Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 8:1
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
1 7. The discriminating rectitude of God
2. Before coming to his principle and by way of introducing it Bildad expresses his wonder that Job should allow himself to speak such things as his discourse contained. These things are such things as ch. Job 6:29, Job 7:1-2; Job 7:12-21, and perhaps even ch. Job 6:10. He refers to the general drift of Job’s speech, which appears to him to be an assertion that God was unjust ( Job 8:3).
a strong wind ] Violent, and empty, cf. ch. Job 15:2, Job 16:3.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite – ; see the notes at Job 2:11.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 8:1-3
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite.
Bildads unsympathetic speech
Bildad grasps at once, as we say, the nettle. He is quite sure that he has the key to the secret of the distribution among mankind of misery and happiness. It is a very simple solution. It is the doctrine that untimely death, sickness, adversity in every form, are alike signs of Gods anger; that they visit mankind with unerring discrimination; are all what we call judgments; are penalties, i.e., or chastisements, meant either simply to vindicate the broken law, or else to warn and reclaim the sinner. And so, in what we feel to be harsh and unfeeling terms, he applies at once this principle, like unsparing cautery, to the wounds of his friend. Bildad tries to overwhelm the restless and presumptuous audacity of Job with a hoard of maxims and metaphors drawn from the storehouse of the wisdom of the ancients. He puts them forward in a form that may remind us for a moment of the Book of Proverbs. As the tall bulrush or the soaring reed grass dies down faster than it shot up, when water is withdrawn, so falls and withers the short-lived prosperity of the forgetters of God. The spiders web, frailest of tenements, is the world-old type of the hopes which the ungodly builds. The second friend is emphasising what the first had hinted. There are no mysteries at all, no puzzles in human life, the friends say. Suffering is, in each and every case, the consequence of ill-doing. Gods righteousness is absolute. It is to be seen at every turn in the experience of life. All this impatient, fretful, writhing under, or at the sight of pain and loss, is a sign of something morally wrong, of want of faith in Divine justice. Believe this, Job; act on it, and all thy troubles will be over; God will be once more thy friend–till then He cannot be. (Dean Bradley.)
Bildads first speech
I. A reproof that is severe. How long wilt thou speak these things? Job had poured forth language that seemed as wild and tempestuous as the language of a man in a passion. But such language ought to have been considered in relation to his physical anguish and mental distress. Great suffering destroys the mental equilibrium.
II. A doctrine what is unquestionable. Doth God pervert judgment? The interrogatory is a strong way of putting the affirmative; namely, that God is absolutely just, and that He never deviates from the right.
III. An implication that is unkind. If thy children have sinned against Him, and He have cast them away for their transgression. Surely it was excessively heartless even to hint such things to the broken-hearted father.
IV. A policy that is Divine. If thou wouldst seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication unto the Almighty. Bildad recommends that this policy should be attended to at once, and in a proper spirit. He affirms that if this policy be thus attended to, the Almighty would mercifully interpose.
V. An authority not to be trusted. Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers. He appeals to antiquity to confirm what he has advanced. Two things should be considered.
1. There is nothing in past times infallible but the Divinely-inspired.
2. There is always more of the inspired in the present than in the past.
VI. A consideration that is solemn. We are but of yesterday, and know nothing. This fact, which is introduced parenthetically, is of solemn moment to us all. (Homilist.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VIII
Bildad answers, and reproves Job for his justifying himself,
1, 2.
Shows that God is just, and never punishes but for iniquity;
and intimates that it was on account of their sins that his
children were cut off, 3, 4.
States that, if Job would humble himself to the Almighty,
provided he were innocent, his captivity would soon be turned,
and his latter end be abundantly prosperous, 5-7.
Appeals to the ancients for the truth of what he says; and
draws examples from the vegetable world, to show how soon the
wicked may be cut off, and the hope of the hypocrite perish,
8-19.
Asserts that God never did cast of a perfect man nor help the
wicked; and that, if Job be innocent, his end shall be crowned
with prosperity, 20-22.
NOTES ON CHAP. VIII
Verse 1. Bildad the Shuhite] Supposed to be a descendant of Shuah, one of the sons of Abraham, by Keturah, who dwelt in Arabia Deserta, called in Scripture the east country. See Ge 25:1-2; Ge 25:6.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said. This was the second of Job’s friends that came to visit him, Job 2:11; and is mentioned next to Eliphaz there, and takes his turn in this controversy in the same side; which no doubt was agreed upon among themselves, as well as the part each should bear, and the general sentiment they should pursue, which was the same in them all. Some have observed, that Job’s friends were like the messengers that brought him the tidings of his losses, before one had done speaking another came; and so as soon as one of his friends had delivered his discourse, and before Job could well finish his reply, up starts another to charge him afresh, as here Bildad did, who said as follows.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
1 Then began Bildad the Shuhite, and said:
2 How long wilt thou utter such things,
And the words of thy mouth are a boisterous wind?
3 Will God reverse what is right,
Or the Almighty reverse what is just?
4 When thy children sinned against Him,
He gave them over to the hand of their wickedness.
Bildad
(Note: Nothing can be said respecting the signification of the name even as a probable meaning, unless perhaps = , sine mammis , i.e., brought up without his mother’s milk.)
begins harshly and self-confidently with quousque tandem , instead of the usual . , not: this, but: of this kind, of such kind, as Job 12:3; Job 16:2. is poetical, equivalent to , Job 1:19; is gen. comm. in the signification wind as well as spirit, although more frequently fem. than masc. He means that Job’s speeches are like the wind in their nothingness, and like a boisterous wind in their vehemence. Bildad sees the justice of God, the Absolute One, which ought to be universally acknowledged, impugned in them. In order not to say directly that Job’s children had died such a sudden death on account of their sin, he speaks conditionally. If they have sinned, death is just the punishment of their sin. God has not arbitrarily swept them away, but has justly given them over to the destroying hand of their wickedness, – a reference to the prologue which belongs inseparably to the whole.
Fuente: Keil & Delitzsch Commentary on the Old Testament
| The Address of Bildad. | B. C. 1520. |
1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, 2 How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? 3 Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? 4 If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression; 5 If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; 6 If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. 7 Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.
Here, I. Bildad reproves Job for what he had said (v. 2), checks his passion, but perhaps (as is too common) with greater passion. We thought Job spoke a great deal of good sense and much to the purpose, and that he had reason and right on his side; but Bildad, like an eager angry disputant, turns it all off with this, How long wilt thou speak these things? taking it for granted that Eliphaz had said enough to silence him, and that therefore all he said was impertinent. Thus (as Caryl observes) reproofs are often grounded upon mistakes. Men’s meaning is not taken aright, and then they are gravely rebuked as if they were evil-doers. Bildad compares Job’s discourse to a strong wind. Job had excused himself with this, that his speeches were but as wind (ch. vi. 26), and therefore they should not make such ado about them: “Yea, but” (says Bildad) “they are as strong wind, blustering and threatening, boisterous and dangerous, and therefore we are concerned to fence against them.”
