Job 18
McGeeCHAPTER 18THEME: The second discourse of BildadThis is now the second round for Bildad, the Shuhite. This is his rebuttal. The interesting thing is that he really hasn’t anything new to contribute at all. You will recall that he is a traditionalist. He has a lot of old sayings and proverbs that he strings along like a string of beads. He will do that again here. He has a whole series of epigrams and pious platitudes and slick cliches. Some of them are good, but none of them throw light on Job’s case.
Job 18:1
To state it very bluntly Bildad is saying, “Job, if you would shut up, then we could speak. You should quit talking and start listening. You have been doing the talking when you should have been listening to us.” Actually, all of them, Job and his friends, could have refrained from talking and been listening. But they were not prepared for the voice of God at this time. God is preparing Job to hear His voice, and later he will listen. Bildad asks Job why he holds them in such contempt and why they are vile in his sight. The answer is obvious. This is the way they have been looking at Job. That is why I say that at this point it is a stand-off between Job and his friends. I think they have been glaring at each other during this debate. These men who had come to him as his friends are no longer his friends.
Job 18:4
Bildad is asking, “Do you think God is going to run His universe just to suit you?” Bildad, you remember, is a traditionalist, and he rests everything on the past. He feels that anything that was true in the past is also good enough for today. That is the method which he uses. “Job, can you not show some sense so that we may come to an understanding here? Do you think that your contempt for us as incompetent and your rage at divine dealings with you are going to release you now from the trap you are in?”
Job 18:5
Nothing truer could be spoken, but it does not apply to Job.
Job 18:6
“Job, you have been caught in a net like a fish, and it is not because we have done anything. We are supposed to be here to help you, and you don’t listen to us. You are in that position because there is some secret sin in your life. You have walked into a trap.”
Job 18:9
The gin means a trap. “A trap will take you. You have been caught like a bear in a trap because you have been fooling around with the bait. If that weren’t true, you wouldn’t have been caught.” You can see that Bildad gives these little pious platitudes and works them like a geometry problem. First you take all the steps of the proof, then you come to the conclusion, and that’s it. However, life is not quite like that. For one thing, it is easy in life to begin with some wrong premises. If the premises are accurate, one can come up with a good deduction. But if the premises are wrong, the conclusion will also be wrong. If A equals ten and you make it equal fifteen, you will not arrive at the correct answer to your problemeven if you use the right methods. These men are all trying to put down their formulas, but they are putting the wrong premises into their formulas. Bildad comes up with a hard and fast rule which states that Job has walked into a trap, that it has been his own doing, and that it could not be otherwise. Another translation would be, “For he is sent into the net by his own feet and he walketh on the meshes.”
Job 18:11
He is saying that disease shall waste the body of the wicked. The fire of God will destroy his habitation, and his name shall be blotted out. His family shall perishhe will have neither son nor grandson. His desolation shall astonish future generations. All of this is true of the wicked, but it is not applicable to Job. A statement can be absolutely true, and yet have no application to an individual situation. This is the reason, I feel, that a great deal of so-called “counseling” today is dangerous. I think there are many fine Christian psychologists; I know some of them, and I would recommend them. But, candidly, many psychologists often have premises which are not accurate, and for that reason they are not able to counsel. These men are trying to counsel Job, but they are not able to do so. Bildad says the wicked are going to be judged. The wicked will be blotted out. That is true. Look in our own day to the fate of Hitler and Stalin and other dictators. As they lived, they died. Although his statement is true, Job is not that kind of man by any means.
Job 18:18
That is a figurative expression of the wicked, but it does not apply to Job.
Job 18:19
Any man likes to have sons and daughters and grandchildren. They are a source of pride and satisfaction. Sometimes the wicked have more offspring than anyone else. Job, at this time, does not have one child left to him. They have all been slain. It is actually cruel for Bildad to talk in this way to Job. We shall see later on that God is going to make it up to Job and give him more children.
Job 18:21
So we see that Bildad gives a description of the wicked. He shows the position of the wicked and the end of the wicked. He classes Job with the wicked and tells him that he is at the end of the road. He says, “This is the way it is, Job, and the description fits you.” Of course, if one looks at the circumstances, one must admit that it looks as if Job does fit this description. These friends simply could not believe that what had happened to Job could have happened for some other reason. They believe that he is wicked and that he is hiding some secret sin, and they will not accept any other reason for his suffering. When Job answers them, he is going to say, “Can’t you conceive it possible that God has entangled me in His net and left His action unexplained? There must be an explanation for it, but your explanation may not be right.”