Job 18:15

and abuse. Instead of How long will it be ere ye make an end of words? Mr. Good translates: "How long will ye plant thorns (irritating, lacerating, wounding invectives) among words?" translating the unusual term קנצי kintsey, thorns, instead of bounds or limits. The word קנצי kintsey may be the Chaldee form for קצי kitsey, the נ nun being inserted by the Chaldeans for the sake of euphony, as is frequently done; and it may be considered as the contracted plural from קץ kats, a thorn, from קץ kats, to lacerate, rather than קץ kets, an end, from קצה katsah, to cut off. Schultens and others have contended that קנץ kanats, is an Arabic word, used also in Hebrew; that (Arabic) kanasa, signifies to hunt, to lay snares; and hence (Arabic) maknas, a snare: and that the words should be translated, "How long will you put captious snares in words?" But I prefer קנצי kintsey, as being the Chaldee form for קצי kitsey, whether it be considered as expressing limits or thorns; as the whole instance is formed after the Chaldee model, as is evident, not only in the word in question, but also in למלין lemillin, to words, the Chaldee plural instead of למלים lemillim, the Hebrew plural. Verse 3 Counted as beasts - Thou treatest us as if we had neither reason nor understanding. 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! Verse 5 The light of the wicked shall be put out - Some think it would be better to translate the original, "Let the light of the wicked be extinguished!" Thou art a bad man, and thou hast perverted the understanding which God hath given thee. Let that understanding, that abused gift, be taken away. From this verse to the end of the chapter is a continual invective against Job. Verse 6 The light shall be dark in his tabernacle - His property shall be destroyed, his house pillaged, and himself and his family come to an untimely end. His candle shall be put out - He shall have no posterity. Verse 7 The steps of his strength - Even in his greatest prosperity he shall be in straits and difficulties. His own counsel - He shall be the dupe and the victim of his own airy, ambitious, and impious schemes. Verse 8 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. Verse 9 The gin shall take him - Houbigant reads the tenth before the ninth verse, thus: "The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way. The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him." From the beginning of the seventh verse to the end of the thirteenth there is an allusion to the various arts and methods practiced in hunting. 1. A number of persons extend themselves in a forest, and drive the game before them, still straitening the space from a broad base to a narrow point in form of a triangle, so that the farther they go the less room have they on the right and left, the hunters lining each side, while the drovers with their dogs are coming up behind. "The steps of his strength shall be straitened," Job 18:7 . 2. Nets, gins, and pitfalls, are laid or formed in different places, so that many are taken before they come to the point where the two lines close. "He is cast into a net, he walketh upon a snare - the trap is laid for him in the way - the snare in the ground," Job 18:8-10 . 3. The howling of the dogs, with the shouts of the huntsmen, fill him with dismay, and cause him to run himself beyond his strength and out of breath. "Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet," Job 18:11 . 4. While spent with hunger and fatigue, he is entangled in the spread nets; and the huntsman either pierces him with an arrow or spear, or cuts the sinews of his legs, so that he is easily captured and destroyed. "The robbers shall prevail against him," Job 18:9 . "His strength is hunger-bitten, and destruction is ready at his side," Job 18:12 . This latter verse is thus paraphrased by the Chaldee: "Let his first-born son be famished; and affliction be prepared for his wife." Verse 13 It shall devour the strength of his skin - This may refer to the elephant, or to the rhinoceros, whose skin scarcely any dart can pierce: but in the case referred to above, the animal is taken in a pitfall, and then the first-born of death - a sudden and overwhelming stroke - deprives him of life. See the account of hunting the elephant in the East at the end of the chapter, Job 18:21 (note). The Chaldee has: "The strength of his skin shall devour his flesh; and the angel of death shall consume his children." Verse 14 His confidence shall be rooted out - His dwelling-place, how well soever fortified, shah now he deemed utterly insecure. And it shall bring him to the king of terrors - Or, as Mr. Good translates, "And dissolution shall invade him as a monarch." He shall be completely and finally overpowered. The phrase king of terrors has been generally thought to mean death; but it is not used in any such way in the text. For למלך בלהות lemelech ballahoth, to the king of destructions, one of De Rossi's MSS. has כמלך kemelech, "as a king;" and one, instead of בלהות ballahoth, with