It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
Job 18:15 is part of Bildad's speech portraying the final doom of the wicked and describing the wicked person's ultimate ruin. It stands in the long dispute from Job 8 to Job 27 in which Job's friends trouble him with constant accusations, implied and otherwise, and Job answers them, until the friends cease and Job's last reply breaks off in the middle at Job 27. It therefore belongs with Job 17 and Job 19 and is best read together with the accusations and responses around it. It belongs among the declamations of Job's misguided friends found in chapters 4, 5, 8, 11, 15, 18, 20, 22, and 25.
The dwelling is no longer his, so a stranger occupies it, and brimstone is scattered over his home and habitation. The scattering of brimstone overtakes the habitation with judgment as part of a punishment that brings terror and removes security. This judgment belongs to the final calamities of one who willfully rejects the light, coming after he is pursued by terrors and brought before the king of terrors, who is Satan. The verse teaches the final punishment of evil with fire and brimstone in the great day of God, a punishment compared with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Although the verse expresses the final punishment of evil, suffering does not prove that the sufferer is wicked, and this general truth was misapplied to Job. By itself the verse is not correct and reliable truth about God or about Job. Its words must be rightly divided and must not be treated as correct unless sustained by inspired declarations given through God's servants elsewhere in the Bible.
Job 18:15 is part of Bildad's speech portraying the final doom of the wicked and describing the wicked person's ultimate ruin. It stands in the long dispute from Job 8 to Job 27 in which Job's friends trouble him with constant accusations, implied and otherwise, and Job answers them, until the friends cease and Job's last reply breaks off in the middle at Job 27. It therefore belongs with Job 17 and Job 19 and is best read together with the accusations and responses around it. It belongs among the declamations of Job's misguided friends found in chapters 4, 5, 8, 11, 15, 18, 20, 22, and 25.
The dwelling is no longer his, so a stranger occupies it, and brimstone is scattered over his home and habitation. The scattering of brimstone overtakes the habitation with judgment as part of a punishment that brings terror and removes security. This judgment belongs to the final calamities of one who willfully rejects the light, coming after he is pursued by terrors and brought before the king of terrors, who is Satan. The verse teaches the final punishment of evil with fire and brimstone in the great day of God, a punishment compared with the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah.
Although the verse expresses the final punishment of evil, suffering does not prove that the sufferer is wicked, and this general truth was misapplied to Job. By itself the verse is not correct and reliable truth about God or about Job. Its words must be rightly divided and must not be treated as correct unless sustained by inspired declarations given through God's servants elsewhere in the Bible.