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JOB · Trinity Bible Version

Job 18

The full text of Job 18 in the Trinity Bible Version — clear modern English, translated from the original Hebrew. Free to read.


All of Job KJV

1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

2 How long before you end your speech?
Consider, and then we will speak.

3 Why are we counted as cattle?
Why are we stupid in your sight?

4 You who tear yourself in your anger —
shall the earth be forsaken for you?
Or the rock be removed from its place?

5 Indeed, the light of the wicked is put out,
the flame of his fire does not shine.

6 The light is dark in his tent,
and his lamp above him is extinguished.

7 His vigorous stride is shortened
and his own counsel casts him down.

8 For he is thrust into a net by his own feet,
and he walks on the mesh.

9 A snare seizes him by the heel;
a trap holds him fast.

10 A rope lies hidden for him on the ground,
a trap set in his path.

11 Terrors frighten him on every side
and hound his every step.

12 His strength is famished,
and calamity stands ready at his side.

13 It devours the members of his skin;
the firstborn of death devours his members.

14 He is torn from the security of his tent
and marched before the king of terrors.

15 In his tent dwells what belongs to him no longer;
brimstone is scattered on his home.

16 His roots dry up beneath,
his branches wither above.

17 His memory perishes from the earth,
and he has no name in the street.

18 He is thrust from light into darkness
and driven out of the world.

19 He has no offspring or descendants among his people,
no survivor where he once lived.

20 Those of the west are appalled at his fate;
those of the east are seized with horror.

21 Surely such are the dwellings of the unrighteous,
such is the place of the one who does not know God.

Translation notes (7)
  1. Job 18:3a The Hebrew verb nitminu (נִטְמִינוּ) occurs only here in the Hebrew Bible. It is usually derived from tamah, 'to be stupid', but the consonants can also be read as a form of tame', 'to be unclean', so that Bildad would protest being treated as defiled rather than dull. The Septuagint diverges again, rendering the clause as 'why have we been silent before you'.
  2. Job 18:4a Hebrew toref nafsho be-appo, literally 'tears his life/self in his anger,' portrays self-destructive rage. The ensuing questions about the earth being forsaken and a rock moved from its place invoke azav, 'abandon,' tsur, 'rock,' and ye'ataq, 'be removed,' as hyperbolic appeals to the stability of the created order; the questions expect a negative answer.
  3. Job 18:8a Two distinct Hebrew terms for trapping gear appear: reshet, 'net' (רֶשֶׁת) and sibkah, 'mesh' (שִׂבְכָה), the latter elsewhere denoting latticework (Exodus 27:4; 38:4). The verb shullach (שֻׁלַּח), literally 'is sent', here idiomatically means 'is thrust' into the net.
  4. Job 18:13a The phrase renders bekhor mavet (בְּכוֹר מָוֶת), 'firstborn of death', a personification found only here in the Hebrew Bible. As a firstborn holds preeminence in a household, this figure is death's most potent offspring, generally understood as a deadly disease that consumes the skin. Some commentators compare ancient Near Eastern imagery in which plagues serve as attendants of the god of death.
  5. Job 18:14a The Hebrew melek ballahot (מֶלֶךְ בַּלָּהוֹת), 'king of terrors', personifies Death as a monarch, paralleling the 'firstborn of death' in the previous verse. Many interpreters hear an echo of Mot, the Canaanite god of death known from the Ugaritic texts, whose realm the doomed man is escorted into like a prisoner before a throne.
  6. Job 18:15a The difficult Hebrew phrase mibbeli-lo, literally 'what is not his', has invited emendation; the rendering here takes it to mean that strangers or desolation occupy the tent. Gophrith, 'brimstone', is the sulfur rained on Sodom and Gomorrah in Genesis 19:24, so Bildad marks the wicked man's home as a site of that same annihilating judgment.
  7. Job 18:20a The Masoretic Text reads acharonim, 'the latter ones' (אחרונים), and qadmonim, 'the former ones' (קדמונים), idioms that can denote west and east by envisaging someone facing the sunrise. The Hebrew also has yom, 'day', literally, rendered here as 'his fate'.

About this translation

The Trinity Bible Version (TBV) is a new translation of the Bible prepared by Trinity Bible — rendered from the original Hebrew and faithful to the earliest and most reliable manuscripts. Finished in 2026, it is the most modern English Bible translation you can read today, and it is available only through Trinity Bible. All 66 books, including Job, are free to read on this site.