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Matthew Henry |
J O B
CHAP. XVIII.
In this chapter Bildad makes a second assault upon Job. In his first
discourse
he had given him encouragement to hope that all should yet be well with
him. But here there is not a word of that; he has grown more peevish,
and is so far from being convinced by Job’s reasonings that he is but
more exasperated.
I. He sharply reproves Job as haughty and passionate, and obstinate in
his opinion,
II. He enlarges upon the doctrine he had before maintained, concerning
the miser of wicked people and the ruin that attends them,
In this he seems, all along, to have an eye to Job’s complaints of the
miserable condition he was in, that he was in the dark, bewildered,
ensnared, terrified, and hastening out of the world. “This,” says
Bildad, “is the condition of a wicked man; and therefore thou art
one.”
| Second Address of Eliphaz. | B. C. 1520. |
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1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
2 How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and
afterwards we will speak.
3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in
your sight?
4 He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken
for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?
Bildad here shoots his arrows, even bitter words, against poor Job,
little thinking that, though he was a wise and good man, in this
instance he was serving Satan’s design in adding to Job’s
affliction.
I. He charges him with idle endless talk, as Eliphaz had done
(ch. xv. 2, 3):
How long will it be ere you make an end of words?
v. 2.
Here he reflects, not only upon Job himself, but either upon all the
managers of the conference (thinking perhaps that Eliphaz and Zophar
did not speak so closely to the purpose as they might have done) or
upon some that were present, who possibly took part with Job, and put
in a word now and then in his favour, though it be not recorded. Bildad
was weary of hearing others speak, and impatient till it came to his
turn, which cannot be observed to any man’s praise, for we ought to be
swift to hear and slow to speak. It is common for contenders to
monopolize the reputation of wisdom, and then to insist upon it as
their privilege to be dictators. How unbecoming this conduct is in
others every one can see; but few that are guilty of it can see it in
themselves. Time was when Job had the last word in all debates
(ch. xxix. 22):
After my words they spoke not again. Then he was in power and
prosperity; but now that he was impoverished and brought low he could
scarcely be allowed to speak at all, and every thing he said was as
much vilified as formerly it had been magnified. Wisdom
therefore (as the world goes) is good with an inheritance
for the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and, because he is poor,
his words are not heard,
Eccl. ix. 16.
II. With a regardlessness of what was said to him, intimated in that,
Mark, and afterwards we will speak. And it is to no purpose to
speak, though what is said be ever so much to the purpose, if those to
whom it is addressed will not mark and observe it. Let the ear be
opened to hear as the learned, and then the tongues of the learned
will do good service
and not otherwise. It is an encouragement to those that speak of the
things of God to see the hearers attentive.
III. With a haughty contempt and disdain of his friends and of that
which they offered
(v. 3):
Wherefore are we counted as beasts? This was invidious. Job had
indeed called them mockers, had represented them both as unwise
and as unkind, wanting both in the reason and tenderness of men, but he
did not count them beasts; yet Bildad so represents the matter,
1. Because his high spirit resented what Job had said as if it had been
the greatest affront imaginable. Proud men are apt to think themselves
slighted more than really they are.
2. Because his hot spirit was willing to find a pretence to be hard
upon Job. Those that incline to be severe upon others will have it
thought that others have first been so upon them.
IV. With outrageous passion: He teareth himself in his anger,
v. 4.
Herein he seems to reflect upon what Job had said
(ch. xiii. 14):
Wherefore did I take my flesh in my teeth? “It is thy own
fault,” says Bildad. Or he reflected upon what he said
where he seemed to charge it upon God, or, as some think, upon Eliphaz:
He teareth me in his wrath. “No,” says Bildad; “thou alone shalt
bear it.” He teareth himself in his anger. Note, Anger is a sin
that is its own punishment. Fretful passionate people tear and torment
themselves. He teareth his soul (so the word is); every sin
wounds the soul, tears that, wrongs that
unbridled passion particularly.
