Job 18 - Introduction

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, both of which rise up against the sinner (ch. 18); while Zophar, with a certain variation on both views, explains it from the retributive operation of sin itself (ch. 20). Interesting points of contact may be observed between these views and the first speeches of the three friends.

Several things in Job's last discourse deeply offended Bildad: