Job 18 Comforters?

Bildad, up to this point, now delivers the most scathing rebuke directed toward Job. Bildad wondered when Job would cease talking and sincerely listen to the counsel he and the other two “comforters” extend toward him. He was angered by the way they saw Job responding to them; as “beasts” and “stupid”. Yet if that is their status, when does Job tear himself and has been forsaken by the earth and the rocks should be moved from their position just for him.
Bildad now commences with his ranting against Job, although much of it is indirect. Essentially Job is called “wicked” and as a result there is no longer any revelation or children left to carry on his name. He has become ensnared with his own counsel and falls into a snare; which the harder he tries to escape, the more firm the grasp it has on him. Wherever he goes, there are traps, fears, terrors and weakness that limits his ability as it had from the past.

God had brought him out of his security and prosperity to expose him for who and what he truly was. “Brimstone” is throughout his dwelling, destroying everything from animals to children and now his health. There is no longer any capacity for him to have children; therefore there is no memory of him beyond his lifetime. In fact he’s lost any respect or honor he previously may have had.

People are either “astonished” or “frightened” by what they’ve heard and some have seen.

Bildad concludes by in a roundabout way calling Job wicked and that all he’s described in the preceding verses are attributed to him; further stating that he truly didn’t even “know God.”

An irony in all of what Bildad says, there is little defense for God and a whole lot of condemnation for Job and a brief defense for himself and his friends. In viewing all that we’ve read up to this time, beyond initial introductions; little has been said to “comfort”.

Saint of God, let our words minister “grace to the hearer”! That doesn’t mean we ignore sin or transgression that needs to be confronted; yet it is done so in the context of the kind of love by which the Lord Jesus confronted and convicted us by His Holy Spirit.