Job 18:9
in Job 18A trap seizes his heel; a snare grips him.
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
A gin shall take him by the heel, And a snare shall lay hold on him.
KJV
The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him.
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This verse in Job 18
Commentary
11 notes on this verseA commentator
Albert Barnes1798–1870
Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869)
The gin - Another method of taking wild beasts. It was a snare so made as to spring suddenly on an animal, securing him by the neck or feet. We use a trap for the same purpose. The Hebrew word (פח pach) may denote anything of this kind - a snare, net, noose, etc. with which birds or wild animals are taken. By the heel - By the foot. And the robber shall prevail - He shall be overpowered by the highwayman; or the plunderer shall make a sudden descent upon him, and strip him of his all.
This site's exposition
his own feet lead him into a net
on Job 18:8-10
Three verses give six words for a trap: "a net" and "its mesh", "A trap" and "a snare", "A noose" and "a trap". In "his own feet lead him into a net" the wicked man authors his own ruin. Clarke reads the near synonyms as a device of Hebrew poetry.
This site's exposition
A trap seizes his heel
Clarke hears a hunt running from verse 7 to verse 13, net, trap and snare, and notes that Houbigant sets verse 10 before verse 9. Barnes describes a trap that springs to seize an animal by the feet or heel. Henry sees the tempter laying snares in the path.
The record, by era
The Church Fathers1 voice
Bildad says these things using the metaphor of the birds or the animals that are captured in the hunt. In fact, as they can no longer escape after falling into snares and nets, so the impious are caught by inevitable calamities that overwhelm them. And …
The Medieval Church2 voices
Since he willingly put himself in danger and does not stop advancing but always procedes further on, as a result he will sometimes feel himself impeded and so he then says, "The foot of that man will be bound in a snare," that is the …
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.
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
In this he seems, all along, to have an eye to Job's complaints of the miserable condition he was in, that he was in the dark, bewildered, ensnared, terrified, and hastening out of the world. "This," says Bildad, "is the condition of a wicked man; and therefore thou art one." Second Address of Eliphaz.
The sinner may as soon overpower the divine omnipotence as flee from the divine omniscience, Amos ix. No marvel that the sinner is dispirited and distracted with fear, for, 1. He sees his ruin approaching: Destruction shall be ready at his side, to seize him whenever justice gives the word, so that he is brought into desolation in a moment, Ps. lxxiii.
3 more voices on this verse
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
); for, as he was a murderer, so he was a robber, from the beginning. He, as the tempter, lays snares for sinners in the way, wherever they go, and he shall prevail. If he make them sinful like himself, he will make them miserable like himself.
quarantine:debris (2026-07-29) — leading-punctuation+unbalanced-parens
The gin shall take him by the heel,....
The Nineteenth Century1 voice
The gin shall take him - Houbigant reads the tenth before the ninth verse, thus: “The snare is laid for him in the ground, and a trap for him in the way. The gin shall take him by the heel, and the robber shall prevail against him.” From the beginning of the seventh verse to the end of the thirteenth there is an allusion to the various arts and methods practiced in hunting. 1. A number of persons extend themselves in a forest, and drive the game before them, still straitening the space from a broad base to a narrow point in form of a triangle, so that the farther they go the less room have they on the right and left, the hunters lining each side, while the drovers with their dogs are coming up behind. “The steps of his strength shall be straitened,” Job 18:7. 2. Nets, gins, and pitfalls, are laid or formed in different places, so that many are taken before they come to the point where the two lines close. “He is cast into a net, he walketh upon a snare - the trap is laid for him in the way - the snare in the ground,” Job 18:8-10. 3. The howling of the dogs, with the shouts of the huntsmen, fill him with dismay, and cause him to run himself beyond his strength and out of breath. “Terrors shall make him afraid on every side, and shall drive him to his feet,” Job 18:11. 4. While spent with hunger and fatigue, he is entangled in the spread nets; and the huntsman either pierces him with an arrow or spear, or cuts the sinews of his legs, so that he is easily captured and destroyed. “The robbers shall prevail against him,” Job 18:9. “His strength is hunger-bitten, and destruction is ready at his side,” Job 18:12. This latter verse is thus paraphrased by the Chaldee: “Let his first-born son be famished; and affliction be prepared for his wife.”
The words behind it
6 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| יֹאחֵ֣ז | yochez | it takes hold | H270 → | 67 times |
| בְּעָקֵ֣ב | beakev | on a heel | H6119 → | |
| פָּ֑ח | pach | a trap | H6341 → | |
| יַחֲזֵ֖ק | yachazek | it takes hold | H2388 → | 291 times |
| עָלָ֣יו | ʾalav | on him | H5921 → | 5755 times |
| צַמִּֽים׃ | tzamim | a snare | H6782 → |
יֹאחֵ֣זit takes hold
yochezH270 →67 times
בְּעָקֵ֣בon a heel
beakevH6119 →
פָּ֑חa trap
pachH6341 →
יַחֲזֵ֖קit takes hold
yachazekH2388 →291 times
עָלָ֣יוon him
ʾalavH5921 →5755 times
צַמִּֽים׃a snare
tzamimH6782 →
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
The walk
8 stopsEach card is a verse this one points to, and under it the verses that one points to in turn. Where several paths arrive at the same place, that place is listed first: the text keeps returning to it.
Through
Job 5:5The hungry consume his harvest, taking it even from the thorns, and the thirsty pant after his wealth.
it leads to
- Lamentations 2:16
All your enemies open their mouths against you. They hiss and gnash their teeth, saying, “We have swallowed her up. This is the day for which we have waited. We have lived to see…
- Hosea 8:7
For they sow the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind. There is no standing grain; what sprouts fails to yield flour. Even if it should produce, the foreigners would swallow it up.
- Jeremiah 51:44
I will punish Bel in Babylon. I will make him spew out what he swallowed. The nations will no longer stream to him; even the wall of Babylon will fall.
- Lamentations 2:16
Through
Job 1:17While he was still speaking, another messenger came and reported: “The Chaldeans formed three bands, raided the camels, and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped…
it leads to
- Genesis 11:28
During his father Terah’s lifetime, Haran died in his native land, in Ur of the Chaldeans.
- Habakkuk 1:6
For behold, I am raising up the Chaldeans—that ruthless and impetuous nation which marches through the breadth of the earth to seize dwellings not their own.
- Isaiah 23:13
Look at the land of the Chaldeans—a people now of no account. The Assyrians destined it for the desert creatures; they set up their siege towers and stripped its palaces. They brought it to…
- Genesis 11:31
And Terah took his son Abram, his grandson Lot son of Haran, and his daughter-in-law Sarai the wife of Abram, and they set out from Ur of the Chaldeans for the land of Canaan.…
- Genesis 11:28
Through
Job 1:15the Sabeans swooped down and took them away. They put the servants to the sword, and I alone have escaped to tell you!”
it leads to
- Genesis 10:7
The sons of Cush: Seba, Havilah, Sabtah, Raamah, and Sabteca. And the sons of Raamah: Sheba and Dedan.
- Genesis 10:7
About Job
This page draws on 9 works. Open the list of works
This page draws on Adam Clarke, Commentary on the Bible; Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments (1832-1869); Albert Barnes, Notes, Explanatory and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments; Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book XIV; John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible; Olympiodorus of Alexandria, COMMENTARY ON JOB 18:7-9 and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.