Job 18:16-21 | KD | STEP | His roots wither beneath, And above his branch is lopped off. 17 His remembrance is vanished from the land, And he hath no name far and wide on the plain; 18 They drive him from light into darkness, And chase him out of the world. 19 He hath neither offspring nor descendant among his people, Nor is there an escaped one in his dwellings. The evil-doer is represented under the figure of a plant, , as we have had similar figures already, Job 8:16., , Job 15:32.; his complete extirpation is like the dying off of the root and of the branch, as ; , and “let him not have a root below and a branch above” in the inscription on the sarcophagus of Eschmunazar. Here we again meet with ימּל, the proper meaning of which is so disputed; it is translated by the Targ. (as by us) as Niph . יתמולל, but the meaning “to wither” is near at hand, which, as we said on , may be gained as well from the primary notion “to fall to pieces” (whence lxx ἐπιπεσεῖται), as from the primary notion “to parch, dry.” אמל (whence אמלל, formed after the manner of the Arabic IX. form, usually of failing; vid., Caspari, §59) offers a third possible explanation; it signifies originally to be long and lax, to let anything hang down, and thence in Arab. ( amala ) to hope, i.e., to look out into the distance. Not the evil-doer’s family alone is rooted out, but also his memory. With חוּץ, a very relative notion, both the street outside in front of the house ( ), and the pasture beyond the dwelling ( ), are described; here it is to be explained according to (ארץ וחוצות), where Hitz. remarks: “The lxx translates correctly ἀοικήτους. The districts beyond each persons’ land, which also belong to no one else, the desert, whither one goes forth, is meant.” So ארץ seems also here (comp. ) to denote the land that is regularly inhabited - Job himself is a large proprietor within the range of a city ( ) - and חוץ the steppe traversed by the wandering tribes which lies out beyond. Thus also the Syr. version transl. 'al apai barito , over the plain of the desert, after which the Arabic version is el - barrı̂je (the synon. of bedw , bâdije , whence the name of the Beduin . What is directly said in is repeated figuratively in ; as also what has been figuratively expressed in is repeated in without figure. The subj. of the verbs in remains in the background, as ; ; : they thrust him out of the light (of life, prosperity, and fame) into the darkness (of misfortune, death, and oblivion); so that the illustris becomes not merely ignobilis , but totally ignotus , and they hunt him forth (ינדּהוּ from the Hiph . הנד of the verb נדד, instead of which it might also be ינדהו from נדּה, they banish him) out of the habitable world (for this is the signification of תּבל, the earth as built upon and inhabited). There remains to him in his race neither sprout nor shoot; thus the rhyming alliteration נין and נכד (according to Luzzatto on , used only of the descendants of persons in high rank, and certainly a nobler expression than our rhyming pairs: Germ. Stumpf und Stiel, Mann und Maus, Kind und Kegel ). And there is no escaped one (as and freq., Arab. shârid , one fleeing; sharûd , a fugitive) in his abodes (מגוּר, as only besides ). Thus to die away without descendant and remembrance is still at the present day among the Arab races that profess Dı̂n Ibrâhı̂m (the religion of Abraham) the most unhappy thought, for the point of gravitation of continuance beyond the grave is transferred by them to the immortality of the righteous in the continuance of his posterity and works in this world (vid., supra , p. 386); and where else should it be at the time of Job, since no revelation had as yet drawn the curtain aside from the future world? Now follows the declamatory conclusion of the speech.

‏ Job 18:16-21

Job 18:16-19 16 His roots wither beneath,

And above his branch is lopped off. 17 His remembrance is vanished from the land,

And he hath no name far and wide on the plain; 18 They drive him from light into darkness,

And chase him out of the world. 19 He hath neither offspring nor descendant among his people,

Nor is there an escaped one in his dwellings.

