Bildad’s Second Speech: The Road to Hell: Job: The Wisdom of the Cross [Job 18]

{Pray}

JOB 18 IS AN OUTSTANDING SERMON ON HELL. In its structure, its theology, its rhetoric, and its persuasive force it is an exceptional sermon. It is said that Jonathan Edwards’s sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” was one of the most frightening sermons ever preached. Bildad’s can certainly rival that. Had I heard Bildad preach this one, I would have had to give him high marks—on every count except one.

Those who preach know well that the proper application of a sermon is perhaps the most difficult part to get right. Bildad gets this part horribly wrong. His sermon is so fundamentally misapplied that it needs to be consigned to the incinerator of failed sermons. It is not an edifying sermon; and yet to understand why is it unedifying will, paradoxically, be deeply edifying for us.

So let us hear Bildad. Job has just spoken of his “house” and his “bed” and asked where he is going and how he can hope to live in the place of death (17:13–16). Bildad answers and says in summary, “I know where you are going. You are on the road to Hell.”

Bildad’s sermon has two parts. First (vv. 1–4) he opens up the core issue, which is the moral stability of the world as somewhere in which everything and everyone has its or their place. Then most of the sermon is a description of the place in the created order where the wicked dwell. The idea of place runs through the sermon, whether it be “place” (vv. 4, 21), “tent” (vv. 6, 14, 15), “habitation” (v. 15), or “street” (v. 17).

The Issue: A Tidy World Where Everything Has Its Place (vv. 1–4)

Some homes are a mess, and some homes are tidy. Some homeowners are constantly tidying, fighting against the Second Law of Thermodynamics [heat energy cannot be transferred from a body at a lower temp. to a body at a higher temp. without the addition of energy],n i.e. they’re constantly fighting to keep things in their right places. But what is the world like? What kind of homeowner is God? That is a trivial example. But it illustrates the issue that Bildad introduces.

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

“How long will you hunt for words?

Consider, and then we will speak.

Why are we counted as cattle?

Why are we stupid in your sight?

You who tear yourself in your anger,

shall the earth be forsaken for you,

or the rock be removed out of its place?” (vv. 1–4)

Bildad begins angrily accusing Job of playing word games (v. 2a). The address “you” is plural here; perhaps Bildad implies that Job is just one of a larger class of wicked people. He challenges him to come to his senses (ESV, “Consider”; NIV, “Be sensible”) and let the friends speak (v. 2b). In his last speech Bildad challenged Job to listen to the wisdom of tradition (8:8). Job has rudely suggested he might as well ask advice from cattle (12:7). “Are you calling us cattle? Do you think we’re stupid?” asks Bildad in effect (18:3).

Job has accused God of tearing at him (16:9). Bildad says that what is really happening is self-harm (18:4a: “you … tear yourself”), which is as pointless for Job as it would be for the prophets of Baal in a later age (1 Kings 18:28, 29). He is aggravating his grief by getting hot under the collar, and it won’t do any good. The reason it won’t do any good—and this is the nub—is that the creation order cannot be disturbed (v. 4b). “The earth” and “the rock” are pictures of the stability of the world (v. 4). They picture not just the physical predictability of the physical sciences but also moral order. When Hannah rejoices that God puts wrongs right, she says, “For the pillars of the earth are the LORD’s, and on them he has set the world” (1 Samuel 2:8b).

In Bildad’s view, by Job’s suggesting that his suffering is undeserved, he is challenging the well-ordered nature of the world. To ask God to bless a sinner like him is like asking God to move the mountains around just for him, so that, uniquely in Job’s case, an exception can be made! Ironically, Job has already accused God of doing this kind of thing, calling him “he who removes mountains … overturns them … shakes the earth … and its pillars tremble” (9:5, 6).

The word “place” (18:4b) is significant. Bildad and his friends inhabit a conceptual universe that is like a tidy house in which everything has its place and everything is in its place. Or if it isn’t, we may be sure it will soon be put back. They are the moral equivalent of the very house-proud person who will not abide things being out of place. Job, they think, is like a rude guest who comes in and wants to trash the place.

