Albert Barnes Commentary Job 18:17

"His remembrance shall perish from the earth, And he shall have no name in the street." — Job 18:17 (ASV)

His remembrance shall perish - His name—all recollection of him. Calamity will follow him even after death; and that which every man desires, and every good man has—an honored name when he is dead—will be denied him. Men will hasten to forget him as fast as possible; compare Proverbs 10:7, The name of the wicked shall rot.

No name in the street - Men, when they meet together in highways and public gathering places—when traveler meets traveler, and caravan meets caravan—will not pause to speak of him and of the loss which society has sustained by his death. It is one of the rewards of virtue that the good will speak of the upright man when he is dead; that they will pause in their journey or in their business to converse about him; and that the poor and the needy will dwell with affectionate interest upon their loss. This blessing, Bildad says, will be denied the wicked man. The world will not feel that they have any loss to deplore when he is dead.

No great plan of benevolence has been arrested by his removal. The poor and the needy fare as well as they did before. The widow and the fatherless make no grateful remembrance of his name, and the world hastens to forget him as soon as possible.

There is no man, except one who is lost to all virtue, who does not desire to be remembered when he is dead—by his children, his neighbors, his friends, and by the stranger who may read the record on the stone that marks his grave. Where this desire is wholly extinguished, man has reached the lowest possible point of degradation, and the last hold on him in favor of virtue has expired.