Bildad opens the attack by charging Job with hunting for words--an accusation of a general kind apparently referring to the strong expressions he had used in describing his sufferings at the hand of God and from the criticism of men. He then calls Job to understand his own errors, that he may be in a position to receive the truth. Perverting and exaggerating the language of Job, he demands why the friends should be counted as beasts and unclean, and why they should be so branded by a man who was in revolt against providence.
"_Why are we counted as beasts, As unclean even in your sight? Thou that tearest thyself in thine anger-- For thy sake shall the earth be forsaken, And the rock be moved from its place?_"
Ewald's interpretation here brings out the force of the questions. "Does this madman who complained that God's wrath tore him, but who, on the contrary, sufficiently betrays his own bad conscience by tearing himself in his anger, really demand that on his account, that he may be justified, the earth shall be made desolate (since really, if God Himself should pervert justice, order, and peace, the blessings of the happy occupation of the earth could not subsist)? Does he also hope that what is firmest, the Divine order of the world, should be removed from its place? Oh, the fool, who in his own perversity and confusion rebels against the everlasting order of the universe!" All is settled from time immemorial by the laws of providence. Without more discussion Bildad reaffirms what the unchangeable decree, as he knows it, certainly is.
"_Nevertheless the light of the wicked shall be put out, And the gleam of his fire shall not shine. The light shall fade in his tent, And his lamp over him shall be put out, The steps of his strength shall be straitened, And his own counsel shall cast him down. For into a net his own feet urge him, And he walketh over the toils. A snare seizeth him by the heel, And a noose holdeth him fast: In the ground its loop is hidden, And its mesh in the path._"
By reiteration, by a play on words the fact as it appears to Bildad is made very clear--that for the wicked man the world is full of perils, deliberately prepared as snares for wild animals are set by the hunter. The general proposition is that the light of his prosperity is an accident. It shall soon be put out and his home be given to desolation. This comes to pass first by a restraint put on his movements. The sense of some inimical power observing him, pursuing him, compels him to move carefully and no longer with the free stride of security. Then in the narrow range to which he is confined he is caught again and again by the snares and meshes set for him by invisible hands. His best devices for his own safety bring him into peril. In the open country and in the narrow path alike he is seized and held fast. More and more closely the adverse power confines him, bearing upon his freedom and his life till his superstitious fears are kindled. Terrors confound him now on every side and suddenly presented startle him to his feet. This once strong man becomes weak; he who had abundance knows what it is to hunger. And death is now plainly in his cup. Destruction, a hateful figure, is constantly at his side, appearing as disease which attacks the body. It is leprosy, the very disease Job is suffering.
"_It devoureth the members of his skin, Devoureth his members, even the firstborn of death. He is plucked from the tent of his confidence, And he is brought to the king of terrors._"
The personification of death here is natural, and many parallels to the figure are easily found. Horror of death is a mark of strong healthy life, especially among those who see beyond only some dark Sheol of dreary hopeless existence. The "firstborn of death" is the frightful black leprosy, and it has that figurative name as possessing more than other diseases that power to corrupt the body which death itself fully exercises.