The Place of the Wicked in a Tidy World (vv. 5–21)

We still use the idea of place in a metaphorical sense when we say things like “I’m not in a good place at the moment.” In the descriptions that follow, the “place,” “tent,” or “habitation” of the wicked is a vivid way of speaking of their “total world.”

Instead of wanting to remove the rock “out of its place” (v. 4), disrupting creation order, Bildad invites Job to come and see the place where wicked people dwell. In his tidy world, if a person is in that place, they must be wicked. Job is invited to draw his own conclusions.

Bildad paints a terrifying picture of this place in five stages. And it is a picture of Hell.

Hell Is the Place of Total Darkness (vv. 5, 6)

Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,

and the flame of his fire does not shine.

The light is dark in his tent,

and his lamp above him is put out. (vv. 5, 6)

When a man is “wicked,” he is destined for darkness. The fourfold repetition of words for light (v. 5a, “light”; v. 5b, “flame of his fire,” that is, a light-giving burning torch; v. 6a, “light”; v. 6b, “lamp”) builds an emphatic picture of life extinguished in death. In Hell there is not even a glimmer of light.

At the end of his previous speech Job spoke of Sheol as the place where he must “make [his] bed in darkness” (17:13). At the end of a previous speech he also spoke of having a one-way ticket “to the land of darkness and deep shadow, the land of gloom like thick darkness, like deep shadow without any order, where light is as thick darkness” (10:21, 22). Bildad agrees but states that the only people who suffer this fate are the wicked. “Draw your own conclusions, Job.” on where you are headed.

A side note, in Job we hear the word Sheol used often…we should note the Sheol is not the same as Hell ‘Gehenna’. In the OT the word Sheol is used to speak of the place where the soul and spirit of someone goes after death. In the NT the word Hades is used often as the equivalent of the OT concept of Sheol. Gehenna or Hell is the final place of torment for the wicked. In Revelation we are told that the beast and Satan and death and Hades are cast into Gehenna or Hell. So, we should note when Job is talking about Sheol he is not talking about Hell, but Bildad is describing the resting place of the wicked…which is Hell.

Hell Is the Place of Inescapable Punishment (vv. 7–10)

His strong steps are shortened,

and his own schemes throw him down.

For he is cast into a net by his own feet,

and he walks on its mesh.

A trap seizes him by the heel;

a snare lays hold of him.

A rope is hidden for him in the ground,

a trap for him in the path. (vv. 7–10)

In verses 7–10 the dominant metaphor is the trap. Six times, once in each half-verse of 8–10, there is a word for trap (“net,” “mesh,” “trap,” “snare,” “rope” (a noose), and “trap” again). Verse 7 is the key. Here is a man with “strong steps,” vigorous strides, a man with power and confidence. He is a wicked man in prosperity. But as he walks along his way, these confident “steps” will be “shortened”; he will come to a standstill. Why? Because “his own schemes,” the craftiness and twistedness of his wickedness, will “throw him down.” And being “throw[n] down” he finds himself heading to the underworld. His sin is the cause (“his own schemes”), and death is the result (Romans 5:12).

Verses 8–10 draw a vivid picture of this man. We see him tripped up by his own trap (v. 8), seized by the heel and gripped by the snare (v. 9), entangled in his own noose (v. 10). The point is that his fate is inescapable. All the skill of the hunter’s art stands against him, and he cannot escape. Hell is the place of inescapable punishment.

Job feels himself hunted and trapped by God. God has hunted him (10:16) and has put his feet in the stocks (13:27). He knows what it is to be “hedged in” (3:23), trapped and unable to escape. Precisely, says Bildad. Hell is that place. And the only people in Hell are the wicked. “Draw your own conclusion, Job.”

The next image presses forward from being trapped to being terrified.

Hell Is the Place of Insatiable Terror (vv. 11–14)

Terrors frighten him on every side,

and chase him at his heels.

His strength is famished,

and calamity is ready for his stumbling.

It consumes the parts of his skin;

the firstborn of death consumes his limbs.

