Job 18:3

Wherefore are we counted as beasts,.... This seems to refer to Job 12:7; where Job sends them to the beasts, to get knowledge and instruction; and therefore it was concluded he reckoned them as such,

Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight? Beasts - alluding to what Job said (Job 12:7; so Isaiah 1:3; Psalms 49:12; Psalms 49:20).

As beasts, i.e. ignorant, blockish, and stupid men, ,10. Vile, Heb. polluted, or unclean, i.e. not fit to be conversed or discoursed with; or contemptible, as such things are. In your sight; either, 1. To your faces, or in your own hearing. Or, 2. In thy sight or judgment, O Job; so he speaks of Job in the plural number, as he did .

Job 18:3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts, [and] reputed vile in your sight?Ver. 3. Wherefore are we counted as beasts, &c.] Here he taxeth Job with pride and arrogance; grounding upon those words of his taken at the worst, Job 12:7; Job 17:4; Job 17:10, and not considering his case, that he was full of pain, which maketh wise men touchy (as oppression maketh them mad, Ecclesiastes 7:7), and that they had sorely provoked him by their bitter taunts and scurrilous invectives, which called for so sharp a currycomb. Pessime autem habet hypocrisin, si contemnatur, Hypocrisy loves not to be sighted, saith Brentius here. And Gregory upon this text saith, that in Bildad heretics are set forth, who stomach it much that the faithful take upon them to reprove them, as carried away by error; as if the knowledge of the truth resided in themselves only, and all others had no more understanding than beasts. "This people which know not the law are cursed," say those Pharisees, John 7:49. "Ye know nothing at all," saith Caiaphas to his assessors, John 11:49. The Gnostics and Illuminates referred to themselves as being the only knowing men. But if Bildad had been right, he would neither have so far misconstrued Job’ s words nor yet have been behind to fool himself, as Asaph in a similar case did, Psalms 73:22, where he useth the plural of the words here used in the singular, calling himself, Behemoth, id est, magnam et crassam bestiam, a great and a gross beast. And reputed vile in your sight?] Heb. Polluted or unclean; that is, as beasts unfit for food, much less fit for sacrifice. The same Hebrew word signifieth polluted and vile. Every wicked man is a vile man, be he never so high and honourable in the world’ s account, as Antiochus, Daniel 11:21; is called a vile person, and yet he was the great king of Syria, surnamed Epiphanes, or illustrious, and by the flattering Samaritans he was styled, Antiochus, the mighty God. See Psalms 15:4.

(3) Wherefore are we counted as beasts.—Referring to Job’s words (Job 13:4, &c., Job 16:2, &c.). In this chapter there is a marked increase in his harshness and violence. It has, however, a certain resemblance to Job 8, inasmuch as Bildad works out a simile here, as he did there; and in Job 18:16 the two similes touch. In Job 18:2, which resembles Job 8:2, we must supply, as the Authorised Version does, Will it be ere? or the negative, Will ye not make? &c., or else we must render, “How long [will ye speak thus]? Make an end of words,” &c. The plural is used because Job is regarded as the representative of a class, or else as we use the plural instead of the singular in addressing a person.

Verse 3. Counted as beasts] Thou treatest us as if we had neither reason nor understanding.

3. and reputed vile] lit. and are unclean. Bildad describes what Job’s treatment of his friends suggests to him as Job’s idea of them. The reference is to the passages, ch. Job 17:4; Job 17:10, and the words “clean of hands” ch. Job 17:9, which Job had used of himself and other unjustly persecuted men, cf. Psalms 73:22.

Wherefore are we counted as beasts? - “Why are we treated in your remarks as if we had no sense, and were unworthy of sound argument in reply to what we say?” It is possible that there may be

3. As beasts — Only by implication, Job 12:7-8; Job 17:4. Vile — Stupid.