ו vau holem, to indicate the plural, terrors or destructions, has בלהות ballahuth, with ו vau shurek, which is singular, and signifies terror, destruction. So the Vulgate seems to have read, as it translates, Et calcet super eum, quasi rex, interitis; "And shall tread upon him as a king or destroyer. Or as a king who is determined utterly to destroy him." On this verse the bishop of Killala, Dr. Stock, says, "I am sorry to part with a beautiful phrase in our common version, the king of terrors, as descriptive of death; but there is no authority for it in the Hebrew text." It may however be stated that death has been denominated by similar epithets both among the Greeks and Romans. So Virgil, Aen. vi., ver. 100. - Quando hic inferni janua regi Dicitur. "The gates of the king of hell are reported to be here." And Ovid, Metam. lib. v., ver. 356, 359. Inde tremit tellus: et rex pavit ipse silentum. Hanc metuens cladem, tenebrosa sede tyrannus Exierat. "Earth's inmost bowels quake, and nature groans; His terrors reach the direful King of Hell. Fearing this destruction, the tyrant left hisgloomy court." And in Sophocles, (Oedip. Colon., ver. 1628, edit. Johnson). Εννυχιων αναξ, Αιδωνευ. "O Pluto, king of shades." That is, the invisible demon, who dwells in darkness impenetrable. Old Coverdale translates: Very fearfulnesse shall bringe him to the kynge. Verse 15 It shall dwell in his tabernacle - Desolation is here personified, and it is said that it shall be the inhabitant, its former owner being destroyed. Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation, so that, like Sodom and Gomorrah, it may be an everlasting monument of the Divine displeasure. In the Persian poet Saady, we find a couplet which contains a similar sentiment: - Purdeh daree meekund dar keesri Keesar ankeboot Boomee Noobat meezund ber kumbed Afraseeab. "The spider holds the veil in the palace of Caesar; The owl stands sentinel on the watchtower of Afrasiab." The palaces of those mighty kings are so desolate that the spider is the only chamberlain, and the owl the only sentinel. The web of the former is all that remains as a substitute for the costly veil furnished by the chamberlain in the palace of the Roman monarch; and the hooting of the latter is the only remaining substitute for the sound of drums and trumpets by which the guards were accustomed to be relieved at the watchtower of the Persian king. The word (Persic) Keesur, the same as kaisar or Caesar, is the term which the Asiatics always use when they designate the Roman emperor. Afrasiab was an ancient king who invaded and conquered Persia about seven hundred years before the Christian era. After having reigned twelve years, he was defeated and slain by Zalzer and his son, the famous Rustem. The present reigning family of Constantinople claim descent from this ancient monarch. Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation - This may either refer to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, as has already been intimated, or to an ancient custom of fumigating houses with brimstone, in order to purify them from defilement. Pliny says, Hist. Nat., lib. xxxv., c. 15, speaking of the uses of sulphur, Habet et in religionibus locum ad expiandas suffitu domos; which Dr. Holland paraphrases thus: "Moreover brimstone is employed ceremoniously in hallowing of houses; for many are of opinion that the perfume and burning thereof will keep out all enchantments; yea, and drive away foul fiends and evil sprites that do haunt a place." Ovid refers to the same, De Arte. Am., lib. ii. ver. 329. Et veniat, quae lustret anus lectumque locumque: Praeferat et tremula sulphur et ova manu. This alludes to the ceremony of purifying the bed or place in which a sick person was confined; an old woman or nurse was the operator, and eggs and sulphur were the instruments of purification. On this and other methods of purgation see an excellent note in Servius on these words of Virgil, Aen. vi., ver. 740. - Aliae panduntur inanes Suspensae ad ventos: aliis sub gurgite vasto Infectum eluitur scelus, aut exuritur igni. "For this are various penances subjoin'd; And some are hung to bleach upon the wind; Some plunged in waters, others, plunged in fires." Unde etiam, says Servius, in sacris Liberi omnibus tres sunt istae purgationes: nam aut taeda purgantur et sulphure, aut aqua abluuntur, aut aere ventilantur. "These three kinds of purgation are used in the rites of Bacchus: they are purged by flame and sulphur, or washed in water, or ventilated by the winds." But it is most likely that Bildad, in his usual uncharitable manner, alludes to the destruction of Job's property and family by winds and fire: for the Fire of God fell from heaven and burnt up the sheep and the servants, and Consumed them; and a great wind, probably the sulphureous suffocating simoom, smote the four corners of the house, where Job's children were feasting, and killed them; see Job 1:16 , Job 1:19 . Verse 16 His roots shall be dried up - his branch be