He is torn from the tent in which he trusted

and is brought to the king of terrors. (vv. 11–14)

Terror brackets verses 11–14. The word “terrors” has overtones of the demonic; it is associated with darkness and Sheol. Terrors are almost like evil spirits bringing the fear of Sheol into human hearts. We might think of the Black Riders in the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

In verse 12a (“His strength is famished”) the reference is not to Job’s hunger but to the appetite of “the king of terrors” (v. 14). “Calamity” (v. 12b) is ready and waiting for him to stumble into his trap. And when he does, it will start to consume him (v. 13), both his “skin,” the outer protection of his existence, and his “limbs.” The expression “the firstborn of death” (v. 13) probably does not refer to a god other than death but to death himself as the firstborn, the one with supreme authority in the realm of the dead, “the king of terrors.” He tears the wicked man away from his “tent,” which he thought was secure (that “in which he trusted”), and drags him off to face “the king of terrors” (v. 14).

This is a terrifying picture of death as the Grim Reaper with an insatiable appetite for living beings, with the right to consume and devour the wicked. Hell is the place of insatiable terror, of terror that goes on and on and is never satisfied. Job’s skin and bones have been cruelly attacked (2:4, 5). Job feels that “the terrors of God” are arrayed against him (6:4); he cannot sleep at night, and his fear does not cease (7:4); he is in a constant state of terror (9:34), terrified by God’s angry majesty (13:11, 21). Precisely, says Bildad. Hell is the place being described. And the only people in Hell are the wicked. “Draw your own conclusion, Job.”

Hell Is a Place of Total Dissolution (vv. 15, 16)

In his tent dwells that which is none of his;

sulfur is scattered over his habitation.

His roots dry up beneath,

and his branches wither above. (vv. 15, 16

Next incessant terror is accompanied by total dissolution of self. The dominant image here is fire. Eliphaz has introduced this idea in 15:30. Bildad develops it vividly.

Verse 15a should probably be translated “Fire resides in his tent.” “Sulfur” is also called brimstone, the hot-burning substance that gives us our expression “fire and brimstone” (as in Sodom and Gomorrah). The wicked man’s “tent” and “habitation” is utterly destroyed. Here is a fire that erupts from below, as the fires of Sheol did for Nathan and Abiram (Numbers 16; Psalm 106:17, 18). The destruction is total and irreversible because it burns up both his “branches” and his “roots” (Job 18:16).

Jesus used just this frightening image when speaking of Hell. Just as “fire and sulfur” rained down from Heaven on Sodom and Gomorrah in Lot’s day, “so will it be on the day when the Son of Man is revealed’ (Luke 17:29, 30). Hell is the place where “the fire is not quenched” (Mark 9:47, 48); it is “the eternal fire” (Matthew 25:41).

The point of this hot fire is that it dissolves the organic orderings that create and sustain life. It reduces the wonderful complexity of organic life to a few lifeless inorganic molecules, or even atoms of carbon. Job used to be at the heart of a bustling organic society. But “the fire of God” (lightning) fell, and his society has been destroyed (1:16). Yes, says Bildad, Hell is the place of total dissolution. Only the wicked go there. “Draw your own conclusion, Job.”

Hell Is the Place of Terrible Separation (vv. 17–20)

His memory perishes from the earth,

and he has no name in the street.

He is thrust from light into darkness,

and driven out of the world.

He has no posterity or progeny among his people,

and no survivor where he used to live.

They of the west are appalled at his day,

and horror seizes them of the east. (vv. 17–20)

In his last image Bildad paints Hell as the place of a terrible separation from this world of life and light. The wicked are a blot on the landscape; they will and must be taken away into another place. And this will be complete; not a speck of their dust will be left behind. Bildad conveys this in the images of their “memory” or “name” (v. 17; their reputation) and of their descendants (“posterity or progeny” [v. 19]). We read elsewhere that in judgment God has “blotted out” the “name” of the guilty “forever and ever” (Psalm 9:5). The psalmist prays that God “may cut off the memory” of the wicked “from the earth” (Psalm 109:15). This is the judgment of God.