II. He justifies God in what he had done. This he had no occasion to do at this time (for Job did not condemn God, as he would have it thought he did), or he might at least have done it without reflecting upon Job’s children, as he does here. Could he not be an advocate for God but he must be an accuser of the brethren? 1. He is right in general, that God doth not pervert judgment, nor ever go contrary to any settled rule of justice, v. 3. Far be it from him that he should and from us that we should suspect him. He never oppresses the innocent, nor lays a greater load on the guilty than they deserve. He is God, the Judge; and shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? Gen. xviii. 25. If there should be unrighteousness with God, how should he judge the world?Rom 3:5; Rom 3:6. He is Almighty, Shaddai–all sufficient. Men pervert justice sometimes for fear of the power of others (but God is Almighty, and stands in awe of none), sometimes to obtain the favour of others; but God is all-sufficient, and cannot be benefited by the favour of any. It is man’s weakness and impotency that he often is unjust; it is God’s omnipotence that he cannot be so. 2. Yet he is not fair and candid in the application. He takes it for granted that Job’s children (the death of whom was one of the greatest of his afflictions) had been guilty of some notorious wickedness, and that the unhappy circumstances of their death were sufficient evidence that they were sinners above all the children of the east, v. 4. Job readily owned that God did not pervert judgment; and yet it did not therefore follow either that his children were cast-aways or that they died for some great transgression. It is true that we and our children have sinned against God, and we ought to justify him in all he brings upon us and ours; but extraordinary afflictions are not always the punishment of extraordinary sins, but sometimes the trial of extraordinary graces; and, in our judgment of another’s case (unless the contrary appears), we ought to take the more favourable side, as our Saviour directs, Luke xiii. 2-4. Here Bildad missed it.
III. He put Job in hope that, if he were indeed upright, as he said he was, he should yet see a good issue of his present troubles: “Although thy children have sinned against him, and are cast away in their transgression (they have died in their own sin), yet if thou be pure and upright thyself, and as an evidence of that wilt now seek unto God and submit to him, all shall be well yet,” v. 5-7. This may be taken two ways, either, 1. As designed to prove Job a hypocrite and a wicked man, though not by the greatness, yet the by the continuance, of his afflictions. “When thou wast impoverished, and thy children were killed, if thou hadst been pure and upright, and approved thyself so in the trial, God would before now have returned in mercy to thee and comforted thee according to the time of thy affliction; but, because he does not so, we have reason to conclude thou art not so pure and upright as thou pretendest to be. If thou hadst conducted thyself well under the former affliction, thou wouldst not have been struck with the latter.” Herein Bildad was not in the right; for a good man may be afflicted for his trial, not only very sorely, but very long, and yet, if for life, it is in comparison with eternity but for a moment. But, since Bildad put it to this issue, God was pleased to join issue with him, and proved his servant Job an honest man by Bildad’s own argument; for, soon after, he blessed his latter end more than his beginning. Or, 2. As designed to direct and encourage Job, that he might not thus run himself into despair, and give up all for gone; there might yet be hope if he would take the right course. I am apt to think Bildad here intended to condemn Job, yet would be thought to counsel and comfort him. (1.) He gives him good counsel, yet perhaps not expecting he would take it, the same that Eliphaz had given him (ch. v. 8), to seek unto God, and that betimes (that is, speedily and seriously), and not to be dilatory and trifling in his return and repentance. He advises him not to complain, but to petition, to make his supplication to the Almighty with humility and faith, and to see that there was (what he feared had hitherto been wanting) sincerity in his heart (“thou must be pure and upright“) and honesty in his house–“that must be the habitation of thy righteousness, and not filled with ill-gotten goods, else God will not hear thy prayers,” Ps. lxvi. 18. It is only the prayer of the upright that is the acceptable and prevailing prayer, Prov. xv. 8. (2.) He gives him good hopes that he shall yet again see good days, secretly suspecting, however, that he was not qualified to see them. He assures him that, if he would be early in seeking God, God would awake for his relief, would remember him and return to him, though now he seemed to forget him and forsake him–that if his habitation were righteous it should be prosperity. When we return to God in a way of duty we have reason to hope that he will return to us in a way of mercy. Let not Job object that he had so little left to being the world with again that it was impossible he should ever prosper as he had done; no, “Though thy beginning should be ever so small, a little meal in the barrel and a little oil in the cruse, God’s blessing shall multiply that to a great increase.” This is God’s way of enriching the souls of his people with graces and comforts, not per saltum–as by a bound, but per gradum–step by step. The beginning is small, but the progress is to perfection. Dawning light grows to noonday, a grain of mustard seed to a great tree. Let us not therefore despise the day of small things, but hope for the day of great things.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
JOB – CHAPTER 8
BILDAD’S FIRST ADDRESS
Verses 1-22:
BILDAD’S CHARGES MORE COARSE AND
BRUTAL THAN ELIPHAZ
Verses 1, 2 begin Bildad the Shuhite’s tirade of condemnation against Job, Gen 25:2. He first inquires, with a scolding tone, just how long Job will go on defending, affirming his integrity, charging that words of his mouth were like a “strong wind” or “hot air.” He harangued against the length, content, and manner of Job’s speech. Instead of showing sympathy by and understanding, such as becomes consideration for one in deep suffering, sorrow, and grief, he expressed coarse and wicked contempt, in an inconsiderate manner from the start, 2Co 1:3-4; Gal 6:1-2. Bildad was a religious dogmatist basing his remarks on superficial, pious platitudes of proverbial wisdom, often without Divine sanction, rhyme, or reason, shedding no light on Job’s problem.
Verse 3 asks if God perverts or distorts justice in judgment. He does not, does He? Is the idea. This is a proper conclusion Job 34:12; Job 34:17. However Bildad’s insinuations that follow, and inferences attached to the following statements are not rational or valid conclusions concerning suffering. For all sorrow and suffering are not a result of Divine judgment for wrong, such as Bildad infers hereafter, Joh 9:1-3; See also Gen 18:25; Deu 32:4; 2Ch 19:7; Dan 9:14; Rom 3:5. Joseph’s suffering in the pit at Dothan and in the prison in Egypt was not because of any personal wickedness in him, but that God might be glorified. So it was with. Moses in the bulrushes, See?
Verses 4-6 express prejudicial conclusions of Bildad regarding both Job and his children who had been killed, Job 1:18-19. Bildad cruelly treats the death of Job’s children as an act of Divine and just judgment, rather than God’s granting Satan permissive power to destroy his own, on some occasion, for his glory, even as Daniel, the 3 Hebrew children, the Apostles and our Lord, often suffered. Bildad even appealed to Job to turn to God and repeatedly repent for if he were “pure and upright,” had integrity, or pure motives as he claimed, God would awake and prosper him, coming quickly to rescue him from his painful, corrupt plight, La 3:41; Psa 66:18.
Verse 7 adds that the Lord would make his latter end to be greatly increased or prospered. Material prosperity was promised to be the end result of favor and peace with God, and those who worship and serve Him in spirit and in truth, Jer 4:24; Rom 5:1; Isa 26:3; Col 3:15. God did bless Job’s latter end, not because of, but in spite of Bildad’s opinions that he was a guilty, sinful hypocrite, Job 42:12; Pro 23:18.
Verses 8, 9 continue Bildad’s advice to Job to inquire of the former age, make inquiry of patriarch fathers, sages of the past, who could give testimony of their experiences, a form of learning by observation, Deu 4:32; Deu 32:7; Psa 44:1. He added that they were but of “yesterday,” not long ago, with many experiences, therefore knew nothing in comparison with the sages of old. Because each one’s days are but as a “shadow,” temporary, transient like a sojourner, as expressed Gen 47:9: 1Ch 29:15; Job 7:6; Psa 39:5; Psa 102:11; Psa 144:4.
