The Book of Job

Word Study

"light," Hebrew or (אוֹר), light, lamp, the light of life and prosperity. Bildad opens his grim catalogue with the image of a light: "the light of the wicked shall be put out." He develops it: "the light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him" (v6). In the ancient world a lamp burning in the house was the very sign of life, family, and continuance; to have one's lamp extinguished meant utter ruin, the end of the household.

"put out," yid'akh (יִדְעָךְ), be extinguished, quenched. This is what Bildad says will happen to that lamp, and in it he states a genuine biblical principle, that the prosperity of the wicked is temporary and their end is darkness: "the lamp of the wicked shall be put out" (Proverbs 13:9); "the candle of the wicked shall be put out" (Proverbs 24:20). So far, this is true. The tragedy is that Bildad aims the truth like a dagger at Job, implying that Job's darkened life proves him to be one of these wicked whose light God is extinguishing. He takes a real truth about the ultimate fate of the ungodly and misapplies it to crush a righteous man in his suffering. The doctrine is sound; the diagnosis is cruel and false. Job's light seemed put out, but not because he was wicked, and the true story would end not in darkness but in restored light.

"spark," shevib (שְׁבִיב), a flame or spark. "And the spark of his fire shall not shine." Bildad presses the image to its last detail: not merely the steady lamp but even the smallest flame from the man's own hearth will give no light. He wants nothing left glowing, not one ember, in the picture he is painting of the wicked man's end.

Explanation

Bildad begins his grim portrait with the wicked man's lamp snuffed out: "the light of the wicked shall be put out." In the ancient world a burning lamp meant life and continuance; its extinguishing meant utter ruin. Bildad states a real biblical truth, that the prosperity of the wicked is temporary and ends in darkness (Proverbs 13:9; 24:20). But he aims it like a dagger at Job, implying that Job's darkened life proves him wicked. The doctrine is sound; the diagnosis is cruel and false. Job's light seemed out, but not for wickedness, and his story would end in restored light.

Gospel Focus

"The light of the wicked shall be put out", it is true that apart from God the end is darkness, and this makes the Gospel of light shine all the brighter. For into a world where the lamp of the sinner is destined to be snuffed out, there came One who is Himself the unquenchable Light: "I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life" (John 8:12). "In him was life; and the life was the light of men. And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not" (John 1:4-5). The wicked man's candle is put out, but Christ came so that sinners need not remain among the wicked whose light fails; He came to give "the light of life" to those in darkness. "The people which sat in darkness saw great light" (Matthew 4:16). Bildad could only threaten Job with the darkness that awaits the ungodly; the Gospel offers deliverance out of that darkness into light. "Ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord" (Ephesians 5:8); God "hath called you out of darkness into his marvellous light" (1 Peter 2:9). The answer to the terror of a light put out is to come to the Light that can never be extinguished, the Lord Jesus, in whom even those once destined for darkness become children of light, whose lamp will never go out.

Word Study

"confidence," Hebrew mivtacho (מִבְטַחוֹ), that in which he trusts, his security. Bildad describes the wicked man's security being torn away: "his confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle." The word means the thing a man leans his weight on, whatever he has made his security, and Bildad's picture is of it being pulled up by the roots out of the very house where it stood. The man is left with nothing under him.

"king of terrors," melekh ballahoth (מֶלֶךְ בַּלָּהוֹת), a vivid personification of death as a dreadful king who reigns by terror. Stripped of all he trusted in, the wicked man is then dragged to death, memorably called "the king of terrors." Death is pictured as a fearsome monarch who reigns over a realm of dread, to whom every sinner is finally brought. There is sober truth here: for the person who "knoweth not God" (v21), death truly is a king of terrors, the gateway to judgment, the great fear that shadows a life without God. "The wages of sin is death" (Romans 6:23); "it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment" (Hebrews 9:27). Bildad uses this rightly as a description of the doom of the ungodly, but wrongly aims it at Job, as though Job were being dragged to that king. Yet the phrase "king of terrors" raises the very question the Gospel answers: is death an undefeated king, or has a greater King conquered him? For the ungodly, death remains a terror; but for those in Christ, the king of terrors has himself been dethroned.

