a (metallic) sheet (as pounded thin) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
take
יֹאחֵ֣זyo.Chez
H270
to seize (often with the accessory idea of holding in p… · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
heel
בְּעָקֵ֣בbe.'a.Kev
H6119
a heel (as protuberant) · preposition + noun, common masculine singular absolute
robber
צַמִּֽיםtza.Mim
H6782
a noose (as fastening) · noun, common masculine plural absolute
prevail
יַחֲזֵ֖קya.cha.Zek
H2388
to fasten upon · verb, hiphil jussive, 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
Job 1:15 And the Sabeans fell upon them, and took them away; yea, they have slain the servants with the edge of the sword; and I only am escaped alon…
Job 1:17 While he was yet speaking, there came also another, and said, The Chaldeans made out three bands, and fell upon the camels, and have carried…
Job 5:5 Whose harvest the hungry eateth up, and taketh it even out of the thorns, and the robber swalloweth up their substance.
Isaiah 8:14-15 And he shall be for a sanctuary; but for a stone of stumbling and for a rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a sn…
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…
robber--rather answering to "gin" in the parallel clause, "the noose shall hold him fast" [UMBREIT].
John Gill on Job 18:9
The gin shall take him by the heel,.... And hold him fast, so that he shall not be able to get away, especially out of such as are set by God himself; for God has his nets, and snares, and gins for wicked men, and such plenty of them, that he even is said to rain them on them; yea, he himself is a gin and a snare unto them, and out of his hands there is no escaping, wherefore it is a terrible thing to fall into them, see Ezekiel 12:13;
and the robber shall prevail against him; either robbers literally taken, such as the Sabeans and Chaldeans, to whom Bildad may have reference, who prevailed against Job, and plundered him of his substance; and such as these, as the word signifies, are "thirs…
8 For he is driven into the net by his own feet,
And he walketh over a snare.
9 The trap holdeth his heel fast,
The noose bindeth him.
10 His snare lieth hidden in the earth,
His nets upon the path;
11 Terrors affright him on every side,
And scare him at every step.
The Pual שׁלּח signifies not merely to be betrayed into, but driven into, like the Piel, Job 30:12, to drive away, and as it is to be translated in the similar passage in the song of Deborah, Jdg 5:15 : "And as Issachar, Barak was driven (i.e., with desire for fighting) behind him down into the valley (the place of meeting under Mount Tabor);" בּרגליו, which there signifies, according to Jdg 4:10; Jdg 8:5, "upon his feet = close…
The Church Fathers
"He who is thirsty has become strong against him. He is conquered by those who are hungry and thirsty for justice.
The gin shall take him by the heel; in that the end shall be made fast in sin. And because the enemy of mankind, when he binds up in sin the life of each individual, eagerly pants after his death, it is rightly added; And thirst shall burn furiously against him. For our old enemy, when he ensnares the life in sin, thirsts that he may drink the death of the sinner. Which however may also be understood in another sense. For the evil mind when it sees that it has been brought into sin, seeks with a certain superficialness of thought to escape out of the snares of sin; but fearing either the threats or reproaches of men, it chooses rather to die for ever, than to undergo a little of adversity for a season, whence it abandons itself wholly to evil ways, in which it perceives itself to be already once bound. And so he whose life is bound fast in sin even to the end, has his 'heel held by the gin.' But forasmuch as in the same degree that he minds that he is tied and bound with evil habits, he is in despair of his return, by that very despairing he henceforth kindles more fiercely to the lusts of this world, the heat of desire arises within him, and the mind having been ensnared by previous sins, is inflamed to even worse transgressions. And hence it is added; And thirst shall burn furiously against him. For in his mind there is a 'thirst that burns out against him,' in that in proportion as he is used to do wicked things, he is the more vehemently on fire to drink down evil. Since for the ungodly man to 'thirst' is to lust after the good things of this world. And hence our Redeemer cures the man with the dropsy before the Pharisee's house, and when he was arguing against avarice, it is written, And the Pharisees also who were covetous heard all things; and they derided Him. What does it mean then that the man with the dropsy is cured before the house of the Pharisee, but that by the sickness of one man's body the sickness of heart in another is represented? For one sick of a dropsy, the more he drinks, thirsts the more, and every covetous person redoubles his thirst by drinking, in that when he has got the things he desires, he pants the more in desiring others. For he that by getting is made to long for more, has his thirst increased by drinking.
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
Gin — A trap. (1.) Ps. 140:5, 141:9, Amos 3:5, the Hebrew word used, mokesh, means a noose or “snare,” as it is elsewhere rendered (Ps. 18:5; Prov. 13:14, etc.). (2.) Job 18:9, Isa. 8:14, Heb. pah, a plate…
Hunting — Mentioned first in Gen. 10:9 in connection with Nimrod. Esau was “a cunning hunter” (Gen. 25:27). Hunting was practised by the Hebrews after their settlement in the “Land of Promise” (Lev. 17:15;…
Net — In use among the Hebrews for fishing, hunting, and fowling. The fishing-net was probably constructed after the form of that used by the Egyptians (Isa. 19:8). There were three kinds of nets. (1.) The…
Snare · .Of the evils in life of wicked people — .Of the evils in life of wicked people
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).