Verse 10 asks if the ancient fathers can not teach Job. Job had said “teach me,” Job 6:24. Bildad rightly states that they would tell him and utter words (of wisdom) from their hearts, insinuating that he could find no wisdom in the words of Job’s mouth, Job 8:2; Job 15:13.
Verse 11-13 describe the rush and flag, papyrus of the Nile river in Egypt, that can not grow without water and mire, to furnish their fiber material for garments, shoes, baskets and boats. The papyrus while in its greenness, before it is cut down is said to wither before any other herb, though found in marshy grounds, Psa 129:6; Jer 17:6; Jas 1:10-11; 1Pe 1:24. You see Bildad thinks Job to be a wicked hypocrite who has lost all his prosperity, is withered from the blast of God’s judgment. He has been cut down like a scythe cuts herbs, in Bildad’s opinion. He adds that “so are all the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrites hope shall perish,” Job 11:20; Pro 10:28. He had a basket full of advice with a thimble full of evidence; He could see a molehill and interpret it to be a mountain; see a drop of water and conclude that it was the ocean, see? Job 11:20; Job 18:14; Job 27:8; Psa 112:10; Pro 10:28. But when one is “hasty In his words,” as Bildad was of Job, without knowledge, “there is more hope for a fool” than for him, Pro 14:29; Pro 26:12; Pro 29:20. Bildad attributes all of Job’s sorrow, loss, and afflictions to obstinate hypocrisy and a total lack of fear of the Almighty, a conclusion later evidenced to be unfounded, Job 42:7-10.
Verse 14 continues the argument that hypocrites, like Bildad considers Job to be, will have their hope cut off, disappointed, or blighted and blasted. The hypocrites’ trust is concluded to be as entrapping as a spider’s web. His conclusion is that Job’s life is as repugnant to God as a poison spider and he is getting only what he deserves as a judgment from God, not knowing that God was permitting Satan to plague Job, as a lesson of patience for generations to come, see? Jas 5; 11; Rev 2:2; Rev 2:19; Rev 3:10; Rev 13:10; Rev 14:12.
Verse 15 states that “he,” the hypocrite, shall lean upon or trust in his house (residence and family), but it will not stand or endure, for it is like the spider’s house. So are wicked men in times of trial. Bildad likens Job to the spider and his web-like house as a type of the wicked in times of a storm, Job 27:18; Pro 10:18.
Verses 16, 17 add that he, as a spider-hypocrite, is also green before the sun, or before the heat of the sun rises, and before roots grow strong in the garden. He can not bear the heat, but is blasted, withered, or cut down on the stones, like Jonah’s gourd vine; So he cowers under the hour of testing, Joh 4:7-8; Jas 1:11.
Verses 18, 19 assert that “if He,” if God destroys Job from his place of respect, gained wickedly, through hypocrisy, he loses not only his wealth, family, and friends, but in the place he once lived he will be justly forgotten, Psa 103:16; Job 7:10; Job 20:9; Psa 37:36.
This is the joy (irony) of his way and others shall (other hypocrites) will spring up like him, Psa 113:7.
Verse 19 adds that God will neither turn His back on a perfect man nor take by the hand, help, aid, abet, or comfort an evil doer, insinuating further that Job has been and is a guilty doer of evil, Psa 37:24; Psa 73:23; Isa 41:13; Isa 42:6.
Verses 21, 22 assure Job that if he is righteous, has integrity, as he claims, God will fill his mouth and lips with laughing-joy when he has genuinely repented, Psa 126:2. Then those who hated or despised Job, the wicked, would be clothed or covered with shame, Psa 35:26; Psa 109:29; Jer 3:25. The wicked in the end, not Job, would come down to shame.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
BILDADS FIRST SPEECH
Job 8:1-22.
ONE is impressed with the thought that these professed comforters of Job are combining against him. They are not only men of parts, but men who know how to cooperate in argument. No sooner is one felled by the great philosopher, than another stands up to resist him. There is something of the wolf in man, and he often reinforces his personal weakness by calling his fellows to his aid. It is just possible that these three men came together because not one of them felt competent to successfully undertake alone.
It is evident also in this eighth chapter that Job had somewhat worsted Eliphaz, and by so doing, exasperated Bildad.
HIS QUESTIONS ARE BRUSQUE
He charged Job with being a blow.
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind (Job 8:1-2).
He reminded Job of Gods justice.
Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? (Job 8:3).
He intimated Jobs sons were degenerates.
If thy children have sinned against Him, and He have cast them away for their transgression;
If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;
If thou wert pure and upright; surely now He would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous (Job 8:4-6).
HIS GENERALIZATIONS WERE BROAD
He appealed to the past.
For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:
(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:)
Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? (Job 8:8-10).
He illustrated from nature.
Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water?
Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.
So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrites hope shall perish:
Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spiders web.
He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure.
He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden.
His roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth the place of stones (Job 8:11-17).
He prophesied the skeptics destruction.
If he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee (Job 8:18).
HIS CONCLUSION WAS BLESSED
He contends for adequate successors.
Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow (Job 8:19).
He defends Gods righteousness.
Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evildoers (Job 8:20).
He promises Jobs joy.
Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing.
They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought (Job 8:21-22).
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
BILDADS FIRST SPEECH
Bildad less courteous and considerate of Jobs feelings than even Eliphaz. Commences with an unfeeling reflection on his speech. Pursues the same line of argument and address as his predecessor
(1) God is righteouspunishing the bad, and rewarding those who seek and serve Him;
(2) Job exhorted to prove the latter by sincere repentance and prayer;
(3) The prosperity of the wicked short-lived, and sure to end in ruin: the end of the righteous certain joy and triumph.
I. Bildads Introduction (Job. 8:2).
A harsh censure on Jobs speech
(1) For its length. How long wilt thou speak, &c. Had listened to Job with impatience. Due to every man to hear him patiently, especially a man in affliction;
(2) For its matter. How long wilt thou speak these things? Uttered with contemptthese worthless and wicked sentiments;
(3) For its vehemence. And the words of thy mouth be like a strong windrecklessly bearing down all before thee, human and Divine. Intensely unfeeling thus to attack the words of a man in such deep distress. Faultiness in anothers speech no excuse for unfeelingness in our own. Jobs speech not more destitute of sobriety than Bildads is of sympathy. Difficult even under the Gospel to have our speech always with grace, seasoned with salt. Christians so to speak as to minister grace to the hearer, and bring glory to God. Bildads censure not without use to preachers. Suggests care as to
(1) The length;
(2) The matter;
(3) The manner of their discourses. Preachers to avoid
(1) Prolixity;
(2) Unsound or unprofitable matter;
(3) A vehement and boisterous delivery.
II. Bildad strongly asserts the Divine righteousness (Job. 8:3).
Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? This apparently implied in Jobs complaints. God essentially righteous. Incapable of injustice towards His creatures. As the Almighty, He is beyond any temptation to act unjustly. The Judge of all the earth cannot but do right (Gen. 18:25). Severe complaints like Jobs, a reflection on Gods justice. God is righteous.
1. In punishing sin. The reference in Bildads mind both to Jobs affliction and his childrens death. Cruelly treats the latter as a probable, if not certain, instance of Divine justice (Job. 8:4).If (or, since) thy children have sinned against Him, and He have cast them away for (margin, in the hand of) their transgression, making their sin in immoderate feasting to be its own punishment, &c. An erroneous as well as unfeeling application of the general truth.