V. With a proud and arrogant expectation to give law even to Providence
itself: “Shall the earth be forsaken for thee? Surely not; there
is no reason for that, that the course of nature should be changed and
the settled rules of government violated to gratify the humour of one
man. Job, dost thou think the world cannot stand without thee; but
that, if thou art ruined, all the world is ruined and forsaken with
thee?” Some make it a reproof of Job’s justification of himself,
falsely insinuating that either Job was a wicked man or we must deny a
Providence and suppose that God has forsaken the earth and the rock of
ages is removed. It is rather a just reproof of his passionate
complaints. When we quarrel with the events of Providence we forget
that, whatever befals us, it is,
1. According to the eternal purpose and counsel of God.
2. According to the written word. Thus it is written that in the world
we must have tribulation, that, since we sin daily, we must expect to
smart for it; and,
3. According to the usual way and custom, the track of Providence,
nothing but what is common to men; and to expect that God’s counsels
should change, his method alter, and his word fail, to please us, is as
absurd and unreasonable as to think the earth should be forsaken for
us and the rock removed out of its place.
| Miserable Condition of the Wicked. | B. C. 1520. |
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5 Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark
of his fire shall not shine.
6 The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle
shall be put out with him.
7 The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own
counsel shall cast him down.
8 For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh
upon a snare.
9 The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall
prevail against him.
10 The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for
him in the way.
The rest of Bildad’s discourse is entirely taken up in an elegant
description of the miserable condition of a wicked man, in which there
is a great deal of certain truth, and which will be of excellent use if
duly considered–that a sinful condition is a sad condition, and that
iniquity will be men’s ruin if they do not repent of it. But it is not
true that all wicked people are visibly and openly made thus miserable
in this world; nor is it true that all who are brought into great
distress and trouble in this world are therefore to be deemed
and adjudged wicked men, when no other proof appears against them; and
therefore, though Bildad thought the application of it to Job was easy,
yet it was not safe nor just. In these verses we have,
I. The destruction of the wicked foreseen and foretold, under the
similitude of darkness
(v. 5, 6):
Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out. Even his
light, the best and brightest part of him, shall be put out;
even that which he rejoiced in shall fail him. Or the yea may
refer to Job’s complaints of the great distress he was in and the
darkness he should shortly make his bed in. “Yea,” says Bildad, “So it
is; thou art clouded, and straitened, and made miserable, and no better
could be expected; for the light of the wicked shall be put out,
and therefore thine shall.” Observe here,
1. The wicked may have some light for a while, some pleasure, some joy,
some hope within, as well as wealth, and honour, and power without. But
his light is but a spark
(v. 5),
a little thing and soon extinguished. It is but a candle
(v. 6),
wasting, and burning down, and easily blown out. It is not the light of
the Lord (that is sun-light), but the light of his own fire and
sparks of his own kindling,
Isa. l. 11.
2. His light will certainly be put out at length, quite put out, so
that not the least spark of it shall remain with which to kindle
another fire. Even while he is in his tabernacle, while he is in the
body, which is the tabernacle of the soul
(2 Cor. v. 1),
the light shall be dark; he shall have no true solid comfort, no joy
that is satisfying, no hope that is supporting. Even the light that
is in him is darkness; and how great is that darkness! But,
when he is put out of this tabernacle by death, his candle shall be
put out with him. The period of his life will be the final period
of all his days and will turn all his hopes into endless despair.
When a wicked man dies his expectation shall perish,
Prov. xi. 7.
He shall lie down in sorrow.
II. The preparatives for that destruction represented under the
similitude of a beast or bird caught in a snare, or a malefactor
arrested and taken into custody in order to his punishment,
1. Satan is preparing for his destruction. He is the robber that
shall prevail against him
(v. 9);
for, as he was a murderer, so he was a robber, from the beginning. He,
as the tempter, lays snares for sinners in the way, wherever they go,
and he shall prevail. If he make them sinful like himself, he will make
them miserable like himself. He hunts for the precious life.
2. He is himself preparing for his own destruction by going on in sin,
and so treasuring up wrath against the day of wrath. God gives
him up, as he deserves and desires, to his own counsels, and then
his own counsels cast him down,
v. 7.
His sinful projects and pursuits bring him into mischief. He is cast
into a net by his own feet
(v. 8),
runs upon his own destruction, is snared in the work of his own
hands
(Ps. ix. 16);
his own tongue falls upon him,
Ps. lxiv. 8.
In the transgression of an evil man there is a snare.
3. God is preparing for his destruction. The sinner by his sin is
preparing the fuel and then God by his wrath is preparing the fire. See
here,
(1.) How the sinner is infatuated, to run himself into the snare; and
whom God will destroy he infatuates.
