Job 18

12. The Hebrew is brief and bold, "his strength is hungry."
destruction--that is, a great calamity ( Proverbs 1:27 ).
ready at his side--close at hand to destroy him ( Proverbs 19:29 ).

13. UMBREIT has "he" for "it," that is, "in the rage of hunger he shall devour his own body"; or, "his own children" ( Lamentations 4:10 ). Rather, "destruction" from Job 18:12 is nominative to "devour."
strength--rather, "members" (literally, the "branches" of a tree).
the first-born of death--a personification full of poetical horror. The first-born son held the chief place ( Genesis 49:3 ); so here the chiefest (most deadly) disease that death has ever engendered ( Isaiah 14:30 ; "first-born of the poor"--the poorest). The Arabs call fever, "daughter of death."

14. confidence--all that the father trusted in for domestic happiness, children, fortune, &c., referring to Job's losses.
rooted out--suddenly torn away, it shall bring--that is, he shall be brought; or, as UMBREIT better has, "Thou (God) shalt bring him slowly." The Hebrew expresses, "to stride slowly and solemnly." The godless has a fearful death for long before his eyes, and is at last taken by it. Alluding to Job's case. The King of terrors, not like the heathen Pluto, the tabled ruler of the dead, but Death, with all its terrors to the ungodly, personified.

15. It--"Terror" shall haunt, &c., and not as UMBREIT, "another," which the last clause of the verse disproves.
none of his--It is his no longer.
brimstone--probably comparing the calamity of Job by the "fire of God" ( Job 1:16 ) to the destruction of guilty Sodom by fire and brimstone ( Genesis 19:24 ).

16. Roots--himself.
branch--his children ( Job 8:12 , 15:30 , Malachi 4:1 ).

17. street--Men shall not speak of him in meeting in the highways; rather, "in the field" or "meadow"; the shepherds shall no more mention his name--a picture from nomadic life [UMBREIT].

18. light . . . darkness--existence--nonexistence.

19. nephew--(so Isaiah 14:22 ). But it is translated "grandson" ( Genesis 21:23 ); translate "kinsman."

20. after . . . before--rather, "those in the West--those in the East"; that is, all people; literally, "those behind--those before"; for Orientals in geography turn with their faces to the east (not to the north as we), and back to the west; so that before--east; behind--north (so Zechariah 14:8 ).
day--of ruin ( Obadiah 1:12 ).
affrighted--seized with terror ( Job 21:6 , Isaiah 13:8 ).

21. ( Job 8:22 , Margin).