Job 18:4

He teareth himself in his anger,.... Or "his soul" (l), meaning Job, and referring to what he had said in Job 16:9; Now, says Bildad, it is neither God nor man that tears you, it is you yourself;

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

He teareth himself, i.e. Job, of whom he speaks in the third person for the second, as 16:7 . Or, O thou that tearest thyself! Thou complainest of us for vexing thee with our speeches, when in truth thou art thy own greatest tormenter by thy own impatience and rage. Shall the earth be forsaken, to wit, by God? Shall God give over the government of the earth, and men, and things in it, and suffer all things to fall out by chance, and promiscuously to good and bad men, without any regard to his truth, or wisdom, or justice? Shall God forbear to rule the world righteously, as he hath hitherto done, in favouring good men, and destroying the wicked? For thee, i.e. for thy sake; or to prevent thy complaints and clamours. Shall the rock be removed out of his place? shall the counsels of God, which are more firm and unmovable than rocks, and the whole course of his providence, be altered to comply with thy fancies or humours?

Job 18:4 He teareth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?Ver. 4. He teareth himself in his anger] Here he chargeth Job with desperate madness, as if through extreme impatience he fell foul upon his own flesh, as did that demoniac in the Gospel, Bajazet, the Great Turk, in his iron cage, Pope Boniface VIII, when clapped up close prisoner in St Angelo; and as they say the tiger doth, when he heareth a drum struck up, he teareth his own flesh with his teeth; or as all ravenous beasts tear in pieces the prey which they have taken. Many read the text thus, O the man which teareth his soul in his anger; or, O thou which tearest thyself, &c. The moralist describeth an angry man forcibly held by his friends, biting his own lips, rending his clothes, and dashing himself against the pillars, Labia mordet, caput quassat, vestimenta scindit, et se in columnas impingit (Senec.). Such a one Bildad maketh Job to be, horn-mad, or mankind, as we say; and he takes occasion, likely, from those words of his, Job 13:14. But love would have thought no evil. Bildad herein sinned against the law of love, as likewise he doth much more in the following vehement interrogation, charging Job with insolent boldness against God. Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?] Shall God cast off the care of his earthly kingdom to gratify thee, and to make good thine assertion, that good men may suffer, and bad men go unpunished? Never think it; thou mayest sooner expect him to overturn the whole world for thy sake, and put everything out of that order he hath decreed and made it in, than cease to be just in punishing the wicked. The course of justice is as firmly settled as the course of nature is. Fiat iustitia, pereat mundus. Of Fabricius it was said, that the sun might as easily be turned out of his track as he out of his path of justice; much more may it be so said of Almighty God, the rock that cannot be removed, though he varieth the manner, the means, the times and seasons of executing justice, as seemeth best unto his heavenly wisdom.

(4) He teareth himself in his anger.—As Eliphaz had charged Job (Job 15:4) with the evil tendencies of his speeches, so Bildad here compares him to a maniac, and assumes that the effect of his teaching will be to banish God from the earth, and remove the strength and hope of man. The last clause is a direct quotation from Job in Job 14:18; it looks, therefore, very much like a wilful perversion of Job’s words, for it is clear that he used them very differently. Even if there were no intentional misrepresentation Bildad applies Job’s words to his own purposes. The drift of his question is, “Can you expect the course of God’s providence to be altered for you? On the contrary, the retribution that awaits the wicked is sure and swift; for verily (Job 18:5) the light of the wicked shall be put out.”

Verse 4. He teareth himself in his anger] Literally, Rending his own soul in his anger; as if he had said, Thou art a madman: thy fury has such a sway over thee that thou eatest thy own flesh. While thou treatest us as beasts, we see thee to be a furious maniac, destroying thy own life. Shall the earth be forsaken for thee?] To say the least, afflictions are the common lot of men. Must God work a miracle in providence, in order to exempt thee from the operation of natural causes? Dost thou wish to engross all the attention and care of providence to thyself alone? What pride and insolence!

4. The first clause must be rendered in English, Thou who tearest thyself in thine anger. The Heb. uses in preference the objective form, One who teareth himself in his anger, shall the earth be forsaken for thee? See on ch. Job 12:4. The words refer to ch. Job 16:9—it is not God who tears him, it is Job who tears himself in his insensate passion, cf. ch. Job 5:2. shall the earth be forsaken] i. e. depopulated and made a wilderness, where no man dwells; Leviticus 26:43; Isaiah 6:12; Isaiah 7:16. The desolation of the earth, which God has not created a waste but made to be inhabited (Isaiah 45:18), and the removal of the fixed rock from its place, are figures which mean, overturning the fixed moral order of the universe established by God. Bildad asks if the current of the moral order of the world is to be interrupted or turned back for Job’s sake, that he may escape the imputation of wickedness, or the penalty of it, and that his principles may be accepted? cf. ch. Job 16:18.

He teareth himself - More correctly, “thou that tearest thyself in anger!” It is not an affirmation about Job, but it is a direct address to him.

4. He (meaning Job) teareth himself — Of a terrible nondescript wild beast, “the strongest of all others,” Diodorus Siculus, (iii, ch.