Job 18:1-4

C.

THE GRANDEUR AND MISERY OF MAN OR IMPOSSIBILITY OF SELF-JUSTIFICATION (Job 18:1-21)

1.

Sharp rebuke of Job (Job 18:1-4)

TEXT 18:1-4

1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,

2 How long will ye hunt for words?

Consider, and afterwards we will speak.
3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts,

Andare become unclean in your sight?

4 Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger,

Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?
Or shall the rock be removed out of its place?

COMMENT 18:1-4

Job 18:1Bildad's second speech (Job 18:1-21) reveals a consciously restrained lack of feeling. He attacks Job for his lack of appreciation for ancient wisdom, his abusive language, and also implies that Job cannot expect to be exempted from the universal lawthat suffering is inevitably punishment for sinJob 12:6. The content of the speech is largely composed of a legalistic tirade concerning the fate of those who know not God. The tone of the speech is exhausted by a warning and threat syndrome. There is not one word of consolation to be found in it. Bildad always addresses Job in the plural (you as plural is obscured in our translations), perhaps as a member of the class of unrighteous persons. His speech is divided into two parts: (1) Job 18:2-4; and (2) Job 18:5-21.

Job 18:2The first part of his speech seeks an answer to the question: Why is Job so contemptuous of his friends? He charges that Job is so egocentric that he expects God to change the laws of creation for him. Bildad suggests that Job has spoken long enough and should stop long enough for his friends to give rebuttal. Dhorme suggests that the Hebrew word translated in A. V. as consider is a rhetorical device which is used to ask Job to be intelligent, i.e., if the dialogue is to continue, Job must show some signs of intelligence, thus far absent.

Job 18:3Bildad resents Job's comparison of his friends as dumb beastJob 16:9-10. Line two in A. V. hardly conveys what the text saysWhy are we stupid from tamah, to be stopped up intellectually, not unclean as A. V. (so Brown, Driver, and Briggs, Lexicon)Psalms 73:22.[197]

[197] Blommerde'S, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job remarks do not seem to be helpful in understanding this verse.

Job 18:4Bildad asserts, without feeling, that Job is the cause of his own suffering because he refuses to take the proper means to remove God's judgment from himself and his household. The rock is sometimes an epithet of God, probably so here. The law of retribution is as solid and firm as a rock and is part of the structure of the universe. Bildad alludes to Job's remarks in Job 16:9to the effect that God has torn me in His wrath. He retorts that Job has torn himself. If the established order of the universe dictates that suffering is the empirical proof of sin, does Job think that this order is to be modified for him?[198] The last phrase is a quotation from Job 14:18 b.

[198] M. Dahood, JBL, 1959, p. 306, for analysis of this theme.

2. The certain dreadful doom of the hardened evildoer (Job 18:5-21)