Job 18:1-21 - Homilies By E. Johnson

Renewed rebukes and warnings.

Bildad again replies, mentioning that the passionate outbreaks of Job are useless. He holds fast to his original principle, that, according to the Law of God, the hardened sinner will suddenly meet his doom. And some secret sin, he persists, must be the cause of the present suffering.

I. INTRODUCTION : DENUNCIATION OF JOB AS A FOOLISH AND VIOLENT SPEAKER . (Verses 1-4.) He is one who "hunts after words." Let him be truly sensible and rational, begs this confident Pharisaic preacher. "Why do you treat us as stupid beasts? ' he indignantly expostulates. "You tear yourself to pieces in your anger, and think yourself lacerated by God" (comp. Job 7:16 ). Does Job exact the earth to be depopulated and rocks to be removed for his sake? Bildad thinks that Job's repeated assertion of his innocence aims at the subversion of the moral order of the world—the holy order given by God (comp. Romans 3:5 , Romans 3:6 ). It is a grand thought, though misapplied by the speaker. The order of God, alike in nature and the human spirit, is unchangeable, and admits of no exception. But this order is not to be misunderstood by drawing conclusions from the outward to the inward life. Where the higher, the spiritual, is concerned, reason, Scripture, and conscience, rather than any outward tokens, must decide the truth.

II. DESCRIPTION OF THE DREADFUL DOOM OF THE HARDENED SINNER . (Verses 5-21.) Most solemn and pathetic; a masterpiece of dramatic representation. A series of striking figures is made to pass before the eye of imagination.

1 . The light of the wicked is put out; no flame leaps from his fire, no cheerful lamp hangs from his tent-roof. This is a favourite image ( Job 21:17 ; Job 29:3 ; Psalms 18:28 ; Proverbs 13:9 ). The Arabs say, "Fate has put out my lamp" (verses 5, 6).

2 . Another figure: his steps are hemmed in—current in the East—and his own counsel overthrows him (verse 7).

3 . Again, the figure of the nets and snares and pitfalls, by which he meets his ruin (verses 8-10). Terrible thoughts and dread events throng around him, and pursue him, like the Erinnyes of the Greek mythology—messengers from God to disquiet his guilty soul (verse 11).

4 . Disaster and ruin are personified in the poetic description. The one has an eager hunger for him; the other stands ready, like an armed foe, to cast him down (verse 12).

III. The description now TAKES A MORE PERSONAL DIRECTION — POINTING TO THE STATE OF JOB .

1 . His disease—the terrible elephantiasis—the "first-born of death," devours him piecemeal (verse 13).

2 . Expelled from his secure abode, he advances into the power of the "king of terrors" (verse 14). He dwells in the tent of another, while brimstone from heaven desolates his former habitation (comp. Job 15:34 ; Deuteronomy 29:22 , Deuteronomy 29:23 ; Psalms 11:6 ). This, it is said, is still at the present day the most dreadful of images to the mind of the Semitic peoples—the desolation of the home (verse 15).

3 . Another figure: he is like a tree, withered at the root, and topped above (verse 16). An imprecation was written on the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar, "Let him have neither roots below nor branches above]" (comp. Isaiah 5:24 ; Amos 2:9 ).

4 . His memory passes away from the land, and his name is known over the wide steppe no more (verse 17; comp. Job 13:12 ). He is thrust out of the light of life and happiness into the darkness of calamity and death, and is hunted from the round habitable earth (verse 18). No scion nor shoot springs from him among the people; none escaped from his utter ruin in his dwellings (verse 19).

5 . An awful impression is felt by all, in East and West alike, who contemplate so dreadful a doom. "Thus," concludes Bildad, "it befalleth the dwellings of the unrighteous, and the place of him that knew not—recognized and honoured not—God" (verses 20, 21).

Detaching this address from its inappropriate application to the sufferer, it is in itself a noble piece of warning and exhortation. Letus gather from it a few lessons.

1 . The curse of the wicked is the extinction of the light of God, who is the Light and Brightness of the righteous (verses 5, sqq.; Psalms 36:9 , Psalms 36:10 ; Psalms 119:105 ). The light, again, may be taken as a figure for the clear knowledge of man's destiny, a clear consciousness in the whole life ( Matthew 6:22 , Matthew 6:23 ). Then the light in the tent enhances the figure, and beautifully points to this clear consciousness in the daily relations of the house.

2 . (Verses 17, sqq.) The memory a man leaves behind is not of so much consequence as the consciousness in life of being known to God. There are many true and hidden ones in the world, whose deeds are done in secret for God's sake ( John 3:21 ); and many godless ones, who make so great a stir and noise in the world that they are talked of after they are gone. It is a peculiar blessing to the child of God if he be made an example to any, and after his death a sweet savour ascends from his life to God's praise ( Proverbs 10:7 ).

3 . The repeated descriptions of the doom of the ungodly are intended to quell our envy at the sight of unhallowed prospering, and direct our thoughts to the inward, the only real life. How can we judge whether any one is a true fearer of God? Not from his religious observances, not from the external fortunes which befall him, not from his individual good works; but from the faith which he owns, from the whole direction of his life to the Divine, from the frame of mind in which he dies ( Psalms 73:17 , Psalms 73:19 , etc.; Wohlfarth).—J.