(1) Jobs children had sinned, out not above all men that dwelt in the land of Uz;
(2) Their sin was not the occasion of their death. No injustice on Gods part, however, either to Job or his children, in allowing the calamity. Sufficient sin in each to merit more than any earthly affliction (Lam. 3:39). Death, in the case of believers children, their removal to a better state. To the parents, overruled for their elevation to a higher spiritual life. Bildads error in regarding earth as the sphere of Gods retributive justice. General tendency to view calamity as the righteous punishment of sinful conduct. The tower in Siloam. The error reproved by Jesus (Luk. 13:1-5). The unjust reserved to the day of judgment to be punished (2Pe. 2:9). The present life rather the time of forbearance and mercy (2Pe. 3:9; 2Pe. 3:15). Many apparent anomalies in the Divine procedure. Examples: Abels murder, and Cains long and prosperous life. A future state necessary to clear up these anomalies, and fully display the righteousness of God.
2. In rewarding those who seek and serve Him (Job. 8:5).If thou (emphatic, thou who art still spared) wouldst seek unto God betimes (repair to Him earnestly and at once), and make, &c., if thou wert pure [in thy heart and motive] and upright I in thy profession and practice while so doing]; surely now [even in thy extreme misery] He would awake for thee (and come quickly to thy help). The error and sting in all this, the supposition that Job had been a wicked man and a hypocrite. The sentiment in itself true and profitable.
(1) God the only help and refuge in trouble (Psa. 46:1.)
(2) The duty and interest of all in trouble to betake themselves to Him.
(3) This to be attended to betimes, at once, and with all earnestness.
(4) Supplication to be made to Him for pardon, deliverance, and grace (Lam. 3:41).
(5) This to be done in sincerity and uprightness, with a renouncing of all sin (Psa. 66:18).
(6) The result a certain and speedy interposition in our behalf.
A twofold promise held out:
1. A peaceful and prosperous habitation;
2. A large increase in worldly possessions (Job. 8:7). He would make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous, (or, would restore thy then righteous habitation, and endow it with perfect felicity). Temporal blessing promised as the expression of the Divine favour. An insinuation that Jobs dwelling had not formerly been a righteous one. Two great mercies indicated m this promise.
(1) A pious home; a home where(i.) God is daily and duly acknowledged and worshipped; (ii.). The members of the family live in love towards each other; (iii.) All the duties of morality and religion are carefully attended to. Such a dwelling contrasted with the tents of wickedness (Psa. 84:11).
(2) A peaceful and prosperous home; where(i.) The inmates are at peace with God and with one another; (ii.) God prospers their honest endeavours to obtain a competent livelihood; (iii.) They are preserved from domestic troubles; (iv.) All the inmates are the pardoned and accepted children of God. A pious home usually a peaceful and prosperous one. There God commands his blessing (Psa. 133:3). The ark brought a blessing with it into Obededoms house (2Sa. 6:10-11). The voice of rejoicing and salvation in the tabernacles of the righteous (Psa. 118:15). A peaceful habitation a new covenant blessing (Isa. 32:18). The dove of Divine peace hovers over the altar of domestic worship.
III. Bildad refers Job to the Fathers for instruction (Job. 8:8).
Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers,to the examination of the records of those still further distant, as Noah, Shem, &c. The reason given: For we (the present generation as compared with the past, or viewed as single individuals) are but of yesterday and know nothing (have comparatively little knowledge and experience of Gods dealings with men); because our days upon earth (as mere individuals, or as compared with those of our ancestors), are a shadow. Shall they not teach thee and tell thee [how God acts towards men in this world], and utter words out of their heart,well-pondered sayings as the result of their careful observation and reflection? Knowledge in the earlier period of the world rather the results of observation. These embodied in poetical and proverbial sayings. Such sayings existed either as written records or as traditional poetry. Especially valued by the Arabs, and still esteemed by them as the strongest testimonies. Mostly, however, the productions only of human wisdom, and to be distinguished from Divine revelation. Amongst them were the utterances of inspired men, as that of Enoch (Jud. 1:14.).
Tradition
Such traditions to be received with deference and respect, but not as of binding authority. Their authority that of the arguments which support them. Men always fallible, except as inspired by God to deliver truth. The fathers of the race and the fathers of the Church in the same category. Their wisdom and experience neither to be disregarded nor implicitly received. Increased light obtained with the advance of ages and the increase of experience. The wisdom and experience of each generation to be valued as a contribution to that of its successors. Opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making [Milton]. It is only the weak who, at each epoch, believe mankind to have arrived at the culminating point of their progressive march [Humboldt]. The famous test of ecclesiastical tradition a safe one, if it could be found,what has been taught by all, taught always, and taught everywhere. The longevity of the earlier ages favourable for wider observation. In the time of Job, human life reduced to about 200 years. Noah lived to be 950; Arphaxad, his grandson, only 438; Peleg, the great-grandson of Arphaxad, 239; Serug, Pelegs grandson, probably about the time of Job, 230; Terah, Serugs grandson and the father of Abraham, 205. The change apparent and striking to those living at the time. Hence Bildads acknowledgment
Human Life a Shadow
Time measured at that time by the shadow projected by the index of a dial, a spear stuck in the ground, &c. Mans life but a solar day,as the shadow fleeting along the dial-plate. Life mercifully reduced in consequence of sin. A long, vigorous life-time more favourable to the development of human depravity. The heart never grows better by age: I fear, worse,always harder [Lord Chesterfield]. Great longevity only gives occasion to the godly for Davids lament (Psa. 120:5-6). The present extent of human life long enough for a child of God to be kept from home (2Co. 5:6; 2Co. 5:8). Life, as a shadow, calls for
(1) Diligence in the improvement of it. Momentous issues hang on the fleeting shadow. Eternal interests demand despatch.
(2) A loose hold of things of time. Like life itself, all here is shadow, all beyond is substance. Foolish to set the heart on a shadow. He builds too low who builds beneath the skies.
(3) A proper estimate to be made of the troubles and joys, the possessions and pursuits, of the present life.
(4) Earnestness in securing a solid And lasting happiness beyond the grave.
IV. Quotation from the ancients (Job. 8:11-19). Exhibits:
1. The temporary prosperity of the ungodly. Compared
(1) To the paper-reed of Egypt, and the flag of the marsh or grass of the meadow (Job. 8:11). Can the rush (or papyrus) grow up without mire? Can the flag (marsh-plant, or grass of the meadow,same word wrongly translated meadow in Gen. 41:2.) grow without water? The papyrus of the Nile formerly used in the manufacture of garments, shoes, baskets, boats, and paper, whence our English word. The papyrus probably employed by the Jews of Alexandria for writing on while translating the Old Testament into Greek, having used this very word in the place of our rush. Now only found in marshes of the White Nile in Nubia, and in one or two spots in Palestine. Such plants capable of receiving a large supply of water which they require for their nourishment. Grow tall and luxuriant while the water is supplied; but speedily die when that supply is withdrawn. Picture of worldly men who have no living principle of enduring prosperity within themselves, either in the love of God in them, or the blessing of God on them. Their prosperity only from favourable circumstances, which may at any time come to an end. Contrast Human with Joseph, both attaining to the highest prosperity.
