Kommentar zu Ijow 18:1

At the opening of his speech, Bildad rages over Job’s admission that he does not believe in, or at least doubts, the survival of the soul after death. For if this is so, man is no better than the animals; the death of the one being no different from the death of the other; all drawing the same breath (Ecclesiastes 3:19), In which case, why did God create man in His image, breathing a living soul into him (Genesis 2:7); one that knows and thinks? Viewed in this way, the human psyche is worthless and its presence in man is only to his own detriment; there, just to make him understand that his end is utter annihilation (Numbers 24:20). But since we see that God has endowed man with wondrous spiritual powers, the like of which are not found in the souls of the other animals, it is clear that this is the essential feature of man and that his soul does not perish with the mortal body but lives on eternally, for ever.

Thus, he reformulates his thesis concerning the prosperity of the wicked, as follows:
In his opinion, the essence of prosperity is in the very fact of being a human being. From which it follows, that it is the well-being of the soul that matters, for it is this that distinguishes man from the beasts. It is not physical well-being that matters, for man's body is just like that of the animals. Hence, the prosperity that a wicked person achieves in this world through material possessions, those that are intended only for bodily enjoyment, is not real prosperity. Accordingly, he explains that a wicked person’s punishment is that nothing will remain of him or of his existence, for his spiritual soul will be cut off and doomed; never to be illumined in eternal bliss with the light of the living (Job 33:30). Nothing of his will endure, neither his children, his name nor his remembrances on earth, and this is the most horrifying punishment of all. By contrast, a righteous person has both a name and continuance in this world and a perpetuity in his death, for his soul will be in eternal bliss (Psalms 16:11), there to be compensated for the suffering he endured in this world.

In this way he consummates the hypothesis he had put forward regarding the reason for the suffering of the righteous, namely, that it is a contingent of an exchange. Job had parried and rebutted this notion strenuously. However, his arguments are only pertinent if the exchange takes place in this world; that it is here that God rewards the person with good in compensation for the bad he has suffered, and not in the Hereafter. But if He compensates the person with an everlasting spiritual reward that is bestowed on his eternal soul, granting him eternal bliss in recompense for the temporary suffering, Job's submissions fail, and the Lord's justice is vindicated along with Him (Psalms 19:10). Thus, all of Job's responses are rebutted; all gone up in smoke (Psalms 37:20).