Job 18:19

Job 18:19 He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people, nor any remaining in his dwellings.

Ver. 19. He shall neither have son nor nephew, &c.] A sore affliction to be written childless, which yet is the portion of some good people, as Abel; many prophets and apostles, for whose comfort that is written, Isa 56:4-5. God, as he will be to his childless children better than ten sons; so he will give them in his house, and within his walls, a place and a name, better than of sons and of daughters, he will give them an everlasting name that shall never be cut off, 1Sa 1:8 Isa 56:5. Not so the ungodly, those men of God’s hand, for though, full of children, they leave the rest of their substance to their babes, Psa 17:14, yet it will prove to be but luctuosa faecunditas, as Jerome speaketh, they shall weep for their lost children, and not be comforted, because they are not. Or if they survive, they prove singular cuts and crosses to their wretched parents, who have cause enough to cry out, as Moses sometime did, Let me die out of hand, and not see my wretchedness, Num 11:15. They are filled with unmedicinable sorrows, in the loss either of their children, or of their estates by their wasteful children, so that they praise the dead above the living, and wish they had never been born, Ecc 4:2-3.

Nor any remaining in his dwellings] When the soldiers slew the tyrant Maximinus and his son, at the siege of Aquileia, they cried out, Ex pessimo genere ne catulum quidem habendum, Of so ill a kind let not a whelp be kept alive.

John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

18:19 This curse of childlessness (see 18:16; Pss 109:13; Isa 14:21-22) and Bildad’s earlier cruelty (Job 8:4) show that he regarded Job’s condition as the just reward for his wickedness (1:18-19).

Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

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

Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

Verse 19. He shall neither have son nor nephew] Coverdale, following the Vulgate, translates thus: We shal neither have children ner kynss folk among his people, no ner eny posterite in his countrie: yonge and olde shal be astonyshed at his death.

Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

(19) He shall have neither son nor nephew.—“He shall have neither his own son’s son among his people, nor any remaining, where he sojourned.”

A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

19. son nor nephew] i. e. son nor grandson. So the word nephew (Lat nepos, through Fr. neveu) means in the English of the time—

O thou most auncient grandmother of all,

Why suffredst thou thy nephews dear to fall.

Spens. Fa. Q. 1. 5. 22, (Michie, Bible Words and Phrases).

In Gen_21:23 the word is rendered son’s son. The Heb. expression is more general, he shall neither have offspring nor descendant.

The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

They that come after him shall be astonished at his day,.... At the day of his calamity and distress, ruin and destruction, see Psa 37:13; it would be extremely amazing to them how it should be, that a man who was in such flourishing and prosperous circumstances, should be brought at once, he and his family, into such extreme poverty, and into such a distressed and forlorn condition; they should be, as it were, thunderstruck at it, not being able to account for it: by these are meant such as are younger than the wicked man, and that continue longer than he, yet upon the spot when his calamity befell; or else posterity in later times, who would be made acquainted with the whole affair, and be surprised at the relation of it:

as they that went before were affrighted; not that lived before the times of the wicked man, for they could not see his day, or be spectators of his ruin, and so be frightened at it; but his contemporaries, who are said to be those that went before, not with respect to the wicked man, but with respect to younger persons or posterity that were after; so Bar Tzemach interprets it, which were in his time, or his contemporaries; and Mr. Broughton,

"the present took an horror;''

a late learned commentator (p) renders the words, western and eastern; as if all people in the world, east and west, would be amazed and astonished at the sudden and utter destruction of this wicked man.

(p) Schultens.

John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.

He shall neither have son ... - All his family shall be cut off. He shall have no one to perpetuate his name or remembrance. All this Job could not help applying to himself, as it was doubtless intended he should. The facts in his case were just such as were supposed in these proverbs about the wicked; and hence, his friends could not but conclude that he was a wicked man; and hence, his friends could not but conclude that he was a wicked man; and hence, too, since these were undisputed maxims, Job felt so much embarrassment in answering them.

Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

But if any such survive, they shall be in the hands and power of strangers, or rather of their enemies.

Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.

19. Son nor nephew — Literally, sprig nor sprout. Tyndale’s rendering is admirable — “He shall nether have chyldren nor kynsfolcks amonge hys people; noo, nor eny posterite in hys countrey” (places of sojourn). The original word for dwellings, according to Schultens, signified a refuge for strangers. The great men among the Arabs prided themselves upon the numbers of those who fled to them for protection. To such Schultens thinks Bildad may refer when he says, there shall be “no survivor in his dwellings.” Under the earlier economies the doctrine of the immortality of the soul being more or less obscured, the natural desire for an after life developed into a vehement passion for an immortal line of posterity. This intensified the calamity threatened by Bildad — the wholesale destruction of the progeny of the wicked. Job is goaded to bitter thoughts over his own bereavement.

Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

He shall neither have son nor nephew among his people; rather, nor grandson; i.e. "his posterity shall be clean put out". (Psa_109:14) Nor any remaining in his dwellings; rather, in the places where he sojourned (compare the Revised Version, which gives "in his sojournings"). It is implied that the wicked man shall be a vagabond, without a home, sojourning now here, now there, for a short time. Neither among his own people, nor in these places of his temporary abode, shall he leave any descendant. Bildad probably intends to glance at the destruction of Job"s children. (Job_1:19)

The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.

grandson Heb. נכד, a son of the son.

Rashi on the Tanakh — English translations: “The Judaica Press complete Tanach with Rashi, translated by A. J. Rosenberg” (CC BY 4.0); “Pentateuch with Rashi's commentary by M. Rosenbaum and A.M. Silbermann, 1929-1934” (public domain); “The Metsudah Tanach series, Lakewood, N.J” (CC BY 4.0); and “The Book of Joshua, Metsudah Publications, 1997” (CC BY 4.0). Text via Sefaria.