" in clause two; cf. a similar construction, Judges 5:20, "they fought from heaven, the stars in their courses fought against Sis... [ Continue Reading ]
The meaning is, He shall be plucked out of his tent wherein he trusted, And he shall be brought to the king of terrors. In the phrase "his tent wherein he trusted" Bildad goes back to his former figure of the sinner's house which he grasps to maintain himself, ch. Job 8:15. The "king of terrors... [ Continue Reading ]
The sense probably is, There shall dwell in his tent they that are not his, Brimstone shall be showered upon his habitation. So Conant excellently. The two clauses of the verse are not to be taken logically together, they describe the destiny awaiting the sinner's possessions and dwelling under d... [ Continue Reading ]
The extinction of his name and race.... [ Continue Reading ]
_shall his branch be cut off_ Rather, HIS BRANCHES SHALL WITHER, see on ch. Job 14:2. The tree is not a figure for the sinner as a single person, but as the centre of a family, widely ramified and firmly established (his roots), and numerous (his branches). These all perish with him, cf. Bildad's fo... [ Continue Reading ]
_perish from the earth_ Rather, FROM THE LAND. _in the street_ Rather, ON THE FACE OF THE EARTH. The word means the outlying places (marg. to ch. Job 5:10), as opposed to the cultivated land, and "earth" as a word expressing wideness and distance seems nearest here.... [ Continue Reading ]
_He shall be driven_ lit. _they shall drive_(or, they drive) _him_. The subject is mankind, men; and the sinner himself is referred to, hardly, his name (Job 18:17).... [ Continue Reading ]
Men's horror of his fate and memory. Bildad now introduces the moral instinct of mankind and the part it takes in the sinner's downfall. The words go back somewhat on the ideas of the previous verses.... [ Continue Reading ]
_son nor nephew_ i. e. son nor _grandson_. So the word _nephew_(Lat _nepos_, through Fr. _neveu_) means in the English of the time O thou most auncient grandmother of all, Why suffredst thou thy nephews dear to fall. Spens. _Fa. Q_. 1. 5. 22, (Michie, _Bible Words and Phrases_). In Genesis 21:23... [ Continue Reading ]
_They that come after him_ The word "him" must be omitted; the expression refers to the later generations of men, as _they that went before_does to the earlier, those nearer the sinner's day, but, of course, both expressions describe generations living after the wicked man. Others take the two phras... [ Continue Reading ]