When the family name is gone and there is no home on earth where there are any memorabilia of a man, any photos or drawings, anyone to say, “That was my great-granddad,” and when historical records have faded so that they have slipped from being front-page news to being a footnote in history books, and finally even the footnote is deleted, when that happens they have no more existence on earth. It is a terrible thing to be extinguished and obliterated from life on earth. But that is the fate of the wicked.

The paradox of Hell is that it is the place that is not a place. It is a place with no stability, no center, no location in the universe. The new heavens and new earth will have no place for Hell. It will be, in an absolute sense, outside of reality. There is a partial analogy with the way Babylon in Bible imagery became the place symbolizing scattering, the place that is not a place.

When a wicked man is trapped by his own evil, sucked down into death and darkness, his whole personality dissolved in eternal flames, there will be nothing left of him on earth. This is an appalling fate (v. 20), just as Job’s friends were astonished to see Job’s condition (2:12, 13). With the death of his children, Job feels he is well on the way to being wiped off the face of the earth. Precisely, says Bildad. That is Hell. And only the wicked go to Hell. “Draw your own conclusion, Job.”

Conclusion: Hell Is the Place for the Wicked (v. 21)

Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,

such is the place of him who knows not God. (v. 21)

Bildad rests his case by asserting that this terrible place of total darkness, inescapable punishment, insatiable terror, total dissolution, and terrible separation, Hell, is the dwelling place of all unrighteous people who do not know God. He invites Job to draw his own conclusion.

Bildad’s Application: Hell Is Where You Are Going, Job

Bildad does not spell out the application of his sermon, but it is clear. Job is already experiencing in anticipation the terrors of Hell. This is evidence of his wickedness and proves he is going to Hell. There is no appeal here to Job for repentance. Bildad seems to feel that it is too late for that.

Where Does Bildad Go Wrong?

Bildad and his friends are absolutely right that the cosmos is an ordered place. From Genesis 1 onward it has an order in which different beings have different places. The proper place of any component of the cosmos expresses something of its function in the government of the universe. The “waters that were above the expanse [firmament]” (Genesis 1:7) stay above the firmament, the fish stay in the sea, the dry land stays dry, and so on. The universe is a cosmos, not a place of chaos. Bildad’s portrait of Hell is terribly accurate and powerfully persuasive; Hell is all the things that Bildad says it is. The day will come when the Creator will tidy up the universe once and for all, and in that day the wicked will indeed be swept away into that place that is no place.

So where does Bildad go wrong? He goes wrong because Job is not wicked. Job is “blameless and upright … [he] fears God and turns away from evil” (1:1, 8; 2:3). A blameless and upright believer is enduring the torments of Hell. But Bildad’s System has no place for this. The way Bildad thinks of creation order is pretty much a perfect order undisturbed by the earthquake of man’s disobedience. The reality is that wicked people do sometimes prosper, and blameless believers do sometimes suffer undeserved grief.

Supremely Job’s experience of Hell is fulfilled by the Lord Jesus Christ’s experiencing Hell for us on the cross. When Jesus endured the torments of Hell for us, the land was cast into supernatural “darkness” (Mark 15:33). He felt himself dragged down into the inescapable punishment of sinners, the insatiable terrors of Hell, and the total dissolution of his relationship with his Father; he endured the terrible separation from this world in public disgrace upon the cross. And he did it to redeem sinners. Christ endured Hell that we might go to Heaven. The book of Job makes no ultimate sense without the cross of Christ.

Furthermore, Christ’s disciples are called to live in a world on the road to Hell, in bodies as yet unredeemed (Romans 8:23). And therefore, although they are headed for the new creation and resurrection bodies, in this age they too must expect in some measure to drink the cup that Jesus drank. They must expect some darkness, some feeling of being trapped in a world under sin, some experiences that bring them terror, and some feelings of not belonging to this world. Because Jesus has drunk the cup of God’s wrath completely, we will never have to do that; but we cannot escape his words to James and John: “You will drink my cup” (Matthew 20:23).