(2) To a spiders web, constructed with the greatest care, and expected to prove a lasting support to its possessor, but which the slightest accident may disturb and destroy (Job. 8:14). Whose trust (his riches, &c. in which he trusts) shall be a spiders webas unsubstantial and as certain speedily to perish. The spiders most attenuated thread is cord, is cable, compared to such prosperity and trust.
(3) To a luxuriant garden-tree, growing near a fountain and striking its numerous roots into the rocky bed on which it stands, open to the sun, and with every advantage of soil and situation (Job. 8:16-17). He is green (or moist) before the sun (enjoying the warm and genial influence of its rays), and his branch shooteth forth in his garden: his roots are wrapped about the heap (or fountain), and seeth the place of stones (enjoys the benefit of rocky strata for its support). A still more striking picture of the prosperous ungodly than the tall and luxuriant marsh-plant. Compare Psa. 37:35.
2. The certain and speedy termination of that prosperity.
(1) The papyrus or marsh-plant suddenly withers from want of the required supply of water (Job. 8:12). Whilst it is yet in its greenness (promising long continuance), and not cut down (without any hand applied to pluck or cut it down), it withereth before any other herb (suddenly decays without giving notice of the approaching change, while other plants less dependent on a large supply of moisture continue to live). Soon ripe, soon rotten. The prosperity of the ungodly a Jonahs gourd.
(2) The spiders web, on which he depends for his support, speedily perishes by accident or the broom (Job. 8:15). He (the spider, or the ungodly whom he represents) shall lean on his house (on his web, or the riches, family, &c, of the worldly figured by it), but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast (or, lay hold of itfor its preservation, or rather for his own support), but it shall not endure. Time destroys the well-built house as well as the spiders web [Arab Proverb]. The prosperity and bliss of the worldly man perishes like that flimsy web. It is well if, like that web also, it does not bury its possessor in its ruins.
(3) The luxuriant tree, spreading abroad its roots and branches, is suddenly struck by lightning or whirlwind, and at once becomes a leafless skeleton, or is laid prostrate on its native soil (Job. 8:18). If he destroy him (or, if he [or it] be destroyedHeb. swallowed up) from his place, then it shall deny him, saying: I have not seen theethe place where it stood is forgotten. The application given by the Psalmist: He (the wicked) passed away, and lo, he was not; yea, I sought him, but he could not be found (Psa. 37:36). History full of such instances. Haman, instead of parading on the monarchs horse, is left hanging on a felons gallows. When the Messenians saw the renowned Philopmon stripped and dragged along with his hands ignominiously bound behind his back, they wept, and contemned all human greatness as a faithless support, as vanity and nothing [Plutarch]. The Emperor Vitellius was driven through the streets of Rome naked, and then thrown into the Tiber.
O mighty Csar! dost thou lie so low!
Are all thy conquests, glories, triumphs, spoils,
Shrunk to this little measure?
3. The application (Job. 8:13). So are life paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrites hope shall perish.
Forgetfulness of God
Those who forget God placed in the same class with the hypocrite, or rather the profane, or wicked. Enough to characterize a man as wicked, that he forgets God (So Psa. 9:17; Psa. 10:4). To forget God is
(1) Not to think of Him;
(2) Not to thank Him;
(3) Not to serve and obey Him. It is to forget
(1) His presence;
(2) His Providence;
(3) His precepts. Forgetfulness of another implies
(1) Want of love;
(2) Want of respect. Men feel wounded on being forgotten by those whom they love, and on whose love they have a claim. Observe
1. Forgetfulness of God is the root and essence of all sin. It is to ignore, and, as far as we are able, to annihilate, Him from His own universe. It is to treat Him as though there were no such Being. The fool hath said in his heart, No God (Psa. 14:1). To remember God equivalent to loving and serving Him (Ecc. 12:1; Isa. 64:5).
2. To forget God is to forget Him who possesses all claims to our remembrance;
(1) From what He is in Himself;
(2) From what He is and has been to us. God is
(1) The Being who is the Source and Centre of all possible excellence and loveliness;
(2) Our Creator and Father;
(3) Our Preserver from moment to moment;
(4) Our Provider;
(5) Our Protector;
(6) Our Deliverer from trouble and danger;
(7) Our Benefactor and best Friend;
(8) In Christ our Redeemer and Saviour from sin and all its direful consequences.
3. In forgetting God we give our thoughts and hearts to the world, which has no attraction but what it derives from Him, and which can neither satisfy nor sace us. To forget God, therefore, is both ingratitude, robbery, and idolatry. It is to rob Him of His honour as well as ourselves of peace.
4. To remember God is to elevate, ennoble, and purify ourselves.
V. Conclusion of Bildads Speech (Job. 8:20-22). Perhaps another of the sayings of the ancients. Same general subjectGods dealings with the righteous and the wicked. Intended, like parts of the speech of Eliphaz, either for consolation or conviction, or perhaps both. Contains
1. Comfort for the godly under trial (Job. 8:20). Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man (see chap. Job. 1:1). Hence, comfort for Job, if such. This, however, still to be proved. A. righteous man may be cast down, but not cast away (Psa. 94:14; 2Co. 6:9). Hence the difficulty to Jobs friends in judging of his character. For the present, to all appearance, he was cast away. Himself, his family, and his fortunes, apparently a total wreck. The question therefore naturalHas Job been what he appeared? Or has he at length in his prosperity turned his back upon God? The Divine ruleIf thou forsake Him, He will cast thee off for ever (1Ch. 28:9). Job himself conscious this was not his case: but this uncertain to the others. A truly good man proved lo be such by continuing good. Care to be taken not only to begin, but to persevere in well-doing. Not to prove a castaway, Paul kept his body under (1Co. 9:27). (Job. 8:21). Till (or, whileconnecting with Job. 8:22) he shall fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing (margin, shouting for joy.) Till, &c., implies continuance in well doing and well-suffering. In due time we reap, if we faint not. Sowing in tears, we reap in joy. The shouting of victory crowns the well-fought battle. That shouting one
(1) of joy. The ransomed of the Lord return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy on their heads (Isa. 35:10).
(2) Of praise. Salvation to our God that sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb (Rev. 7:10). Not unto us, O Lord, not unto us, but to thy name, give glory (Psa. 115:1).
2. Warning to the ungodly (Job. 8:20). Neither will he help the evil-doers.Margin, take the ungodly by the hand, or, take hold of their hand,i.e., with the view of helping and countenancing them. An unkind out for poor Job, who seemed far enough from Divine help. So little can man know either love or hatred from that which s before him (Ecc. 9:1). Now men see not the bright light which is in the clouds (ch. Job. 37:21). Judge not the Lord by feeble sense. A solemn truth in the words of Bildad. The help which the ungodly receive is not Gods help. Divine help the privilege of the godly (Psa. 63:7; Act. 26:22). To enjoy Gods help we must employ ourselves in Gods service (Job. 8:22).They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame (as Psa. 35:26; Psa. 109:29; Psa. 132:18). The ungodly, however prosperous for a time, condemned to shame. Shame the natural fruit of sin (Rom. 6:21). Shame and contempt the characteristic and doom of the risen ungodly (Dan. 12:2). Shame experienced
(1) That they madly threw away their souls for the pleasures of sin;
(2) That those whom they hated and despised they now see crowned with joy and victory;
(3) That they so basely fought against the God that made them.And the dwelling-place (Heb. tent, as Psa. 84:11) of the wicked shall come to nought,as a tent when struck leaves no trace of it behind. The tent of the ungodly may be a rich pavilion, but its doom is written. Sin brings families as well as individuals to certain ruin.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
D. THE GREAT ABSENCE: EMPATHY AND SYMPATHYBILDAD Job. 8:1-22
1. God is just and has not been unrighteous. (Job. 8:1-7) (A rebuke of Job.)
TEXT 8:17
8 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
2 How long wilt thou speak these things?
And how long shall the words of thy month be like a mighty wind?
