Job 18 (summary): Bildad returns

In this chapter Bildad returns to his attacks on Job as he had started in chapter 8. Bildad accuses Job of considering his 3 friends stupid and of wanting to alter basic factual structures as pertaining to the earth and its rocks in order to come to terms with his predicament. Bildad's view clearly was that the reason for Job's suffering was that he was "an evil man... who knows not God." Job's sin, thinks Bildad, makes him like a lamp snuffed out and with a weakened step. Job, he thinks, has been caught in a net, snared by a trap with a hidden noose awaiting him. Job's "roots dry up below and his branches wither above." Job, he feels, has no legacy, and is in a dark place "banished from the world" without offspring.