Context No. 2554 of 4322 · Job

Job 18:1-16: in context

1Then Bildad the Shuhite answered, 2“How 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, will the earth be forsaken for you? Or will the rock be removed out of its place? 5“Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out. The spark of his fire won’t shine. 6The light will be dark in his tent. His lamp above him will be put out. 7The steps of his strength will be shortened. His own counsel will 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 on the path. 11Terrors will make him afraid on every side, and will chase him at his heels. 12His strength will be famished. Calamity will be ready at his side. 13The members of his body will be devoured. The firstborn of death will devour his members. 14He will be rooted out of the security of his tent. He will be brought to the king of terrors. 15There will dwell in his tent that which is none of his. Sulfur will be scattered on his habitation. 16His roots will be dried up beneath. His branch will be cut off above.

Bildad, one of Job's friends, answers his suffering with a long, grim catalog. The light of the wicked is put out, he says; the lamp above him goes dark; he is caught by his own feet in a net, snared by the heel, hunted by terror on every side, rooted out of his tent and dragged to the king of terrors. It is a vivid description of the doom of the wicked, aimed squarely at a man who has lost everything and is desperate for comfort.

The cruelty is in the aim. What Bildad says about the fate of the wicked may be true in the abstract, but he fires it at Job as if to say, this is happening to you because you deserve it. He takes correct-sounding doctrine and turns it into a weapon against a broken man. There is a warning here for anyone who would speak to the suffering. It is possible to be theologically right and pastorally brutal, to lecture a hurting person on the wages of sin when what they needed was presence and mercy. Truth wrongly aimed can wound as deeply as a lie.

Have I ever used true-sounding truths as a weapon against someone already hurting, when what they needed was comfort and presence?

Sources

Job 18:5: Yes, the light of the wicked will be put out. The spark of his fire won't shine.
Job 18:14: He will be rooted out of the security of his tent. He will be brought to the king of terrors.
Job 42:7: My wrath is kindled against you, for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has.