Job 18:1 - Clarke's commentary and critical notes on the Bible

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, Then answered Bildad - The following analysis of this speech, by Mr. Heath, is judicious: "Bildad, irritated to the last degree that Job should treat their advice with so much contempt, is no longer able to keep his passions within the bounds of decency. He proceeds to downright abuse; and finding little attention given by Job to his arguments, he tries to terrify him into a compliance. To that end he draws a yet more terrible picture of the final end of wicked men than any yet preceding, throwing in all the circumstances of Job's calamities, that he might plainly perceive the resemblance, and at the same time insinuating that he had much worse still to expect, unless he prevented it by a speedy change of behavior. That it was the highest arrogance in him to suppose that he was of consequence enough to be the cause of altering the general rules of Providence, Job 18:4. And that it was much more expedient for the good of the whole, that he, by his example, should deter others from treading in the same path of wickedness and folly;" Job 18:5-7.