Job 18:12

_HIS STRENGTH SHALL BE HUNGERBITTEN, AND DESTRUCTION SHALL BE READY AT HIS SIDE._ The Hebrew is brief and bold, 'his strength is hungry.' Besides dangers at every step, the sinner's own strength is wasted by disease. DESTRUCTION - i:e., a great calamity (Proverbs 1:27). READY AT HIS SIDE - close at hand to destroy him....

11-21 Bildad describes the destruction wicked people are kept for, in the other world, and which in some degree, often seizes them in this world. The way of sin is the way of fear, and leads to everlasting confusion, of which the present terrors of an impure conscience are earnests, as in Cain and Judas. Miserable indeed is a wicked man's death, how secure soever his life was. See him dying; all that he trusts to for his support shall be taken from him. How happy are the saints, and how indebted to the lord Jesus, by whom death is so far done away and changed, that this king of terrors is become a friend and a servant! See the wicked man's family sunk and cut off. His children shall perish, either with him or after him. Those who consult the true honour of their family, and its welfare, will be afraid of withering all by sin. The judgments of God follow the wicked man after death in thi...

HIS STRENGTH SHALL BE HUNGERBITTEN - Shall be exhausted by hunger or famine. AND DESTRUCTION SHALL BE READY AT HIS SIDE - Hebrew “Shall be fitted” נכוּן _nākûn_ “to his side.” Some have supposed that this refers to some disease, like the pleurisy, that would adhere closely to his side. So Jerome understands it. Schultens has quoted some passages from Arabic poets, in which calamities are represented as “breaking the side.” Bildad refers probably, to some heavy judgments that would crush a man; such that the ribs, or the human frame, could not bear; and the meaning is, that a wicked man would be certainly crushed by misfortune....

EXPOSITION JOB 18:1 Bildad's second speech is no improvement upon his first (Job 8:1.). He has evidently been exceedingly nettled by Job's contemptuous words concerning his "comforters" (Job 16:2, Job 16:11; Job 17:10); and aims at nothing but venting his anger, and terrifying Job by a series of denunciations and threats. Job has become to him "the_ _wicked man" (verses 5, 21), an embodiment of all that is evil, and one "that knoweth not God." No punishment is too severe for him....

HIS STRENGTH SHALL BE HUNGERBITTEN,.... Or "shall be famine" u, or hunger, that is, shall be weakened by it; famine is a sore evil, and greatly weakens thee natural strength of men; want of food will soon bring down the strength of the strongest man, when the stay and the staff, the sustenance and support of man's nature is taken from him: many of the Jewish writers, by "his strength", understand his children, who are, as Jacob said of Reuben, his might, and the beginning of his strength, Genesis 49:3; and when grown up are his protection and defence; and for these to be distressed with hunger, or destroyed by famine, is a sore judgment; so the Targum paraphrases it, his firstborn son; Jarchi interprets it, his son; and Ben Gersom, his seed or offspring: AND DESTRUCTION [SHALL BE] READY AT HIS SIDE; or "to his rib" w; that is, his wife, as the Targum and Jarchi explain it,

CHAPTER 18 BILDAD'S SECOND ADDRESS _ 1. New reproaches (Job 18:1)_ 2. Once again, the wicked and what they deserve (Job 18:5) Job 18:1. Bildad has the good sense in this second oration to be very brief. He, like Eliphaz, pays his compliments to Job and reproaches him. How long are you going to speak yet any way! You, you tell us that we are like the beasts, stupid and ignorant! Keep on with your nonsense, you but tear yourself in your anger, it is all unavailing and changes not things for thee. This is the meaning of his rebuke. Job 18:5. Then the favored theme, the wicked and what is in store for them. Apart from the falsity of the a

JOB 18. SECOND SPEECH OF BILDAD.Bildad speaks this time at unusual length, but his speech has no significance, since it simply describes the fate of the godless. Into the description of this, however, there are interwoven direct allusions to Job's case, so that to this degree it serves to increase Job's perplexity and bring on the crisis (Duhm). Job 18:2 contains the usual personal polemic; in Job 18:2 we must read sing. for plur.; Job 18:4 asks Job if the earth is to be turned upside down to suit him. Job 18:5 contains an extended picture of the fate of the godless. In...

STRENGTH, &C. i.e. shall be weakened by hunger. Same word as Job 18:7, not same as Job 18:13....

The disastrous end of the wicked, in the moral order of the world, is certain The last verse naturally led over to this idea, which is the theme of the speech. The idea is set out in a great variety of graphic figures, and the speech is studded with sententious and proverbial sayings in the manner of the speaker's first discourse (ch. 8). The history of the wicked man's downfall is followed through all its stages: Job 18:5. The principle the sinner's light goes out. Job 18:8. The progress of his downfall. Job 18:12. The final scenes. Job 18:15. The extinction of his race and name....

HIS STRENGTH SHALL BE HUNGER-BITTEN— The Vulgate renders this, _His strength shall be eaten by famine;_ which appears to be a good translation, and still keeps up the image in the former verses: as does the next clause, _Destruction shall be ready at,_ or _for his side,_ alluding to the arrow which is fitted to the string, and ready to be discharged at him. See ch. Job 12:5....