Job 18:9

He tells Job that the wicked man is driven into the net by his own feet. His crooked ways carry him along paths that end in destruction. True, he was stating a solemn fact about the wicked, but Bildad still had to prove that Job was such a man. He says the wicked man walked over a snare without knowing it. It would catch him when he least expected it. Bildad repeats this again and again, painfully. He assures Job that the heel is sure to be caught in a trap, and that a noose will close around him — as one translation of verse 9 puts it.

In these verses Bildad tells Job that the wicked do not know the danger they are in, so evil snares them easily. The snare may be a noose hidden on the ground, perhaps covered by leaves, but drawn when someone walks into it. Bildad thought that Job had not expected the evil that came to him. So Job had not watched out for the snare, and had walked into it. Of course this was not the case with Job, though it is commonly true of the wicked.

No cleverness helps the man who trusts himself instead of God; it only ensnares him. So his own feet send him into the net, and he walks over the meshes, not noticing what lies underneath. The trap, the snare, the cord meet him wherever he turns. Terrors alarm him on every side and follow his every step.

Bildad again takes his place in the contest. He means well, but his words are poisoned arrows. "Indeed, 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.

When we remember that all this referred to Job by implication, we can imagine how galling it was to his bruised spirit. It was painful enough to lose all he once had, and to have the bright light quenched that once glowed in his hospitable tent. On top of that, a dread disease was gnawing at his insides and draining his strength. To have all of this cited as proof of his wickedness was more than human nature could bear. It is as though he were saying, "Now we have found you out. You are reaping the fruit of your sin, and all this misery is a visitation from God for your wickedness."

Job rejects the charge that he was caught in his own snare. He answers, "Know then that God has put me in the wrong and closed his net about me." He traces it to God, but cannot see any reason for it. All this probes the wound, and his sense of being wrongly afflicted by God grows. Even so, his spirit is strengthening in hope. We can see it in his words: "I know that my Redeemer lives, and at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, yet in my flesh I shall see God."

Is it not humbling and solemn that we may be ever so sincere in what we believe, and yet be completely wrong? We are just as responsible for what our convictions are as for what we do or say. The only one able to give us the right thought or feeling is He who alone gives the wisdom and strength to carry it out. It is God Himself.