Job 18

{p} They shall go down to the bars of the pit, when [our] rest together [is] in the dust.

(p) All worldly hope and prosperity fail which you say, are only signs of God's favour but seeing that these things perish, I set my hope in God and in the life everlasting. How long [will it be ere] {a} ye make an end of words? {b} mark, and afterwards we will speak.

(a) Who count yourselves just as Job 12:4. (b) Whom you take to be only beasts, as in Job 12:7. {c} He teareth himself in his anger: shall the {d} earth be forsaken for thee? and shall the rock be removed out of his place?

(c) That is, like a madman. (d) Shall God change the order of nature for your sake, by dealing with you otherwise than he does with all man? Yea, the light of the wicked shall be {e} put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine.

(e) When the wicked is in his prosperity, then God changes his state: and this is his ordinary working for their sins. For he is cast into a net by his own feet, and he {f} walketh upon a snare.

(f) Meaning, that the wicked are in continual danger. His strength shall be {g} hungerbitten, and destruction [shall be] ready at his side.

(g) That which should nourish him will be consumed by famine. It shall devour the strength of his skin: [even] the {h} firstborn of death shall devour his strength.

(h) That is, some strong and violent death will consume his strength: or as the Hebrew word signifies his members or parts. His confidence shall be rooted out of his tabernacle, and it shall bring him to the {i} king of terrors.

(i) That is, with great fear. It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because [it is] none of his: {l} brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.

(l) Though all the world would favour him, yet God would destroy him and his. He shall be driven from {m} light into darkness, and chased out of the world.

(m) He will fall from prosperity to adversity. They that come after [him] shall be astonied at his {n} day, as they that went before were affrighted.

(n) When they will see what came to him.