Explanation

Bildad describes the wicked man's security torn away and himself dragged to death, "the king of terrors", death personified as a dreadful monarch reigning by fear. There is sober truth here: for the person who "knoweth not God", death truly is a king of terrors, the gateway to judgment (Romans 6:23; Hebrews 9:27). Bildad rightly describes the doom of the ungodly but wrongly aims it at Job. Yet the phrase raises the great question: is death an undefeated king, or has a greater King conquered him? For those in Christ, the king of terrors has been dethroned.

Gospel Focus

"The king of terrors", death reigns as a dreadful king over all who are without God, but the Gospel proclaims that this king has met his Conqueror in Jesus Christ. Jesus "through death" destroyed "him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage" (Hebrews 2:14-15). The king of terrors could not hold the Lord of glory: Christ died, and rose, and now says, "I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death" (Revelation 1:18). The keys, the very authority of that dreaded king, are now in the pierced hands of the risen Christ. For the believer, therefore, death is no longer a terror but a defeated foe: "O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?... thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (1 Corinthians 15:55-57). What was a king of terrors becomes, in Christ, a doorway home, "to die is gain" (Philippians 1:21); "absent from the body... present with the Lord" (2 Corinthians 5:8). Bildad could only hold death over Job as a threat; Jesus has taken the crown from the king of terrors and turned the grave into the gate of glory for all who trust in Him.

Word Study

"dwellings," Hebrew mishkenoth (מִשְׁכְּנוֹת), tabernacles, habitations. Bildad gathers his whole speech into one sweeping summary: "Surely such are the dwellings of the wicked." He means the tents and households he has been describing throughout, the darkened tabernacle, the snuffed lamp, the confidence rooted out, and he presents them as a settled pattern, the sort of home a wicked man always ends with. Job, sitting in the ruins of his own household, could hardly miss the aim of it.

"knoweth not God," lo-yada El (לֹא־יָדַע אֵל), has no knowledge of God, does not know Him relationally. Bildad drives his whole speech to its point: "this is the place of him that knoweth not God." The doom he has described, the light put out, the terrors, the king of terrors, the name perishing, is, he says, the destiny of "him that knoweth not God." And in this Bildad states a truth of enormous weight, though he cruelly misapplies it to Job. To not know God is the root of ruin. The great tragedy of a lost life is not merely its outward calamities but that it belongs to one who "knoweth not God." Paul writes of Christ coming "in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God" (2 Thessalonians 1:8). The deepest human need is to know God, and the deepest human loss is to be without that knowledge. Bildad, ironically, was accusing a man who did know God, who feared Him and clung to Him even in the dark. His diagnosis of Job was utterly wrong. But his statement of the principle unwittingly points to the one thing that matters most: to know God, truly and savingly. And that knowledge, which Bildad treats as a mere marker of the righteous versus the wicked, is in fact the gift of eternal life offered in the Gospel.

Explanation

Bildad drives his speech to its point: the doom he describes is "the place of him that knoweth not God." In this he states a truth of great weight, though he cruelly misapplies it to Job. To not know God is the root of ruin; the deepest tragedy of a lost life is that it belongs to one who does not know God (2 Thessalonians 1:8). The irony is that Bildad was accusing a man who did know God and clung to Him in the dark. His diagnosis was wrong, but his principle points to the one thing that matters most: to know God savingly, the very gift the Gospel offers.

Gospel Focus

"The place of him that knoweth not God", Bildad names the deepest human tragedy, and the Gospel is God's answer to it, for Jesus Christ came so that we might know God. "And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent" (John 17:3). The Son came to make the unknown God known: "no man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him" (John 1:18); "he that hath seen me hath seen the Father" (John 14:9). In Christ, the God whom sinners did not know is fully revealed, "God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ" (2 Corinthians 4:6). The dreadful "place of him that knoweth not God" need be no one's destiny, for the Gospel calls all men to come and know God through Jesus. And this is not a distant, theoretical knowledge, but the intimate knowing of a reconciled child: "I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people... for all shall know me, from the least to the greatest" (Hebrews 8:10-11). Bildad wrongly consigned Job to the place of those who know not God; but the Gospel invites everyone, even the worst, to escape that place forever by coming to know the one true God in the face of Jesus Christ. To know Him is life eternal, and He has come that we might know Him.