Job 18

Then Bildad, from the family of Shuah, answered:

1Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,

NoteBildad is the second of Job's three friends to speak, and this is his second speech. "Shuhite" identifies him by his family or homeland, probably a people or district east of Israel; the friends are all pictured as coming from outside Israel.

2"How long before you stop making speeches? Pay attention, and then we will talk.

2How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak.

Note"Ye" in the King James is plural (Bildad is speaking to more than one person) even though Job is the only one who has just spoken. The Hebrew is plural too, and no one is certain why: Bildad may be lumping Job in with anyone who talks as he does, or the plural may just be a turn of phrase.

3Why are we treated like cattle? Why do you look at us as if we were stupid?

3Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?

4You tear at yourself in your anger. Should the earth be abandoned for your sake? Should a rock be moved out of its place?

4He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?

NoteRocks and the solid earth stand here for the fixed order of the world. Bildad's point is that Job is demanding the world be rearranged around him.

5Listen: the lamp of a wicked man is put out. The flame of his fire stops shining.

5Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.

NoteIn this world a lamp kept burning in the tent through the night was the sign of a living, prospering household. A lamp put out is a standard image for a family line brought to an end, not just for a dark room.

6The light inside his tent grows dark, and the lamp beside him goes out.

6The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.

Note"Tabernacle" in the King James simply means tent or dwelling, the ordinary word for where a person lives. It does not refer to the portable sanctuary of the same name elsewhere in the Bible.

7His strong, confident stride is cut short. His own plans trip him and bring him down.

7The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.

8His own feet walk him into a net, and he wanders straight into its mesh.

8For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.

9A trap catches him by the heel; a snare grips him and holds him fast.

9The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him.

Note"Gin" is an old English word for a snare or trap. The King James "robber" translates a Hebrew word most now take as another kind of snare or noose. Verses 8–10 pile up six different words for hunting gear (nets, meshes, nooses, pits) an effect the English can only partly carry.

10A noose is hidden in the ground for him, and a trap lies waiting on his path.

10The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.

11Terrors frighten him from every side and chase him at every step he takes.

11Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.

Note"Drive him to his feet" is the King James rendering of a phrase that means the terrors dog him at every step, chasing him wherever he goes.

12His strength is worn away by hunger, and disaster stands ready at his side.

12His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall be ready at his side.

Note"Hungerbitten" is an old English word for famished. The Hebrew can be read either as his strength being starved away or as disaster being hungry for him; both readings have been defended.

13It eats away patches of his skin; the firstborn of death eats away his arms and legs.

13It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.

Note"The firstborn of death" is a grim figure of speech, not a name. "Firstborn" meant the foremost or strongest of a set, so this is death's deadliest offspring, most take it as a fatal disease pictured as a living thing that eats a man alive.

14He is torn out of the shelter of his tent and marched off to the king of terrors.

14His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.

Note"The king of terrors" is not explained anywhere in the book. It is generally taken as death itself, or the ruler of the world of the dead, pictured as a monarch to whom the condemned man is marched under guard.

15What does not belong to him now lives in his tent, and burning sulfur is scattered over his home.

15It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.

NoteThe Hebrew of the first line is genuinely obscure. It can be read as "what is not his lives in his tent" (strangers take over his home) or, with a small change, as "fire lives in his tent." Brimstone is burning sulfur; sulfur deposits near the Dead Sea burn with a choking smell and leave ground where nothing grows, so scattering it over a house means the place is left permanently uninhabitable.

16His roots dry up below the ground, and his branches wither above it.

16His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.

NoteA family line was regularly pictured as a tree. Roots dried up and branches cut off means ancestors and descendants alike gone, the whole line ended at both ends.

17Every memory of him disappears from the earth, and his name is not spoken in the streets.

17His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.

NoteThe street, or the open square inside the town gate, was where public business and public talk happened. To have no name there is to be spoken of by nobody, which in this world was close to never having existed.

18He is driven out of the light into darkness, and chased out of the inhabited world.

18He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

19He has no son and no grandson among his people, and no one is left alive where he used to live.

19He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.

Note"Nephew" in 1611 English meant grandson or descendant, not a brother's son. Son and grandson together stand for a continuing line; to have neither was the deepest disaster this culture could name, since a man survived through his descendants.

20Those who come after him are appalled at what happened to him, just as those who came before him shook with horror.

20They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted.

Note"Astonied" is an older form of "astonished," here meaning appalled or struck dumb with horror. The two Hebrew words behind "they that come after" and "they that went before" can mean either later and earlier generations or, since Hebrew directions face east, people in the west and people in the east. Translators split on it; the plain rendering follows the time reading.

21Surely this is what the homes of wicked people are like. This is the place of the man who does not know God."

21Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God.