Job 18

“Death is the great adventure, beside which moon landings and space trips pale into insignificance.” —J B

Bildad opened his second speech with the same words he used in his first speech: “How long?”

(Job 18:2; 8:2), and Job said the same thing when he replied (19:2). The friends were growing impatient with each other because their conversation seemed to be getting nowhere. George Bernard Shaw compared the average conversation to “a phonograph with half-adozen records—you soon get tired of them all.”

Bildad blamed Job for the stalemate and admonished him, “Be sensible, and then we can talk” (18: niv). It never dawned on Bildad that he and his two friends were playing the same tunes over and over again: (1) God is just; (2) God punishes the wicked and blesses the righteous; (3) since Job is suffering, he must be wicked; (4) if he turns from his sins, God will again bless him. They were going around in circles.

Bildad said that Job was not being sensible, nor was he being respectful. He was treating his friends like dumb cattle instead of like the wise men they really were (v. 3). Job was also being irritable and displaying anger instead of humility (v. 4). “Is God supposed to rearrange the whole world just for you?” Bildad asks. “Should He ravage the land with war or even send an earthquake just because of you?” Eliphaz wasn’t the only one who knew how to use sarcasm!

However, Bildad planned to use a stronger weapon than sarcasm. His weapon was fear. If the three friends could not reason with Job, or shame Job into repenting, perhaps they could frighten Job by describing what happens when wicked people die.

Before we study Bildad’s terrifying speech, we should note that fear is a normal human emotion and there is nothing wrong with it. We use the fear of sickness, injury, or death to teach children to wash their hands, stay away from power lines, and look carefully before crossing the street. Fear of financial loss motivates people to buy insurance, and fear of death encourages them to have an annual physical checkup.

Fear of death (and the judgment that follows) is a legitimate motive for trusting Jesus Christ and being saved. “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul,” said Jesus. “But rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matt. 10: nkjv). Jesus preached a gracious message of love, but He also preached a stern message of judgment. Paul wrote, “Knowing, therefore, the terror of the Lord, we persuade men” (2 Cor. 5:11). When Jonathan Edwards preached his sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” he did not violate any psychological or biblical principles. The emotions of nonbelievers must be stirred before their minds can be instructed and their wills challenged.

However, Bildad made two mistakes when he gave this speech about the horrors of death. To begin with, he preached it to the wrong man; for Job was already a believer (Job 1:1, 8). Second, he preached it with the wrong motive, for there was no love in his heart. Dr. R. W. Dale, the British preacher, once asked evangelist D. L. Moody if he ever used “the element of terror” in his preaching. Moody replied that he usually preached one sermon on heaven and one on hell in each of his campaigns, but that a “man’s heart ought to be very tender” when preaching about the doom of the lost. Bildad did not have a tender heart.

In this address, Bildad painted four vivid pictures of the death of the wicked.

A light put out (Job 18:5–6). Light is associated with life just as darkness is associated with death. Since God is the author of life, He alone can “light our lamp”; for “He gives to all life, breath, and all things,” and “in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:25, 28 nkjv). The picture here is that of a lamp hanging in a tent and a fire smoldering in a fire pot. Suddenly, the lamp goes out, and the last spark of the fire vanishes, and the tent is in total darkness (Prov. 13:9; 24:20).

Like the flame of the lamp or the spark in the coals, life is a precious but delicate thing. It doesn’t take a very strong wind to blow it out. “There is but a step between me and death” (1 Sam. 20:3).

The American newspaper magnate William Randolph Hearst would never permit anybody to mention death in his presence. Yet on August 14, 1951, the flame of his life went out, and he died. “The spirit of man is the candle of the Lord” (Prov. 20:27), and God can blow out that lamp whenever He pleases.

A traveler trapped (Job 18:7–10). Frightened, the man leaves his tent and starts down the road, looking for a place of safety. But the road turns out to be the most dangerous place of all, for it is punctuated by traps. Bildad used six different words to describe the dangers people face when they try to run away from death: a net—spread across the path to catch him a snare—branches covering a deep pit a trap—a “gin” (snare) with a noose that springs when touched; he is caught by the heel a robber—another pitfall a snare—a noose hidden on the ground a trap—any device that catches prey

These devices were used to catch birds and animals, not people; but the wicked person is like a beast because he has left God out of his life.

No matter what schemes the traveler invents, he cannot escape the traps; and the more he tries, the weaker he becomes (Job 18:7). Darkness and danger surround him, and there is no hope.

A criminal pursued (Job 18:11–15). Death is “the king of terrors” (v. 14), determined to arrest the culprit no matter where he is. If the escaped criminal runs on the path and escapes the traps, then death will send some of his helpers to chase him. Terror frightens him, calamity eats away at his strength, and disaster waits for him to fall (vv. 11–12 niv).

The frightened criminal gets weaker and weaker but still tries to keep going. If he goes back to his tent to hide, the pursuers find him, arrest him, drag him out, and take him to the king of terrors. They take everything out of his tent, burn the tent, and then scatter sulfur over the ashes. The end of that man is fire and brimstone!

A tree rooted up (Job 18:16–21). Sometimes death is not as dramatic and sudden as the arresting of a criminal. Death may be gradual, like the dying of a tree. The roots dry up, the branches start to wither, and the dead branches are cut off one by one. Soon the tree is completely dead, and men chop it down. The death of a tree illustrates the extinction of a family, a “family tree.” Not only is the wicked man himself cut down, but all the branches are cut down too; and he leaves no descendants to carry on his name. (Remember, all of Job’s children had been killed by the great wind.) In the East, the extinction of a family was viewed as a great tragedy.

Job had used a tree as an illustration of the hope of resurrection (14:7–11), but Bildad did not agree with him. According to Bildad, once the tree is down, that is the end; the wicked man has no future hope.

Though Bildad was talking to the wrong man and with the wrong motive, what he said about death should be taken seriously. Death is an enemy to be feared by all who are not prepared to die (1 Cor. 15:26), and the only way to be prepared is to trust Jesus Christ (John 5:24).

For the Christian believer, death means going home to the Father in heaven (John 14:1–6), falling asleep on earth and waking up in heaven (Acts 7:60; Phil. 1:21–23), entering into rest (Rev. 14:13), and moving into greater light (Prov. 4:18). None of the pictures Bildad used should be applied to those who have trusted the Lord for salvation.