Giobbe 18:8 Commento

In this chapter Bildad makes a second assault upon Job. In his first discourse (ch. 8) he had given him encouragement to hope that all should yet be well with him. But here there is not a word of that; he has grown more peevish, and is so far from being convinced by Job's reasonings that he is but more exasperated. I. He sharply reproves Job as haughty and passionate, and obstinate in his opinion (Job 18:1-4). II. He enlarges upon the doctrine he had before maintained, concerning the miser of wicked people and the ruin that attends them (v. 5-21). In this he seems, all along, to have an eye to Job's complaints of the miserable condition he was in, that he was in the dark, bewildered, ensnared, terrified, and hastening out of the world. "This," says Bildad, "is the condition of a wicked man; and therefore thou art one."

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 18 In this chapter is Bildad's second reply to Job, in which he falls with great fury upon him, very sharply inveighs against him, and very highly charges him; the charges he brings against him are talkativeness and inattention to what was said to him, Job 18:1; contempt of his friends, impatience under his affliction, and pride and arrogance, as if the whole world, the course of nature and providence, and God himself all must give way to him, Job 18:3; nevertheless, he is assured of the miserable state of a wicked man, sooner or later, which is described by the extinction of his light of prosperity, Job 18:5; by the defeat of his counsels, being ensnared in a net laid for him, Job 18:7; by the terrible judgments of the sword, famine, and pestilence, by one or the other of which he is brought to death, the king of terrors, Job 18:11; by the destruction of his habitation and of his posterity, so that he has none to hear his name, or perpetuate his memory, Job 18:15; by his being driven out of the world, leaving no issue behind him, to the astonishment of all that knew him, Job 18:18; and the chapter is closed with this observation, that this is the common case of wicked and irreligious persons, Job 18:21.

The gin shall take him by the heel,.... And hold him fast, so that he shall not be able to get away, especially out of such as are set by God himself; for God has his nets, and snares, and gins for wicked men, and such plenty of them, that he even is said to rain them on them; yea, he himself is a gin and a snare unto them, and out of his hands there is no escaping, wherefore it is a terrible thing to fall into them, see Eze 12:13; and the robber shall prevail against him; either robbers literally taken, such as the Sabeans and Chaldeans, to whom Bildad may have reference, who prevailed against Job, and plundered him of his substance; and such as these, as the word signifies, are "thirsty ones" (p), who thirst after the wealth and riches of men, and after their blood for the sake thereof, bloodthirsty ones; Mr. Broughton renders it, "the savage", barbarous, wild, and uncivilized, that lived in desert places, and were like wild beasts, let their hair grow long, to make them look more terrible and formidable, which some take to be the signification of the word, and render it "horrid" (q) or terrible; see Gill on Job 5:5; or else the devil may be meant, who is like a roaring lion, terrible and frightful, and who, as he was a murderer from the beginning, so a thief and robber, that comes to kill and destroy, and whom God suffers to prevail over the children of disobedience, and in whom he works powerfully, being the strong man armed, that has possession of them and their goods, and keeps them in peace; and who has his snares, which he lays suited to the tempers and dispositions of men, and in which they are taken alive, as beasts of prey, and are detained by him at his pleasure, Ti2 2:26. (p) "sitibundos", Montanus; "sitibundus", Tigurine version. (q) "Horridus", Junius & Tremellius, Cocceius, Schmidt.

For he hath put his own foot into the net, and he walketh in the meshes of it. He, who 'puts his feet into a net,' cannot get them out, when he has a mind; so he that lets himself down, into habits of sin, cannot rise up the moment he wishes it; and he 'that walketh in the meshes of a net,' entangles his steps in walking, and when he tries to extricate himself to walk, he is tied and bound that he cannot. For it very often happens that a man, beguiled by the delightfulness of this world, reaches after the gloriousness of the honour thereof, that he attains to the effecting of his desires, and rejoices to have attained the object which he sought after; but seeing that the good things of this world, when not possessed, are objects of love, and very often, when possessed, grow worthless, he learns by the act of obtaining how worthless that is which he sought after. Whence being brought back to himself, he looks out how without sin to get quit of that which he sees himself to have gotten with sin; but the very same dignity which entangled him, holds him fast, and he cannot without further sins flee from thence, whereunto he came not without sin. And so he has 'put his feet into the net, and walketh in the meshes thereof,' in that when he strives to get quit, he then sees in a true light with what hard knots he is held bound. For we do not even know of our binding in a true sense, save when in striving to get free, we as it were try to lift our feet.