The evil-doer is represented under the figure of a plant, Job 18:16, as we have had similar figures already, Job 8:16., Job 15:30, Job 15:32.; ^{▼▼To such biblical figures taken from plants, according to which root and branch are become familiar in the sense of ancestors and descendants (comp. Sir. 23:25, 40:15; Wisd. 4:3-5; Rom 11:16), the arbor consanguineitatis, which is not Roman, but is become common in the Christian refinement of the Roman right, may be traced back; the first trace of this is found in Isidorus Hispalensis (as also the Cabbalistic tree אילן, which represents the Sephir-genealogy, has its origin in Spain).} his complete extirpation is like the dying off of the root and of the branch, as Amo 2:9; Isa 5:24, and “let him not have a root below and a branch above” in the inscription on the sarcophagus of Eschmunazar. Here we again meet with ימּל, the proper meaning of which is so disputed; it is translated by the Targ. (as by us) as Niph. יתמולל, but the meaning “to wither” is near at hand, which, as we said on Job 14:2, may be gained as well from the primary notion “to fall to pieces” (whence lxx ἐπιπεσεῖται), as from the primary notion “to parch, dry.” אמל (whence אמלל, formed after the manner of the Arabic IX. form, usually of failing; vid., Caspari, §59) offers a third possible explanation; it signifies originally to be long and lax, to let anything hang down, and thence in Arab. (amala) to hope, i.e., to look out into the distance. Not the evil-doer’s family alone is rooted out, but also his memory. With חוּץ, a very relative notion, both the street outside in front of the house (Job 31:32), and the pasture beyond the dwelling (Job 5:10), are described; here it is to be explained according to Pro 8:26 (ארץ וחוצות), where Hitz. remarks: “The lxx translates correctly ἀοικήτους. The districts beyond each persons’ land, which also belong to no one else, the desert, whither one goes forth, is meant.” So ארץ seems also here (comp. Job 30:8) to denote the land that is regularly inhabited - Job himself is a large proprietor within the range of a city (Job 29:7) - and חוץ the steppe traversed by the wandering tribes which lies out beyond. Thus also the Syr. version transl. 'al apai barito, over the plain of the desert, after which the Arabic version is el - barrı̂je (the synon. of bedw , bâdije , whence the name of the Beduin ^{▼▼The village with its meadow-land is el - beled wa 'l - berr. The arable land, in distinction from the steppe, is el - ardd el - âmira, and the steppe is el - berrı̂je. If both are intended, ardd can be used alone. Used specially, el - berrı̂je is the proper name for the great Syrian desert; hence the proverb: el - hhurrı̂je fi 'l - berrı̇je, there is freedom in the steppe (not in towns and villages). - Wetzst.)}.

What is directly said in Job 18:17 is repeated figuratively in Job 18:18; as also what has been figuratively expressed in Job 18:16 is repeated in Job 18:19 without figure. The subj. of the verbs in Job 18:18 remains in the background, as Job 4:19; Psa 63:11; Luk 12:20 : they thrust him out of the light (of life, prosperity, and fame) into the darkness (of misfortune, death, and oblivion); so that the illustris becomes not merely ignobilis, but totally ignotus, and they hunt him forth (ינדּהוּ from the Hiph. הנד of the verb נדד, instead of which it might also be ינדהו from נדּה, they banish him) out of the habitable world (for this is the signification of תּבל, the earth as built upon and inhabited). There remains to him in his race neither sprout nor shoot; thus the rhyming alliteration נין and נכד (according to Luzzatto on Isa 14:22, used only of the descendants of persons in high rank, and certainly a nobler expression than our rhyming pairs: Germ. Stumpf und Stiel, Mann und Maus, Kind und Kegel). And there is no escaped one (as Deu 2:34 and freq., Arab. shârid, one fleeing; sharûd, a fugitive) in his abodes (מגוּר, as only besides Psa 55:16). Thus to die away without descendant and remembrance is still at the present day among the Arab races that profess Dı̂n Ibrâhı̂m (the religion of Abraham) the most unhappy thought, for the point of gravitation of continuance beyond the grave is transferred by them to the immortality of the righteous in the continuance of his posterity and works in this world (vid., supra, p. 386); and where else should it be at the time of Job, since no revelation had as yet drawn the curtain aside from the future world? Now follows the declamatory conclusion of the speech. Job 18:20-21 20 Those who dwell in the west are astonished at his day,

And trembling seizeth those who dwell in the east; 21 Surely thus it befalleth the dwellings of the unrighteous,

And thus the place of him that knew not God.

It is as much in accordance with the usage of Arabic as it is biblical, to call the day of a man’s doom “his day,” the day of a battle at a place “the day of that place.” Who are the אחרנים who are astonished at it, and the קדמנים whom terror (שׂער as twice besides in this sense in Ezek.) seizes, or as it is properly, who seize terror, i.e., of themselves, without being able to do otherwise than yield to the emotion (as Job 21:6; Isa 13:8; comp. on the contrary Exo 15:14.)? Hirz., Schlottm., Hahn, and others, understand posterity by אחרנים, and by קדמנים their ancestors, therefore Job’s contemporaries. But the return from the posterity to those then living is strange, and the usage of the language is opposed to it; for קדמנים is elsewhere always what belongs to the previous age in relation to the speaker (e.g., 1Sa 24:14, comp. Ecc 4:16). Since, then, קדמני is used in the signification eastern (e.g., הים הקדמוני, the eastern sea = the Dead Sea), and אחרון in the signification western (e.g., הים האחרון, the western sea = the Mediterranean), it is much more suited both to the order of the words and the usage of the language to understand, with Schult., Oetinger, Umbr., and Ew., the former of those dwelling in the west, and the latter of those dwelling in the east. In the summarizing Job 18:21, the retrospective pronouns are also praegn., like Job 8:19; Job 20:29, comp. Job 26:14 : Thus is it, viz., according to their fate, i.e., thus it befalls them; and אך here retains its original affirmative signification (as in the concluding verse of Psa 58:1-11), although in Hebrew this is blended with the restrictive. וזה has Rebia mugrasch instead of great Schalscheleth, ^{▼▼Vid., Psalter ii. 503, and comp. Davidson, Outlines of Hebrew Accentuation (1861), p. 92, note.} and מקום has in correct texts Legarme, which must be followed by לא־ידע with Illuj on the penult. On the relative clause לא־ידע אל without אשׁר, comp. e.g., Job 29:16; and on this use of the st. constr., vid., Ges. §116, 3. The last verse is as though those mentioned in Job 18:20 pointed with the finger to the example of punishment in the ”desolated” dwellings which have been visited by the curse.

