Job 18

Job 18:1-21

BILDAD’S SECOND ROUNDJob_18:1-21.HERE again one is tempted to laughter. The humor of the situation grows. Eliphaz is knocked out and Bildad comes to the fray.He opens by expressing personal injury and insult.“Then answered Bildad the Shuhite and said,“How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? mark, and afterwards we will speak.“Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight” (Job 18:1-3).When did a debater ever feel the sting of his opponent’s blow without declaring that he had been injured and insulted?It has been the writer’s privilege to have twenty debates on the subject of evolution. He has yet to meet the first opponent that would not take the identical course of Bildad, namely, when he was struck a stinging blow, resent it as personal. This is not because any personality was in the speech, but rather because the sting went home.He charged Job with a destructive insanity.“He tear eth himself in his anger: shall the earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?“Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.“The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.“The steps of his strength shall be straitened, and his own counsel shall cast him down.“For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he walketh upon a snare.“The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him.“The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way.“Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet.“His strength shall be hungerbitten, and destruction shall ready at his side.“It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.“His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors.“It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.“His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off.“His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street.“He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world.“He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.“They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted” (Job 18:4-20).That also is a sign of weakness. The man that talks about the ignorance of his opponent and the insanity of his opponent is commonly hard pressed for adequate argument.He even hinted that Job was an atheist.“Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God” (Job 18:21).He knew perfectly well that Job believed in God, and in all Job’s arguments, while he frankly confessed he had been unable to understand God’s ways, he had never denied God’s existence, nor had he voiced one thing that could be converted into the likelihood of no knowledge of God.Strange sentences pass men’s lips when they are being worsted and become conscious of it.

Note the fact also that these men are running short of breath and arguments are not as extensive now as at the beginning. On the other hand, Job shows no weakening.