(2.) How he is embarrassed: The steps of his strength, his
mighty designs and efforts, shall be straitened, so that he
shall not compass what he intended; and the more he strives to
extricate himself the more will he be entangled. Evil men wax worse
and worse.
(3.) How he is secured and kept from escaping the judgments of God that
are in pursuit of him. The gin shall take him by the heel. He
can no more escape the divine wrath that is in pursuit of him than a
man, so held, can flee from the pursuer. God knows how to reserve
the wicked for the day of judgment,
2 Pet. ii. 9.
11 Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive
him to his feet.
12 His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall
be ready at his side.
13 It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the
firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
14 His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it
shall bring him to the king of terrors.
15 It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of
his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
16 His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his
branch be cut off.
17 His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall
have no name in the street.
18 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out
of the world.
19 He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor
any remaining in his dwellings.
20 They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as
they that went before were affrighted.
21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is
the place of him that knoweth not God.
Bildad here describes the destruction itself which wicked people are
reserved for in the other world, and which, in some degree, often
seizes them in this world. Come, and see what a miserable condition the
sinner is in when his day comes to fall.
I. See him disheartened and weakened by continual terrors arising from
the sense of his own guilt and the dread of God’s wrath
(v. 11, 12):
Terror shall make him afraid on every side. The terrors of his
own conscience shall haunt him, so that he shall never be easy.
Wherever he goes, these shall follow him; which way soever he looks,
these shall stare him in the face. It will make him tremble to see
himself fought against by the whole creation, to see Heaven frowning on
him, hell gaping for him, and earth sick of him. He that carries his
own accuser, and his own tormentor, always in his bosom, cannot but be
afraid on every side. This will drive him to his feet, like the
malefactor, who, being conscious of his own guilt, takes to his heels
and flees when none pursues,
Prov. xxviii. 1.
But his feet will do him no service; they are fast in the snare,
v. 9.
The sinner may as soon overpower the divine omnipotence as flee from
the divine omniscience,
No marvel that the sinner is dispirited and distracted with fear, for,
1. He sees his ruin approaching: Destruction shall be ready at his
side, to seize him whenever justice gives the word, so that he is
brought into desolation in a moment,
Ps. lxxiii. 19.
2. He feels himself utterly unable to grapple with it, either to escape
it or to bear up under it. That which he relied upon as his
strength (his wealth, power, pomp, friends, and the hardiness of
his own spirit) shall fail him in the time of need, and be
hunger-bitten, that is, it shall do him no more service than a
famished man, pining away for hunger, would do in work or war. The case
being thus with him, no marvel that he is a terror to himself. Note,
The way of sin is a way of fear, and leads to everlasting confusion, of
which the present terrors of an impure and unpacified conscience are
earnests, as they were to Cain and Judas.
II. See him devoured and swallowed up by a miserable death; and
miserable indeed a wicked man’s death is, how secure and jovial soever
his life was.
1. See him dying, arrested by the first-born of death (some
disease, or some stroke that has in it a more than ordinary resemblance
of death itself; so great a death, as it is called,
a messenger of death that has in it an uncommon strength and terror),
weakened by the harbingers of death, which devour the strength of
his skin, that is, it shall bring rottenness into his bones and
consume them. His confidence shall then be rooted out of his
tabernacle
(v. 14),
that is, all that he trusted to for his support shall be taken from
him, and he shall have nothing to rely upon, no, not his own
tabernacle. His own soul was his confidence, but that shall be rooted
out of the tabernacle of the body, as a tree that cumbered the ground.
“Thy soul shall be required of thee.”
2. See him dead, and see his case then with an eye of faith.
(1.) He is then brought to the king of terrors. He was
surrounded with terrors while he lived
(v. 11),
and death was the king of all those terrors; they fought against the
sinner in death’s name, for it is by reason of death that sinners are
all their lifetime subject to bondage
(Heb. ii. 15),
and at length they will be brought to that which they so long feared,
as a captive to the conqueror. Death is terrible to nature; our Saviour
himself prayed, Father, save me from this hour. But to the
wicked it is in a special manner the king of terrors, both as it
is a period to that life in which they placed their happiness and a
passage to that life where they will find their endless misery. How
happy then are the saints, and how much indebted to the Lord Jesus, by
whom death is so far abolished, and the property of it altered, that
this king of terrors becomes a friend and servant!