Bildad says these things using the metaphor of the birds or the animals that are captured in the hunt. In fact, as they can no longer escape after falling into snares and nets, so the impious are caught by inevitable calamities that overwhelm them. And what is worse, after all their schemes have been overturned and reversed, their riches are taken away from them not by the powerful but by people of the lowest class.

He says that the cause of these impediments comes from his sin, "For he put his feet in the snare." For just as one who willingly puts his foot in a snare wants to be captured, so one who willingly occupies himself with sin disposes himself to have his progress impeded as Scripture says, "His own iniquities have ensnared the evil man." (Prov. 5:22) As there are a variety of meshes in a net, so also in sin there are many different sins which entangle a man in various ways. So he then says, "and he walked forward into the mesh," when he goes from one kind of sin to another or from one mode of sinning to another.

The man who separates himself and seeks wisdom. The fool and the wicked man. Deep wisdom. Contention of fools. The talebearer and the slothful. The name of the Lord. Pride and presumption because of riches. Hastiness of spirit. The wounded spirit. The influence of gifts. The lot. The offended brother. The influence of the tongue. A wife a good from God. The true friend.

For he is cast into a net - His own conduct will infallibly bring him to ruin. He shall be like a wild beast taken in a net; the more he flounces in order to extricate himself, the more he shall be entangled. He walketh upon a snare - He is continually walking on the meshes of a net, by which he must soon be entangled and overthrown.

REPLY OF BILDAD. (Job 18:1-21) ye--the other two friends of Job, whom Bildad charges with having spoken mere "words," that is, empty speeches; opposed to "mark," that is, come to reason, consider the question intelligently; and then let us speak.

he walketh upon--rather, "he lets himself go into the net" [UMBREIT]. If the English Version be retained, then understand "snare" to be the pitfall, covered over with branches and earth, which when walked upon give way (Psa 9:15; Job 35:8).

8 For he is driven into the net by his own feet, And he walketh over a snare. 9 The trap holdeth his heel fast, The noose bindeth him. 10 His snare lieth hidden in the earth, His nets upon the path; 11 Terrors affright him on every side, And scare him at every step. The Pual שׁלּח signifies not merely to be betrayed into, but driven into, like the Piel, Job 30:12, to drive away, and as it is to be translated in the similar passage in the song of Deborah, Jdg 5:15 : "And as Issachar, Barak was driven (i.e., with desire for fighting) behind him down into the valley (the place of meeting under Mount Tabor);" בּרגליו, which there signifies, according to Jdg 4:10; Jdg 8:5, "upon his feet = close behind him," is here intended of the intermediate cause: by his own feet he is hurried into the net, i.e., against his will, and yet with his own feet he runs into destruction. The same thing is said in Job 18:8; the way on which he complacently wanders up and down (which the Hithp. signifies here) is שׂבכה, lattice-work, here a snare (Arab. schabacah, a net, from שׂבך, schabaca, to intertwine, weave), and consequently will suddenly break in and bring him to ruin. This fact of delivering himself over to destruction is established in apocopated futt. (Job 18:9) used as praes., and without the voluntative signification in accordance with the poetic licence: a trap catches a heel (poetic brevity for: the trap catches his heel), a noose seizes upon him, עליו (but with the accompanying notion of overpowering him, which the translation "bind" is intended to express). Such is the meaning of צמּים here, which is not plur., but sing., from צמם (Arab. ḍmm), to tie, and it unites in itself the meanings of snare-layer (Job 5:5) and of snare; the form (as אבּיר, אדּיר) corresponds more to the former, but does not, however, exclude the latter, as תּנּין and לפּיד (λαμπάς) show. The continuation in Job 18:10 of the figure of the fowler affirms that that issue of his life (Job 18:9) has been preparing long beforehand; the prosperity of the evil-doer from the beginning tends towards ruin. Instead of חבלו we have the pointing חבלו, as it would be in Arab. in a similar sense hhabluhu (from hhabl, a cord, a net). The nearer destruction is now to him, the stronger is the hold which his foreboding has over him, since, as Job 18:11 adds, terrible thoughts (בּלּהות) and terrible apparitions fill him with dismay, and haunt him, following upon his feet. לרגליו, close behind him, as Gen 30:30; Sa1 25:42; Isa 41:2; Hab 3:5. The best authorized pointing of the verb is והפיצהוּ, with Segol (Ges. 104, 2, c), Chateph-Segol, and Kibbutz. Except in Hab 3:14, where the prophet includes himself with his people, הפיץ, diffundere, dissipare (vid., Job 37:11; Job 40:11), never has a person as its obj. elsewhere. It would also probably not be used, but for the idea that the spectres of terror pursue him at every step, and are now here, now there, and his person is as it were multiplied.