3 Doth God pervert justice?
Or doth the Almighty pervert righteousness?
4 If thy children have sinned against him,
And he hath delivered them into the hand of their transgression;
5 If thou wouldst seek diligently unto God,
And make thy supplication to the Almighty;
6 If thou wert pure and upright:
Surely now he would awake for thee,
And make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
7 And though thy beginning was small,
Yet thy latter end would greatly increase.
COMMENT 8:17
Job. 8:1Job concludes that even if God does finally respond to his outcries, it will be too late. Enters Bildad,[107] the younger, less tactful comforter. He is scandalized by Jobs familiarity with God. A fundamental assumption in Bildads thought is that God can do no wrong. Concurring with Eliphaz, Bildad sets forth retributive justice as a solution to our dilemma. His world contains only two groups of peoplethe wicked and the righteous. Suffering is the evidence of sin; and Jobs only escape is repentance.
[107] V. A. Irwin, The First Speech of Bildad, Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 51, 1953, 20516.
Job. 8:2The verb say (A. V. speak) is an Aramaism and means a great wind full of sound and fury signifying nothing. Bildad continues to concentrate on Gods justice,[108] a question Job has never raised.
[108] See Schrenk, art. Dike, Kittels TWNT, Vol. II, 174225.
Job. 8:3God (Shaddai) and injustice are incompatible terms. Does God pervert (Heb. yeawwetdistort) justice? The verb is repeated for strong emphasis (pervertpervert) on the magnitude of Jobs sin. There is no need either to use different words, as does the LXX and Vulgate, etc., or to delete one, as do some commentators.
Job. 8:4Bildad does not hesitate to emphasize an obvious conclusion, that Jobs children were punished for their sinfulness. They received what they deserved. This verse strongly connects the Dialogue with the Prologue. The A. V. renders the verse so as to connect Job. 8:4-6 (compare with the R. S. V.). Sin carries its own punishment. This is expressed in the translation into the hand of their transgression.[109] Bildads inexcusable cruelty is apparent in his suggestion regarding Jobs children, i.e., they brought their deaths on themselves. Even though the Hebrew grammar expresses a conditional form, Bildads deadly apriori concept of Gods justice could only more intensely aggravate Jobs troubled spirit. (Eliphaz had already hinted at the same legalistic doctrinaire solutionJob. 5:4).
[109] Svi Rin, Biblische Zeitschrift, N. F., VII, 1963, 32ff, for suggestions based on Ugaritic evidence.
Job. 8:5Bildad employs the same word used by Job. 7:21, seek, (Heb. sihor). But Job had spoken of God seeking him, Bildad suggests that it is imperative that Job seek God, if he desires healing.
Job. 8:6The interrelationship between prosperity and piety is again emphasized (cf. American dream turned to nightmare is based on Bildads theology). Bildad uses anthropomorphismA. V. he would awake for thee.[110] Is the creator of the universe asleep or insensitive to Jobs tragedy? Bildad promises Job that God willlit. restore the habitation of thy righteousness, if he will but follow his advice.
[110] For discussion of this matter, see H. N. Richardson, Journal of Biblical Literature, LXVI, 1947, 322; H. L. Ginsberg, Bulletin of the American Society of Oriental Research, 72,1938, 10; and I. Reider, Yetus Testamentum, II, 1952, 126.
Job. 8:7Bildad unconsciously prophesies of Jobs future restoration (chp. 42), though not for the reason suggested by Jobs comforter. Bildad is correct in asserting that the wisdom of the ancients is in harmony with his claimsJob. 15:8; Deu. 4:32; and Ecc. 8:9.[111]
[111] W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford, 1960), pp. 1020.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
BILDAD’S FIRST ADDRESS.
1. Answered Bildad The structure of his address and the doctrine he maintains do not differ essentially from those of Eliphaz. He, too, sees in affliction the stern features of retribution. The first speaker had assailed Job from an intrenchment in the universal sinfulness of our race. Bildad now renews the assault from an older and more impregnable position the inexorable justice of God. From his point of view he sees but one side of the divine nature justice. He coolly insinuates that Job’s children must have been wicked because they were killed. In this he was sustained by the convictions of antiquity, since “sudden death, to the ancient mind, bore the aspect of a judgment a work of the divine wrath.” Kitto. In like manner if the parent suffer he must also be a sinner. His discourse, therefore, like that of Eliphaz, closes with an earnest exhortation to repentance. Fortunately for us, Bildad is a stickler for antiquity, since he rescues from oblivion an ancient and most precious relic, combining in symmetrical beauty a threefold simile. Job 8:11-19. This ancient poem sings the fate of all those who forget God. The spirit of this entire discourse sets Bildad before us in an unfavourable light. Like Saul of Tarsus before his conversion, he is zealously affected for God. Bildad also would seemingly have been ready to carry out his convictions, even at the point of the sword.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job’s Dialogue with Three Friends – Job 3:1 to Job 31:40, which makes up the major portion of this book, consists of a dialogue between Job and his three friends. In this dialogue, Job’s friends engage in three rounds of accusations against Job, with him offering three defenses of his righteousness. Thus, Job and his friends are able to confirm each of their views with three speeches, since the Scriptures tell us that a matter is confirmed in the mouth of two or three witnesses (2Co 13:1). The underlying theme of this lengthy dialogue is man’s attempt to explain how a person is justified before God. Job will express his intense grief (Job 3:1-26), in which his three friends will answer by finding fault with Job. He will eventually respond to this condemnation in a declaration of faith that God Himself will provide a redeemer, who shall stand on earth in the latter days (Job 19:25-27). This is generally understood as a reference to the coming of Jesus Christ to redeem mankind from their sins.
Job’s declaration of his redeemer in Job 19:23-29, which would be recorded for ever, certainly moved the heart of God. This is perhaps the most popular passage in the book of Job, and reflects the depth of Job’s suffering and plea to God for redemption. God certainly answered his prayer by recording Job’s story in the eternal Word of God and by allowing Job to meet His Redeemer in Heaven. I can imagine God being moved by this prayer of Job and moving upon earth to provide someone to record Job’s testimony, and moving in the life of a man, such as Abraham, to prepare for the Coming of Christ. Perhaps it is this prayer that moved God to call Abraham out of the East and into the Promised Land.
The order in which these three friends deliver their speeches probably reflects their age of seniority, or their position in society.
Scene 1 First Round of Speeches Job 3:1 to Job 14:22
Scene 2 Second Round of Speeches Job 15:1 to Job 21:34
Scene 3 Third Round of Speeches Job 22:1 to Job 31:40
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
An Admonition to Job to Repent of his Sin
v. 1. Then answered Bildad, the Shuhite, v. 2. How long wilt thou speak these things? v. 3. Doth God pervert judgment? Or doth the Almighty pervert justice? v. 4. If thy children have sinned against him, v. 5. if thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, v. 6. if thou wert pure and upright, v. 7. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase,
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Job 8:1
Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said. Bildad the Shuhite has the second place in the passage where Job’s friends are first mentioned (Job 2:11), and occupies the same relative position in the dialogue. We may suppose him to have been younger than Eliphaz and older than Zophar. He does little more than repeat the arguments of Eliphaz, stating them, however, more bluntly, and with less of tact and consideration. The chief novelties of his discourse are an appeal to the teaching of past ages (verses 8-10), and the employment of new and forcible metaphors (verses 11-19).
Job 8:2
How long wilt thou speak these things? An exclamation like that of Cicero, “Quousque tandem?” One or two outbreaks might be pardoned; but to persist was to abuse the patience of his hearers. And how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? literally, be a strong wind; i.e. have all the bluster and vehemence of a tempest, which seeks to carry everything before it by sheer force and fury. The address is rude and unsympathetic.
Job 8:3
Doth God pervert judgment? This was, no doubt, what Job’s words of expostulation might seem to imply. But he had never gone so far as to make the direct charge, and a true friend would have shrunk from taxing him with an impiety, witch could only be deduced from his speech by way of inference. It is our duty to put the best construction that we can on our friends’ words, no less than upon their actions. Or doth the Almighty pervert justice? “Justice” is not altogether the same thing with “judgment.” Judgment is the act, justice the principle which underlies or ought to underlie the act. It is, of course, impossible for God to pervert either. “Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?” (Gen 18:25).
Job 8:4
If thy children have sinned against him. Bildad assumes this absolutely; Eliphaz had only hinted at it (Job 10:4). Both presume to know what could be known only to the Searcher of hearts. And he have cast them away for their transgression; literally, and he have delivered them into the hand of their transgressionsabandoned them, that is, to the consequences of their wrong-doing. The allusion is, of course, to the fact recorded in Job 1:19.
Job 8:5
If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes. Here we have again an echo of the words of Eliphaz (Job 5:8). There is a tacit assumption that Job has not had recourse to God, has not pleaded his cause with him or taken him into counsel; whereas all the evidence was the other way. Both when the first batch of calamities was reported to him (Job 1:14-19), and when the stroke of disease came (Job 2:10), Job cast his care on God, fell back on him, submitted himself to him unreservedly. “The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the Name of the Lord,” he said in the one case; in the other, “What? shall we receive good at the hand of God, and shall we not receive evil?” And make thy supplication to the Almighty; literally, make the Almighty gracious to thee.“
Job 8:6
If thou wert pure and upright. Job had asserted this, not in so many words, but substantially (Job 6:29, Job 6:30). We have God’s testimony that it was true (Job 1:8; Job 2:3); not, of course, in the sense that he was absolutely free from sin, but in that qualified sense in which “just,” and “righteous,” and “pure,” and “holy” can be properly used of men. Bildad implies, without boldly asserting it, that he does not believe Job to deserve the epithets, either absolutely or in a qualified sense. If he were so, Surely now he (i.e. God) would awake for thee. This is a common anthropomorphism (see Psa 7:6; Psa 35:25; Psa 44:23; Psa 59:4, Psa 59:5; Isa 51:9). And make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous; or, make peaceful the habitation wherein thy righteousness dwelleth; i.e. make peaceful the habitation wherein thou, a righteous man ex hypothesi, dwellest.
Job 8:7
Though thy beginning was small; rather, were small. Bildad does not refer to the past, but to the present. Though, if God were now to set to work to prosper Job, his beginning would be slender indeed, yet what the outcome might be none could know. God might prosper him greatly. Yet thy latter end should greatly increase. Here, once mere, Bildad does but follow in the steps of Eliphaz (see Job 5:18-26), prophesying smooth things, as be had done. It is difficult to believe that either comforter put any faith in the prospect which he held out, or imagined that Job would really be restored to prosperity. Rather there is a covert sarcasm in their words. If thou weft indeed so free from guilt as thou claimest to be, then thou wouldst be confident of a happy issue out of thy afflictions. If thou art not confident of such an issue, it is because thou art conscious of guilt.
Job 8:8
For inquire of the former age. Put the matter to the test of experiencenot the short-lived experience of living men, but the treasure of experience which has been handed down from generation to generation since the remotest times, and which is embodied in proverbsthe expression of the concentrated wisdom of antiquity. Search out and see what has in former ages been thought concerning prosperous men, like thyself, when suddenly cast down and afflicted. And prepare thyself to the search of their fathers. Go back, i.e; to the past age, but do not stop therepursue thy researches further and further to their remote ancestors. Bildad implies that the records of these remote times have been, in some way or other, preserved, either in writings or by oral tradition. Writing was certainly known in Egypt and Babylonia from a time anterior to Abraham, and to the Hittites at a date not very much later. Books of advice and instruction embodied in proverbs, or moral precepts, were among the earliest, in Egypt certainly. See the “Instructions of Amen-em-hat.” in the ‘Records of the Past,’ vol. if. pp. 11-16, and the ‘Proverbs of Aphobis,’ published by the Revelation Dunbar Heath. Bildad’s speech is thought to indicate “special familiarity with Egypt.”
Job 8:9
For we are but of yesterday. “We,” i.e. “of the present generation, old men though we may be, are but of yesterday; our experience is as nothing compared with the long, long experience of the past centuries, wherein the men of old “hived wisdom with each studious year,” not, like ourselves, hurried and pressed by the shortness of the term to which life is now reduced, but having ample time for reflection and consideration in their long lives of five, six, seven, centuries (Gen 11:10-17), which enabled them to give their attention to everything in its turn, and to exhaust all the experiences that human life has to offer. And know nothing; i.e. comparatively. Sir IsaActs Newton said that he felt like a child gathering shells upon the seashore, while the great ocean of truth lay unexplored before him. Because our days upon earth are a shadow (comp. Job 14:2; Psa 102:11; Isa 40:6). So brief and fleeting that they can scarcely be called a reality.
Job 8:10
Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart (see the comment on Job 8:8).
Job 8:11
Can the rush grow up without mire? The word translated “rush” () is that which occurs also in Exodus if. 3: Isa 18:2 and Isa 35:7, as designating a plant common in Egypt, and which is only found in these four places. It is generally admitted that the “papyrus” is meant “a plant of the Cyperaceae‘ or sedge family, which was formerly common in Egypt”. The chief peculiarity of the papyrus is its triangular stem, which rises to the height of six or seven, sometimes even of thirteen or fourteen, feet, and terminates in a bunch of thread-like flowering branchlets. The pith of these stems was the material of which the ancient Egyptians made their paper. The papyrus is a water-plant, and needs an abundant supply, but would often spring up out of any small pool which the Nile left as it retired, and, when the water failed from the peel, would rapidly wither away. A fine papyrus plant was on view, with other water-plants, in the circular greenhouse in Kew Gardens, towards the end of the season of 1890. Can the flag grow without water “The flag” () seems to be the ordinary sedge, or marah-plant. Like the papyrus, it would often spring up in all its greenness from a pool or pond left by the retiring river, and then in a few days, when the water was dried up, would wither away. Both images represent the prosperity of the wicked, and were probably proverbial.
Job 8:12
Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not out down. It grows and flourishes in a rich greenness up to a certain point; no one touches it; but the water fails from the root, and it fades, collapses, and is gone. It withereth before any other herb. The ground may be all green around it with ordinary grass and other herbs, since they only need a little moisturethe water-plant will collapse unless it has its full supply.