(2.) He is then driven from the light into darkness
(v. 18),
from the light of this world, and his prosperous condition in it, into
darkness, the darkness of the grave, the darkness of hell, into utter
darkness, never to see light
(Ps. xlix. 19),
not the least gleam, nor any hopes of it.
(3.) He is then chased out of the world, hurried and dragged
away by the messengers of death, sorely against his will, chased as
Adam out of paradise, for the world is his paradise. It intimates that
he would fain stay here; he is loth to depart, but go he must; all the
world is weary of him, and therefore chases him out, as glad to get rid
of him. This is death to a wicked man.
III. See his family sunk and cut off,
The wrath and curse of God light and lie, not only upon his head and
heart, but upon his house too, to consume it with the timber and
stones thereof,
Zech. v. 4.
Death itself shall dwell in his tabernacle, and, having expelled him,
shall take possession of his house, to the terror and destruction of
all that he leaves behind. Even the dwelling shall be ruined for the
sake of its owner: Brimstone shall be scattered upon his
habitation, rained upon it as upon Sodom, to the destruction of
which this seems to have reference. Some think he here upbraids Job
with the burning of his sheep and servants with fire from heaven. The
reason is here given why his tabernacle is thus marked for ruin:
Because it is none of his; that is, it was unjustly got, and
kept, from the rightful owner, and therefore let him not expect either
the comfort or the continuance of it. His children shall perish, either
with him or after him,
So that, his roots being in his own person dried up beneath,
above his branch (every child of his family) shall be cut
off. Thus the houses of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab, were cut off;
none that descended from them were left alive. Those who take root in
the earth may expect it will thus be dried up; but, if we be rooted in
Christ, even our leaf shall not wither, much less shall our branch be
cut off. Those who consult the true honour of their family, and the
welfare of its branches, will be afraid of withering it by sin. The
extirpation of the sinner’s family is mentioned again
(v. 19):
He shall neither have son nor nephew, child nor grandchild, to
enjoy his estate and bear up his name, nor shall there be any
remaining in his dwelling akin to him. Sin entails a curse upon
posterity, and the iniquity of the fathers is often visited upon the
children. Herein, also, it is probable that Bildad reflects upon the
death of Job’s children and servants, as a further proof of his being a
wicked man; whereas all that are written childless are not thereby
written graceless; there is a name better than that of sons and
daughters.
IV. See his memory buried with him, or made odious; he shall either be
forgotten or spoken of with dishonour
(v. 17):
His remembrance shall perish from the earth; and, if it perish
thence, it perishes wholly, for it was never written in heaven, as the
names of the saints are,
All his honour shall be laid and lost in the dust, or stained with
perpetual infamy, so that he shall have no name in the street,
departing without being desired. Thus the judgments of God follow him,
after death, in this world, as an indication of the misery his soul is
in after death, and an earnest of that everlasting shame and contempt
to which he shall rise in the great day. The memory of the just is
blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot,
Prov. x. 7.
V. See a universal amazement at his fall,
Those that see it are affrighted, so sudden is the change, so dreadful
the execution, so threatening to all about him: and those that come
after, and hear the report of it, are astonished at it; their ears are
made to tingle, and their hearts to tremble, and they cry out, Lord,
how terrible art thou in thy judgments! A place or person utterly
ruined is said to be made an astonishment,
Deut. xxviii. 37;
2 Chron. vii. 21; Jer. xxv. 9, 18.
Horrible sins bring strange punishments.
VI. See all this averred as the unanimous sense of the patriarchal age,
grounded upon their knowledge of God and their many observations of his
providence
(v. 21):
Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the
place (this the condition) of him that knows not God! See
here what is the beginning, and what is the end, of the wickedness of
this wicked world.
1. The beginning of it is ignorance of God, and it is a wilful
ignorance, for there is that to be known of him which is sufficient to
leave them for ever inexcusable. They know not God, and then they
commit all iniquity. Pharaoh knows not the Lord, and therefore will not
obey his voice.
2. The end of it, and that is utter destruction. Such, so
miserable, are the dwellings of the wicked. Vengeance will be
taken of those that know not God,
2 Thess. i. 8.
For those whom he has not honour from he will get himself honour upon.
Let us therefore stand in awe and not sin, for it will certainly be
bitterness in the latter end.
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