This second speech of Bildad begins, like the first (Job 8:2), with the reproach of endless babbling; but it does not end like the first (Job 8:22). The first closed with the words: "Thy haters shall be clothed with shame, and the tent of the godless is no more," the second is only an amplification of the second half of this conclusion, without taking up again anywhere the tone of promise, which there also embraces the threatening.

It is manifest also from this speech, that the friends, to express it in the words of the old commentators, know nothing of evangelical but only of legal suffering, and also only of legal, nothing of evangelical, righteousness. For the righteousness of which Job boasts is not the righteousness of single works of the law, but of a disposition directed to God, of conduct proceeding from faith, or (as the Old Testament generally says) from trust in God’s mercy, the weaknesses of which are forgiven because they are exonerated by the habitual disposition of the man and the primary aim of his actions. The fact that the principle, “suffering is the consequence of human unrighteousness,” is accounted by Bildad as the formula of an inviolable law of the moral order of the world, is closely connected with that outward aspect of human righteousness. One can only thus judge when one regards human righteousness and human destiny from the purely legal point of view. A man, as soon as we conceive him in faith, and therefore under grace, is no longer under that supposed exclusive fundamental law of the divine dealing. Brentius is quite right when he observes that the sentence of the law certainly is modified for the sake of the godly who have the word of promise. Bildad knows nothing of the worth and power which a man attains by a righteous heart. By faith he is removed from the domain of God’s justice, which recompenses according to the law of works; and before the power of faith even rocks move from their place.

Bildad then goes off into a detailed description of the total destruction into which the evil-doer, after going about for a time oppressed with the terrors of his conscience as one walking over snares, at last sinks beneath a painful sickness. The description is terribly brilliant, solemn, and pathetic, as becomes the stern preacher of repentance with haughty mien and pharisaic self-confidence; it is none the less beautiful, and, considered in itself, also true - a masterpiece of the poet’s skill in poetic idealizing, and in apportioning out the truth in dramatic form. The speech only becomes untrue through the application of the truth advanced, and this untruthfulness the poet has most delicately presented in it. For with a view of terrifying Job, Bildad interweaves distinct references to Job in his description; he knows, however, also how to conceal them under the rich drapery of diversified figures. The first-born of death, that hands the ungodly over to death itself, the king of terrors, by consuming the limbs of the ungodly, is the Arabian leprosy, which slowly destroys the body. The brimstone indicates the fire of God, which, having fallen from heaven, has burned up one part of the herds and servants of Job; the withering of the branch, the death of Job’s children, whom he himself, as a drying-up root that will also soon die off, has survived. Job is the ungodly man, who, with wealth, children, name, and all that he possessed, is being destroyed as an example of punishment for posterity both far and near.

But, in reality, Job is not an example of punishment, but an example for consolation to posterity; and what posterity has to relate is not Job’s ruin, but his wondrous deliverance (Psa 22:31.). He is no עוּל, but a righteous man; not one who לא ידע־אל, but he knows God better than the friends, although he contends with Him, and they defend Him. It is with him as with the righteous One, who complains, Psa 69:21 : “Contempt hath broken my heart, and I became sick: I hoped for sympathy, but in vain; for comforters, and found none;” and Psa 38:12 (comp. Psa 31:12; Psa 55:13-15; Psa 69:9; Psa 88:9, 19): “My lovers and my friends stand aloof from my stroke, and my kinsmen stand afar off.” Not without a deep purpose does the poet make Bildad to address Job in the plural. The address is first directed to Job alone; nevertheless it is so put, that what Bildad says to Job is also intended to be said to others of a like way of thinking, therefore to a whole party of the opposite opinion to himself. Who are these like-minded? Hirzel rightly refers to Job 17:8. Job is the representative of the suffering and misjudged righteous, in other words: of the “congregation,” whose blessedness is hidden beneath an outward form of suffering. One is hereby reminded that in the second part of Isaiah the יהוה עבד is also at one time spoken of in the sing., and at another time in the plur.; since this idea, by a remarkable contraction and expansion of expression (systole and diastole), at one time describes the one servant of Jehovah, and at another the congregation of the servants of Jehovah, which has its head in Him. Thus we again have a trace of the fact that the poet is narrating a history that is of universal significance, and that, although Job is no mere personification, he has in him brought forth to view an idea connected with the history of redemption. The ancient interpreters were on the track of this idea when they said in their way, that in Job we behold the image of Christ, and the figure of His church. Christi personam figuraliter gessit, says Beda; and Gregory, after having stated and explained that there is not in the Old Testament a righteous man who does not typically point to Christ, says: Beatus Iob venturi cum suo corpore typum redemtoris insinuat.