Comentario sobre Job 18:23

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).

Bildad’s reply
“How long?” will you prolong the discussion?

Consider Be silent to understand and to hear what we will speak.

and reputed dull in your sight Heb. נטמינו. We are considered in your eyes as stopped up. The word has no radical besides the “teth” “mem,” like טַמוֹנוּן פְלִשְתָּאֵי, which is the Aramaic translation of סִתְּמוּם פלשתים “the Philistines stopped them up” (Gen. 26:15). Some explain [this] as an expression of hiding (טמינה), but they are in error, because were that the case, the word would require two “nun”s, one for the radical and one for the plural suffix.

Job’s anguish has unbalanced him. How else can his denial of the survival of the soul after the death of the body be explained? For if human beings are just mortal and their souls perish at death, then man is reduced to the level of being just another animal.

One who destroys his soul He turns to Job, “To you I say, the one who destroys his soul in his anger and in his wrath.”

for your sake For the sake of your innocence shall the earth be abandoned by its standard of justice?

and shall the Rock be removed The Creator. from His place From His knowledge and from His nature.

Yea Even now, according to your cry, this will be in force for generations.

Only the souls of the obstinately wicked die, perishing eternally with his physical demise..¹According to the Talmud (TB Sanhedrin 90a), only those who are extremely wicked have no portion in the Hereafter. This includes those who deny the existence of a Hereafter.

the light of the wicked shall be put out it shall spring from its place. spark Etinceler in French.

shall be straitened They shall be short. The steps of The steps of his strength.

shall cast him down His counsel that he advised, which will not be fulfilled [will cast him down].

For his end will be that... he shall be sent into a net His feet will be sent to step on a net and be caught.

and he shall walk on the toils Heb. שבכה. Every שבכה is made like a net, and that is the coif that is on the head of women.

shall seize A trap shall seize him by the heel.

hidden...in the ground under his feet.

A noose...for him The rope of his trap, with which he will be caught.

and a trap for him is hidden on the path just as they hide the noose of the trap for birds.

terrors Demons.

and beat him off his fee They knock him down to the ground.

His son Heb. אֹנוֹ, lit, his strength.

for his wife Heb. לצלעוֹ lit. his rib [alluding to Eve].

He shall eat the branches of his body And he shall devour all the rest of his branches, viz. his sons and daughters.

the prince of death Heb. בכור מות, as in (Ps. 89:28), “Also I will make him a prince (בכור).”

He shall be torn away from his wife Heb. מאהלו, lit. from his tent.

who trusted him Heb. מבטחו, his trust, who trusted him. (His trust), that she trusted him.

she will cause him to walk. yet she will cause him to walk and will send him away (from her) to the grave, to the king of the demons.

She shall dwell in his tent as a widow.

not being his (that she will not be his) because he is dead, and ultimately brimstone shall be scattered on his dwelling.

They shall drive him from heaven.

grandson Heb. נכד, a son of the son.

the later people They wondered when they heard of the misfortune that befell him.

quaking Heb. שָׂעַר, tempest. This cannot be of the form of שֵׂעָר, hair, because the accent in שָׂעַר is not (on the “sin,” but on the “ayin,”) and it is not converted to a “kamatz” when it is cantillated with an “ethnachta” or a “sof pasuk.” I did not hear this.

These are only the dwellings of the unrighteous This is their fate.