cut off - He shall be as utterly destroyed, both in himself, his posterity, and his property, as a tree is whose branches are all lopped off, and whose every root is cut away. Verse 17 His remembrance shall perish - He shall have none to survive him, to continue his name among men. No name in the street - He shall never be a man of reputation; after his demise, none shall talk of his fame. Verse 18 He shall be driven from light - He shall be taken off by a violent death. And chased out of the world - The wicked is Driven Away in his iniquity. This shows his reluctance to depart from life. Verse 19 He shall neither have son nor nephew - Coverdale, following the Vulgate, translates thus: He shal neither have children ner kynss folk among his people, no ner eny posterite in his countrie: yonge and olde shal be astonyshed at his death. Verse 20 They that come after him - The young shall be struck with astonishment when they hear the relation of the judgments of God upon this wicked man. As they that went before. The aged who were his contemporaries, and who saw the judgments that fell on him, were affrighted, אחזו שער achazu saar, seized with horror - were horrified; or, as Mr. Good has well expressed it, were panic-struck. Verse 21 Such are the dwellings - This is the common lot of the wicked; and it shall be particularly the case with him who knoweth not God, that is Job, for it is evident he alludes to him. Poor Job! hard was thy lot, severe were thy sufferings. On the elephant hunt to which I have referred, Job 18:13 , I shall borrow the following account extracted from Mr. Cordiner's History of Ceylon, by Mr. Good: - "We have a curious description of the elephant hunt, which is pursued in a manner not essentially different from the preceding, except that the snares are pallisadoed with the strongest possible stakes, instead of being netted, and still farther fortified by interlacings. They are numerous, but connected together; every snare or inclosure growing gradually narrower, and opening into each other by a gate or two that will only admit the entrance of a single animal at a time. "The wood in which elephants are known to abound is first surrounded, excepting at the end where the foremost and widest inclosure is situated, with fires placed on moveable pedestals, which in every direction are drawn closer and closer, and, aided by loud and perpetual shouts, drive the animals forward till they enter into the outer snare. After which the same process is continued, and they are driven by fear into a second, into a third, and into a fourth; till at length the elephants become so much sub-divided, that by the aid of cordage fastened carefully round their limbs, and the management of decoy elephants, they are easily capable of being led away one by one, and tamed. A single hunt thus conducted will sometimes occupy not less than two months of unremitting labor; and the entrance of the elephants into the snares is regarded as an amusement or sport of the highest character, and as such is attended by all the principal families of the country." Account of Ceylon, p. 218-226. Introduction Job complains of the cruelty of his friends, Job 19:1-5 . Pathetically laments his sufferings, Job 19:6-12 . Complains of his being forsaken by all his domestics, friends, relatives, and even his wife, Job 19:13-19 . Details his sufferings in an affecting manner, calls upon his friends to pity him, and earnestly wishes that his speeches may be recorded, Job 19:20-24 . Expresses his hope in a future resurrection, Job 19:25-27 . And warns his persecutors to desist, lest they fall under God's judgments, Job 19:28 , Job 19:29 . Verse 2 How long will ye vex my soul - Every thing that was irritating, vexatious, and opprobrious, his friends had recourse to, in order to support their own system, and overwhelm him. Not one of them seems to have been touched with a feeling of tenderness towards him, nor does a kind expression drop at any time from their lips! They were called friends; but this term, in reference to them, must be taken in the sense of cold-blooded acquaintances. However, there are many in the world that go under the sacred name of friends, who, in times of difficulty, act a similar part. Job's friends have been, by the general consent of posterity, consigned to endless infamy. May all those who follow their steps be equally enrolled in the annals of bad fame! Verse 3 These ten times - The exact arithmetical number is not to be regarded; ten times being put for many times, as we have already seen. See particularly the note on Gen 31:7 (note). Ye make yourselves strange to me - When I was in affluence and prosperity, ye were my intimates, and appeared to rejoice in my happiness; but now ye scarcely know me, or ye profess to

