Job 18:21 Surely such [are] the dwellings of the wicked
As before described; as that the light should be dark in them; a wicked man's confidence should be rooted out of them; everything shocking and dreadful should dwell in them; brimstone should be scattered on them, they should be utterly consumed, and none remaining in them, ( Job 18:6 Job 18:14 Job 18:15 Job 18:19 ) . The Targum represents these as the words of the persons astonished and frightened, who at the sight of such a dismal spectacle should utter them, prefacing them thus,
``and they shall say, but these are the dwellings''
and this [is] the place [of him that] knoweth not God;
the place that he shall be driven to when chased out of the world, even a place of darkness and misery, (
Job 18:18 ) ; or "this is the case of him that knoweth not the Omnipotent", as Mr. Broughton translates the words; that is, which is above described in the several particulars of it; this is sooner or later the case of every wicked man, as Bildad supposed it now was Job's case, at least in part, or would be hereafter: one "that knows not God", is the periphrasis of a wicked man, that has no knowledge of God, at least no practical knowledge of him, that lives without God in the world, or like an atheist; such shall be punished with everlasting destruction by him, see (
2 Thessalonians 1:8 2 Thessalonians 1:9 ) ; either one whom "God knows not"
F17, so some render the words; for though God by the perfection of his omniscience knows all men, good and bad, yet there are some he knows not so as to approve of, love, and delight in, see (
Matthew 7:23 ) ; or rather that have no knowledge of God, who though they may know there is a God, yet do not worship and glorify him as God; and though they may profess to know him, yet in works they deny him, and however have no spiritual and experimental knowledge of him; do not know him in Christ, as the God of all grace, and as their God in him; they do not know him, so as to love him, fear, worship, and obey him.