Job 18:5

Bildad has much less gentleness of spirit, and much less self-control, than his older friend Eliphaz, who leads all these discussions. So he is far more reckless in voicing his doubt of Job and his hint of hypocrisy. That is really what soon comes out.

Bildad again takes his place in the contest (Job 18). He means well, but his words are poisoned arrows. "The light of the wicked is put out." Yes, every word is perfectly true of the wicked. But how crushing to Job! Circumstances seemed to favour the charge.

In forceful pictures he sets out how all light dies in the ungodly man. The flame of his fire shines no more, and the lamp over him goes out. His own efforts do not free him; they tangle him further. Not rashness but his own counsel plunges him into utter ruin. No cleverness helps him — it traps him, the man who trusts himself instead of God.

The light of the wicked may burn brightly for a little while, as Job's had done, but it would be put out. The light of home, with its welcoming attraction, would vanish. His strong steps would begin to falter, and he would fall by his own evil counsel.

In verse 5 he refers back to Job's claim. His friends were changing night into day, saying the light is near in the face of darkness (ch. 17:12). "Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out," Bildad says. He implies that Job had no clear light in his darkness, so Job must be wicked.

Bildad, in chapter 18, insists that since "the light of the wicked is put out," Job must not suppose that any exception will be allowed in his case. He is not to think that for his sake "the rock be removed out of its place." In other words, God will not set aside His general plan as a special favour to him. All this tells Job plainly: he was now such a great sufferer, so he must be a hypocrite. Only the light of the wicked is put out like this.

Things that are true, but misunderstood and misapplied, may do more harm than many a false thing. Misapplied truth lends the apparent authority of God to an error. The error then carries all the more weight, because it comes as the truth. If someone says a foolish thing, or one plainly false, people despise it. But no believer can brush aside the truth of God. So when people use the truth of God wrongly — when they use it to crush someone who is the object of God's intense interest at that moment — how foreign and offensive to His mind!

The lesson of the first importance here is that outward calamities do not prove that a man is in the wrong place... Nor is outward success a necessary evidence of God's approval. This is certainly a very basic lesson, yet it needs repeating often. We have such a strong tendency to judge in that crude and childish way. So we are likely to accept the ruling of Job's comforters when we judge other people's lives. We are also likely to be misled by such tests about our own course.