Bildad: The Light of the Wicked
1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 2 “How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak. 3 Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight? 4 You who tear yourself in your anger, will the earth be forsaken for you? Or will the rock be removed out of its place? 5 “Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out. The spark of his fire won’t shine. 6 The light will be dark in his tent. His lamp above him will be put out. 7 The steps of his strength will be shortened. His own counsel will cast him down. 8 For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh. 9 A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him. 10 A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him on the path. 11 Terrors will make him afraid on every side, and will chase him at his heels. 12 His strength will be famished. Calamity will be ready at his side. 13 The members of his body will be devoured. The firstborn of death will devour his members. 14 He will be rooted out of the security of his tent. He will be brought to the king of terrors. 15 There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur will be scattered on his habitation. 16 His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above. 17 His memory will perish from the earth. He will have no name in the street. 18 He will be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. 19 He will have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived. 20 Those who come after will be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened. 21 Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God.”
A portrait of the wicked man's end is built entirely out of traps, and it closes on the loss Job has actually suffered.
Bildad is offended. Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight? Job 18:3. Job had told them to ask the animals Job 12:7, and Bildad has taken it personally.
His second complaint is more revealing: will the earth be forsaken for you? Or will the rock be removed out of its place? Job 18:4. He hears Job's protest as a demand that the moral order be rearranged around one man's case. That is not what Job has asked for, but it is what the friends fear — because if one blameless man can suffer without cause, the rule is gone.
The portrait that follows is built out of a single image repeated. A net, a mesh, a snare, a trap, a noose, a trap on the path — six devices in three verses Job 18:8–10.
Every one of them is hidden, and every one is triggered by the victim's own movement: he is cast into a net by his own feet Job 18:8. The theology in the picture is that the wicked man builds his own end and walks into it, which is true of a great deal of ruin and is not true of a house falling on ten young people during a meal.
The terrors come next, and they chase him at his heels Job 18:11. Then his body is consumed by the firstborn of death, and he is brought to the king of terrors Job 18:13–14 — the poem's most vivid personifications of disease and of death itself, and they are being described to a man scraping sores with a shard.
The end of the portrait is where Bildad crosses the last line. His memory will perish from the earth. He will have no name in the street, and he will have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived Job 18:17–19.
That is childlessness named as the mark of the wicked, spoken in the presence of a man whose seven sons and three daughters were buried within the month. Eliphaz had reached for the same image obliquely with the unripe fruit Job 15:33. Bildad says it outright.
The closing verse makes the application impossible to miss: surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn't know God Job 18:21.
No name is used. None is needed. The friends have moved from general principle to a description that fits one man in the room, and they will not name him because they still think of themselves as helping.
settled What this mark means