irstborn of death shall devour his strength. 14 His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the king of terrors. 15 It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation. 16 His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off. 17 His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street. 18 He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. 19 He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings. 20 They that come after him shall be astonied at his day, as they that went before were affrighted. 21 Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place of him that knoweth not God. Bildad here describes the destruction itself which wicked people are reserved for in the other world, and which, in some degree, often seizes them in this world. Come, and see what a miserable condition the sinner is in when his day comes to fall. I. See him disheartened and weakened by continual terrors arising from the sense of his own guilt and the dread of God's wrath ( v. 11, 12 ): Terror shall make him afraid on every side. The terrors of his own conscience shall haunt him, so that he shall never be easy. Wherever he goes, these shall follow him; which way soever he looks, these shall stare him in the face. It will make him tremble to see himself fought against by the whole creation, to see Heaven frowning on him, hell gaping for him, and earth sick of him. He that carries his own accuser, and his own tormentor, always in his bosom, cannot but be afraid on every side. This will drive him to his feet, like the malefactor, who, being conscious of his own guilt, takes to his heels and flees when none pursues, Prov. xxviii. 1 . But his feet will do him no service; they are fast in the snare, v. 9 . The sinner may as soon overpower the divine omnipotence as flee from the divine omniscience, Amos ix. 2, 3 . No marvel that the sinner is dispirited and distracted with fear, for, 1. He sees his ruin approaching: Destruction shall be ready at his side, to seize him whenever justice gives the word, so that he is brought into desolation in a moment, Ps. lxxiii. 19 . 2. He feels himself utterly unable to grapple with it, either to escape it or to bear up under it. That which he relied upon as his strength (his wealth, power, pomp, friends, and the hardiness of his own spirit) shall fail him in the time of need, and be hunger-bitten, that is, it shall do him no more service than a famished man, pining away for hunger, would do in work or war. The case being thus with him, no marvel that he is a terror to himself. Note, The way of sin is a way of fear, and leads to everlasting confusion, of which the present terrors of an impure and unpacified conscience are earnests, as they were to Cain and Judas. II. See him devoured and swallowed up by a miserable death; and miserable indeed a wicked man's death is, how secure and jovial soever his life was. 1. See him dying, arrested by the first-born of death (some disease, or some stroke that has in it a more than ordinary resemblance of death itself; so great a death, as it is called, 2 Cor. i. 10 , a messenger of death that has in it an uncommon strength and terror), weakened by the harbingers of death, which devour the strength of his skin, that is, it shall bring rottenness into his bones and consume them. His confidence shall then be rooted out of his tabernacle ( v. 14 ), that is, all that he trusted to for his support shall be taken from him, and he shall have nothing to rely upon, no, not his own tabernacle. His own soul was his confidence, but that shall be rooted out of the tabernacle of the body, as a tree that cumbered the ground. "Thy soul shall be required of thee." 2. See him dead, and see his case then with an eye of faith. (1.) He is then brought to the king of terrors. He was surrounded with terrors while he lived ( v. 11 ), and death was the king of all those terrors; they fought against the sinner in death's name, for it is by reason of death that sinners are all their lifetime subject to bondage ( Heb. ii. 15 ), and at length they will be brought to that which they so long feared, as a captive to the conqueror. Death is terrible to nature; our Saviour himself prayed, Father, save me from this hour. But to the wicked it is in a special manner the king of terrors, both as it is a period to that life in which they placed their happiness and a passage to that life where they will find their endless misery. How happy then are the saints, and how much indebted to the Lord Jesus, by whom death is so far abolished, and the property of it altered, that this king of terrors becomes a friend and servant! (2.) He is then driven from the light into darkness ( v. 18 ), from the light of this world, and his prosperous condition in it, into darkness, the darkness of the grave, the darkness of hell, into utter darkness, never to see light ( Ps. xlix. 19 ), not the least gleam, nor any hopes of it. (3.) He is then chased out of the world, hurried and dragged away by the messengers of death, sorely against his will, chased as Adam out of paradise, for the world is his paradise. It intimates that he would fain stay here; he is loth to depart, but go he must; all the world is weary of him, and therefore chases him out, as glad to get rid