CHAPTER 18 Dec. 15 
Bildad’s Second Speech
Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 2How long will you hunt for words? Consider, and afterwards we will speak. 3Why are we counted as animals, which have become unclean in your sight? 4You who tear yourself in your anger, shall the earth be forsaken for you? Or shall the rock be removed out of its place? 5Yes, the light of the wicked shall be put out, the spark of his fire shall not shine. 6The light shall be dark in his tent. His lamp above him shall be put out. 7The steps of his strength shall be shortened. His own counsel shall cast him down. 8For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he wanders into its mesh. 9A snare will take him by the heel. A trap will catch him. 10A noose is hidden for him in the ground, a trap for him in the way. 11Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall chase him at his heels. 12His strength shall be famished. Calamity shall be ready at his side. 13The members of his body shall be devoured. The firstborn of death shall devour his members. 14He shall be rooted out of his tent where he trusts. He shall be brought to the king of terrors. 15There shall dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulphur shall be scattered on his habitation. 16His roots shall be dried up beneath. Above shall his branch be cut off. 17His memory shall perish from the earth. He shall have no name in the street. 18He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world. 19He shall have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived. 20Those who come after shall be astonished at his day, as those who went before were frightened. 21Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous. This is the place of him who doesn’t know God. 

Commentary

18:14 The king of terrors- Bildad blamed Job’s calamity upon pagan versions of the ‘Satan’ myth such as this supposed king, and the “firstborn of death” (:13). One intention of the book of Job is to deconstruct these ideas and to present God as the ultimate source of both good and disaster.
18:19 Bildad throughout this chapter is alluding to Job’s loss of his home and family, and is certain that the next step is for Job himself to die without descendants- because, he assumes, Job has sinned. The restoration of Job’s health and the gift of a new family at the end of the book proves Bildad so wrong. We need to learn the lesson not to assume things about others’ relationship with God nor about the meaning of events in their lives.