illumination or (concrete) luminary (in every sense · noun, common feminine singular construct
wicked
רְשָׁעִ֣יםre.sha.'Im
H7563
morally wrong · noun, common masculine plural absolute
out
יִדְעָ֑ךְyid.'Akh
H1846
to be extinguished · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
spark
שְׁבִ֣יבshe.Viv
H7632
flame (as split into tongues) · noun, common masculine singular construct
fire
אִשּֽׁוֹ'i.Sho
H784
fire (literally or figuratively) · noun, common both genders singular construct + pronominal suffix, 3rd person masculine singular
shine
יִ֝גַּ֗הּyi.Gah
H5050
to glitter · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Proverbs 13:9 The light of the righteous rejoiceth: but the lamp of the wicked shall be put out.
Proverbs 20:20 Whoso curseth his father or his mother, his lamp shall be put out in obscure darkness.
Proverbs 24:20 For there shall be no reward to the evil man; the candle of the wicked shall be put out.
Job 21:17 How oft is the candle of the wicked put out! and how oft cometh their destruction upon them! God distributeth sorrows in his anger.
Proverbs 4:19 The way of the wicked is as darkness: they know not at what they stumble.
Isaiah 50:11 Behold, all ye that kindle a fire, that compass yourselves about with sparks: walk in the light of your fire, and in the sparks that ye have…
Job 20:5 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 18:5-10
The rest of Bildad's discourse is entirely taken up in an elegant description of the miserable condition of a wicked man, in which there is a great deal of certain truth, and which will be of excellent use if duly considered - that a sinful condition is a sad condition, and that iniquity will be men's ruin if they do not repent of it. But it is not true that all wicked people are visibly and openly made thus miserable in this world; nor is it true that all who are brought into great distress and trouble in this world are therefore to be deemed and adjudged wicked men, when no other proof appears against them; and therefore, though Bildad thought the application of it to Job was easy, yet it…
That (Job 18:4) cannot be. The decree of God is unalterable, the light (prosperity) of the wicked shall at length be put out.
his fire--alluding to Arabian hospitality, which prided itself on welcoming the stranger to the fire in the tent, and even lit fires to direct him to it. The ungodly shall be deprived of the means to show hospitality. His dwelling shall be dark and desolate!
John Gill on Job 18:5
Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out,.... Or "nevertheless" (m); notwithstanding all this disregard and inattention to us, and contempt of us, and all the rage, and wrath, and pride, and haughtiness discovered, as if the laws of nature, and stated methods of Providence, must all give way to justify a man in such circumstances as show him to be wicked; this will certainly be his case, his "light shall be put out"; meaning not the light of his eyes, or his corporeal light, which sometimes has been the case of wicked men, as was of the Sodomites, since this, through accident, or old age, is common to good and bad then; but rather moral light, the light of nature, with which every man i…
4 Thou art he who teareth himself in his anger:
Shall the earth become desolate for thy sake,
And a rock remove from its place?
5 Notwithstanding, the light of the wicked shall be put out,
And the glow of his fire shineth not;
6 The light becometh dark in his tent,
And his lamp above him is extinguished;
7 His vigorous steps are straitened,
And his own counsel casteth him down.
The meaning of the strophe is this: Dost thou imagine that, by thy vehement conduct, by which thou art become enraged against thyself, thou canst effect any change in the established divine order of the world? It is a divine law, that sufferings are the punishment of sin; thou canst no more alter this, than that at th…
The Church Fathers
Shall not the light of the wicked be put out, and the flame of his fire cease to shine? If he says this in describing the present life, he is mistaken; in that very often both the light of prosperity is seen in the ungodly, and the darkness of ignominy and poverty envelopes the godly. But if his discourse points to this, viz. to shew what the ungodly meet with in their end, it is said with truth, Shall not the light of the wicked be put out, and the flame of his fire cease to shine? Which if it might have been rightly spoken in regard to an ungodly man, ought never to have been delivered against a holy man set fast in the midst of scourges. But let us, considering well the powers of his arm in delivering sentences, reflect how strongly be hurls the darts, and let us cease to look at him whom, while so hurling them, he aims to hit, knowing surely that he strikes a stone with foiled blows. So let him say; Shall not the light of the wicked be put out? For even the ungodly have their 'light,' i.e. the good fortune of the present life. But 'the light of the wicked shall be put out,' in that this present life's good fortune is speedily terminated along with life itself. Whence it is fitly added; and the flame of his fire shall not shine. MORAL INTERPRETATION For every ungodly man has a 'flame of his own fire,' which he kindles in his heart from the heat of temporal desires, whilst he burns now with these now with those lusts, and fans his thoughts into a bigger flame by the diverse flatteries of the world. But if a fire has no flame, it does not shine by shedding any light. And so the flame of the fire is his outward beauty or power, which comes from his burning within. For what he anxiously desires to get, he very often wins, to the heaping up of his own ruin; and whether in the power of the loftiest pitch, or in the wealth of multiplied increase, he as it were shines in external glory. But 'the flame of his fire shall not shine,' in that, in the day of his departure hence, all the fair shew without is removed, and he is consumed by his own burning within alone. And 'so the flame' is removed from the 'fire,' when his exterior glory is separated from his interior burning. Even the righteous too have a flame of their fire, but one doubtless to shine bright, in this respect, that their desires give light in good works. But the light of the wicked does not shine in…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Fire · Things connected with: Sparks — Things connected with: Sparks
Lamps · Illustrative: (Put out,) of destruction of the wicked — Illustrative: (Put out,) of destruction of the wicked
Light · Illustrative of: The soul of man — Illustrative of: The soul of man
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
The light of the wicked will be snuffed out could be a metaphor for a life of confused darkness (Prov 4:19); more likely, it indicates an early death (Prov 13:9; 24:20).
Rashi on Job 18:5
Yea Even now, according to your cry, this will be in force for generations.
the light of the wicked shall be put out it shall spring from its place. spark Etinceler in French.