of him. This is death to a wicked man. III. See his family sunk and cut off, v. 15 . The wrath and curse of God light and lie, not only upon his head and heart, but upon his house too, to consume it with the timber and stones thereof, Zech. v. 4 . Death itself shall dwell in his tabernacle, and, having expelled him, shall take possession of his house, to the terror and destruction of all that he leaves behind. Even the dwelling shall be ruined for the sake of its owner: Brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation, rained upon it as upon Sodom, to the destruction of which this seems to have reference. Some think he here upbraids Job with the burning of his sheep and servants with fire from heaven. The reason is here given why his tabernacle is thus marked for ruin: Because it is none of his; that is, it was unjustly got, and kept, from the rightful owner, and therefore let him not expect either the comfort or the continuance of it. His children shall perish, either with him or after him, v. 16 . So that, his roots being in his own person dried up beneath, above his branch (every child of his family) shall be cut off. Thus the houses of Jeroboam, Baasha, and Ahab, were cut off; none that descended from them were left alive. Those who take root in the earth may expect it will thus be dried up; but, if we be rooted in Christ, even our leaf shall not wither, much less shall our branch be cut off. Those who consult the true honour of their family, and the welfare of its branches, will be afraid of withering it by sin. The extirpation of the sinner's family is mentioned again ( v. 19 ): He shall neither have son nor nephew, child nor grandchild, to enjoy his estate and bear up his name, nor shall there be any remaining in his dwelling akin to him. Sin entails a curse upon posterity, and the iniquity of the fathers is often visited upon the children. Herein, also, it is probable that Bildad reflects upon the death of Job's children and servants, as a further proof of his being a wicked man; whereas all that are written childless are not thereby written graceless; there is a name better than that of sons and daughters. IV. See his memory buried with him, or made odious; he shall either be forgotten or spoken of with dishonour ( v. 17 ): His remembrance shall perish from the earth; and, if it perish thence, it perishes wholly, for it was never written in heaven, as the names of the saints are, Luke x. 20 . All his honour shall be laid and lost in the dust, or stained with perpetual infamy, so that he shall have no name in the street, departing without being desired. Thus the judgments of God follow him, after death, in this world, as an indication of the misery his soul is in after death, and an earnest of that everlasting shame and contempt to which he shall rise in the great day. The memory of the just is blessed, but the name of the wicked shall rot, Prov. x. 7 . V. See a universal amazement at his fall, v. 20 . Those that see it are affrighted, so sudden is the change, so dreadful the execution, so threatening to all about him: and those that come after, and hear the report of it, are astonished at it; their ears are made to tingle, and their hearts to tremble, and they cry out, Lord, how terrible art thou in thy judgments! A place or person utterly ruined is said to be made an astonishment, Deut. xxviii. 37; 2 Chron. vii. 21 ; Jer. xxv. 9, 18 . Horrible sins bring strange punishments. VI. See all this averred as the unanimous sense of the patriarchal age, grounded upon their knowledge of God and their many observations of his providence ( v. 21 ): Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked, and this is the place (this the condition) of him that knows not God! See here what is the beginning, and what is the end, of the wickedness of this wicked world. 1. The beginning of it is ignorance of God, and it is a wilful ignorance, for there is that to be known of him which is sufficient to leave them for ever inexcusable. They know not God, and then they commit all iniquity. Pharaoh knows not the Lord, and therefore will not obey his voice. 2. The end of it, and that is utter destruction. Such, so miserable, are the dwellings of the wicked. Vengeance will be taken of those that know not God, 2 Thess. i. 8 . For those whom he has not honour from he will get himself honour upon. Let us therefore stand in awe and not sin, for it will certainly be bitterness in the latter end. This chapter is Job's answer to Bildad's discourse in the foregoing chapter. Though his spirit was grieved and much heated, and Bildad was very peevish, yet he gave him leave to say all he

It - Destruction, expressed ver. 12 , shall fix its abode with him. Because - Because it is none of his own, being got from others by deceit or violence. Brimstone - It shall be utterly destroyed, as it were, by fire and brimstone. He seems to allude both to the destruction of Sodom, which happened not long before these times, and to the judgment which befel Job, chap. 1:16 .