layer (Job 5:5) and of snare; the form (as אבּיר, אדּיר) corresponds more to the former, but does not, however, exclude the latter, as תּנּין and לפּיד (λαμπάς) show.
The continuation in Job 18:10 of the figure of the fowler affirms that that issue of his life (Job 18:9) has been preparing long beforehand; the prosperity of the evil-doer from the beginning tends towards ruin. Instead of חבלו we have the pointing חבלו, as it would be in Arab. in a similar sense hhabluhu (from hhabl, a cord, a net). The nearer destruction is now to him, the stronger is the hold which his foreboding has over him, since, as Job 18:11 adds, terrible thoughts (בּלּהות) and terrible apparitions fill him with dismay, and haunt him, following upon his feet. לרגליו, close behind him, as Gen 30:30; 1Sa 25:42; Isa 41:2; Hab 3:5. The best authorized pointing of the verb is והפיצהוּ, with Segol (Ges. §104, 2, c), Chateph-Segol, and Kibbutz. Except in Hab 3:14, where the prophet includes himself with his people, הפיץ, diffundere, dissipare (vid., Job 37:11; Job 40:11), never has a person as its obj. elsewhere. It would also probably not be used, but for the idea that the spectres of terror pursue him at every step, and are now here, now there, and his person is as it were multiplied.
Verses 12-15
Job 18:12-15 12 His calamity looketh hunger-bitten,
And misfortune is ready for his fall. 13 It devoureth the members of his skin;
The first-born of death devoureth his members. 14 That in which he trusted is torn away out of his tent,
And he must march on to the king of terrors. 15 Beings strange to him dwell in his tent;
Brimstone is strewn over his habitation.
The description of the actual and total destruction of the evil-doer now begins with יהי (as Job 24:14, after the manner of the voluntative forms already used in Job 24:9).
