He has no posterity or progeny among his people, and no survivor where he used to live.
Bildad's speech ends by following the wicked man past his own death and into his family line. Job had just buried his own children, so the picture was not abstract. It was aimed at him, and commentators read this verse as the sharpest moment of a cruel argument.
The Picture Bildad Draws
One writer traces how far Bildad pushes the ruin — past the man himself, over his memory, and into his children:
William KellyNor does the blast of God stop with the evil-doer. It reaches far beyond him and long after him. It hangs over his memory and follows his descendants… Everything above ground withers, and all underneath dries away. Nothing keeps his memory alive in the settled parts of the earth, and he has no name in the wilderness. He is an outlaw from the inhabited world, sent from light into darkness. No sprout nor shoot remains among his people, and not one escapes in his dwellings. The desolation is complete… The application, in his mind, is as obvious as it is mistaken; the abstract truth still stands, and has its own right place.
Aimed at a Bereaved Father
Bildad changes his picture again, and one writer shows where the new image struck Job:
Samuel RidoutBildad next describes the ruin of the evil man and his family… he now compares the evil man to a tree. Its root withers in the dry ground of his affliction, and its branches are cut off — like the cutting off of Job's children. All this is scripturally accurate… As said repeatedly, the fault lies in applying such words to a man whose life gave the lie to their insistent charges of open wickedness. Bildad keeps going. Name and memory will fail the evil man — "the memory of the wicked will rot." He is driven off into darkness, and none of his family will escape the disaster. Here is a sharp thrust at the bereaved parent, which must have made him wince with pain, though not in guilt.
True Words, Wrong Man
Every word Bildad says about the wicked can stand on its own. That is what makes the speech dangerous, and God did not treat it lightly.
William KellyGod took it seriously when men claimed to speak rightly, yet under that calm surface failed completely to apply the truth of God to the case… Abstract truth is altogether useless for the saints of God. Things that are true, but misunderstood and misapplied, can do more harm than many a false thing. Misapplied truth gives the apparent authority of God to an error. It carries all the more weight because it comes as the truth. People dismiss a foolish saying, or one that is obviously false. But no believer can brush aside the truth of God. So someone may use the truth of God wrongly. He may use it to crush a person who at that moment is an object of intense interest to God. How foreign and offensive that is to His mind!
The Source of the Arrows
Job felt the words land like arrows from God. One writer says Job had mistaken where they came from.
Charles StanleyIt was this misapplication of truth that Satan so used in the speeches of Job's friends… "The arrows of the Almighty are in me; my spirit drinks their poison; the terrors of God are arrayed against me." This was a great mistake. They were the arrows of Satan. God was not against Job. If Job had only known it, God was for him.
Spoken Before the End
Bildad was arguing from a story that was not finished. He predicted no children, no name and nothing left — and the rest of the book overturns each point.
Leslie M. GrantAt the time, of course, Job had no children to carry on his name; but later he did have as many children as he had before (ch. 42:13). Bildad also hinted that Job would have no name among the renowned. Yet the name of Job has been famous for centuries since that time. As to his possessions too, Job received twice as much as he had before the dreadful trial he was given to bear (ch. 42:10). Bildad never thought the whole picture might change completely, as it did before long.
Summary
- True — Every word Bildad says about the wicked stands on its own; the abstract truth "still stands, and has its own right place."
- Misapplied — The fault is not in the doctrine but in the target: he aims it at a man "whose life gave the lie" to the charge.
- Dangerous — Misapplied truth does more harm than open error, because it "gives the apparent authority of God to an error."
- Cruel — Aimed at a father who had just buried his children, it is "a sharp thrust at the bereaved parent… though not in guilt."
- Overturned — Bildad predicted no children and no name. Job received children again, double his wealth, and lasting fame.