Job 8:13
So are the paths of all that forget God. So, that is, do those proceed on their way by whom God has been forgotten, They spring up in apparent strength and lusty force; they flourish for a brief space; then, untouched by man’s hand, they suddenly fade, fall, and disappear, before the mass of their contemporaries. Job is, of course, glanced at in the expression, “all that forget God,” though it is the last thing that he had done. And the hypocrite’s hope shall perish; or, the hope of the ungodly man shall perish (comp. Job 13:16; Job 15:34; Job 17:8, where the LXX. translates by or ).
Job 8:14
Whose hope shall be cut off; or, break in sunder (Revised Version). Here the second metaphor begins to come in. The ungodly, who has built up around him a house, and a body of dependants and friends, is like a spider which has spun itself a magnificent web, and thinks to find a defense in it. The moment it is put to the proof it breaks in sunder;” its delicate tracery is shattered; its fabric goes to nought. Job’s house had gone to nought before his person was smitten, and, though it had once been so strong, in the hour of trial had lent him no support at all. And whose trust shall be a spider’s web; literally, a spider‘s house. All the trust of the ungodly, in whatever it consists, shall be as fragile, as frail, as unsubstantial, as the filmy structure that a spider spins with such ears and skill, but which a wind, or a wasp, or an inconsiderate movement of its own may shatter to bits.
Job 8:15
He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. A spider’s web, once damaged, rapidly goes to pieces. It cannot be patched up. To “lean upon it” is to put its structure to a test which it is unable to bear. It cannot “stand” or “endure.” The ease is the same with all the supports of the ungodly.
Job 8:16
He is green before the sun. Bildad here introduces a third and more elaborate simile. The hypocrite, or ungodly man (Job 8:13), is as a gourd (Jon 4:6), or other rapidly growing plant, which shoots forth at sunrise with a wealth of greenery, spreading itself over a whole garden, and even sending forth its sprays and tendrils beyond it (comp. Gen 49:22)lovely to look at, and full, apparently, of life and vigour. And his branch shooteth forth in his garden; rather, over his garden, or beyond his, garden.
Job 8:17
His roots are wrapped about the heap, and seeth (rather, he seeth) the place (literally, house) of stones. This passage is very obscure The word gal, translated heap, means sometimes a spring or stream of water (Son 4:12); and many of the best Hebraists regard it as having that meaning here (Buxtorf, Lee, Stanley Leathes, Revised Version). In this case we have to regard the rapidly growing plant as having its roots wrapped about the perennial spring, which was a not uncommon, and always a much-desired, feature of an Eastern garden. Thus nourished, it naturally increased and spread itself, and “was green before the sun.” May we suppose that it “saw the house of stones,” because the spring which nourished it gushed forth from the native rock so that its roots were in contact with both?
Job 8:18
If he destroy him from his place; or, if he be destroyed. The verb seems to be best taken as impersonal. If he be destroyed in any way, suddenly or gradually, by a Divine stroke, or by human agency, or by the comparatively slow process of nature, in any ease the result is one, the flourishing plant is clean swept away, and the place of it knows it no more. Bildad’s words are very dramatic and expressive. Then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee. The place shall be ashamed of having ever nurtured anything so vile, and shall declare that it never held such a growth.
Job 8:19
Behold, this is the joy of his way. Bitterly ironicalThis is what his rapid and rampant greenery comes to; this is how his triumphant career ends! Utter destruction, disappearance, obliteration! And out of the earth shall others grow. The destruction leaves room for something better to followa sounder, healthier, and less short-lived growth.
Job 8:20
Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man. Bildad winds up with words of apparent trust in, and good will towards, Job. God is absolutely just, and will neither forsake the righteous man nor uphold the wicked one. If Job is, as he says, true to God, upright, and (humanly speaking) “perfect,” then he has only to go on trusting God; God will not leave him “till he fill his mouth with laughing, and his lips with rejoicing” (verse 21); then “they that irate him shall be clothed with shame, and their dwelling-place shall come to nought’ (verse 22); but if, as we feel instinctively that Bildad believes, Job is not “perfect,” but “an evil-doer,” then he must expect no relief, no lull in his sufferings; he is obnoxious to all the threatenings which have formed the bulk of Bildad’s discourse (verses 8-20)be may look to being cut off, like the rush and the flag (verses 11, 12), crushed like the spider’s web (verse 14), destroyed, and forgotten, like the rapidly growing gourd (Verses 16-19); he must look for no help from God (verse 20); but must be contented to pass away and make room for men of a better stamp (verse 19). Neither will he help the evil-doers; literally, neither will he grasp the hand of evil-doers; i.e. though he may support them for a while, he will not maintain them firmly and constantly.
Job 8:21
Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing. This is very elliptical. The full phrase would be, “God will not cast away a perfect man; therefore, if thou be such, he will not cast away thee, till he fill thy mouth with laughter, and thy lips with rejoicing,” or “with shouting for joy.”
Job 8:22
They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame (comp. Psa 35:26); and the dwelling-place (literally, tent, or tabernacle) of the wicked shall come to nought (literally, shall not be). The words are involved and obscure, because Bildad does not wish to make his meaning plain. He has to invent phrases which may cut both ways, and, while they seem directed against Job’s enemies, may pain and wound Job himself.
HOMILETICS
Job 8:1-7
Bildad to Job: 1. A bundle of mistakes.
I. UNJUSTIFIABLE REBUKE. “Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said.” Even if on Job’s part wholly deserved the admonition of Bildad was in itself worthy of censure, as being:
1. Impatient. “How long wilt thou speak these things?” It is due to every man who speaks in his defence, as Job did, to hear him patiently (Act 26:3); much more if he speaks in affliction. Nay, patience towards all men is an eminent token of sincere religion (1Th 5:14; 1Ti 6:11; 2Ti 2:24; Tit 3:2). Besides, they who rebuke others for impatience should not themselves be guilty of the same (Rom 2:21).
2. Unsympathetic. Throughout its entire length not a word indicates that Bildad cherished kindly feeling towards Job or pity for his deep distress. On the contrary, there is an amount of brutal plainness of speech that is hard to account for in a good man. Into whatever faults men may fall by their words or acts, their sufferings and sorrows should never fail to elicit our compassion (Job 6:14; Rom 12:15; Heb 13:3). Least of all should they rebuke other’s sins who cannot feel for others’ woes (Gal 6:1; Tit 3:2, Tit 3:3).
3. Uncharitable. Bildad made no allowance for the anguish of spirit which had impelled Job to speak, but, like Eliphaz (Job 6:26), putting the worst passible construction on his words, contemptuously designated them as “these things,” and characterized them as boisterous winds, vehement nothings, meaningless, but tempestuous, defying all restraints, overleaping all barriers, destroying all law and order in their course. “If sound speech that cannot be condemned” (Tit 2:8) be excellent in all, “speech always with grace, seasoned with salt” (Col 4:6); is a special ornament of Christians; and “if any man offend not in word, the same is a perfect man, and able also to bridle the whole body” (Jas 3:2); yet, equally on the other, hand,, a charity that never faileth, that is not easily provoked, that “beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things” (1Co 13:4-8), becometh them that hear.
II. DOUBTFUL THEOLOGY. “Doth God (El) pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty (Shaddai) pervert justice?”
1. Absolutely, no! It is impossible to conceive that the Divine Being, in his moral government of the universe, could even by a hair’s breadth transgress the bounds of rectitude.
(1) If he did, he could not be El-Shaddai, the All-powerful and All-sufficient Deity; since sin is essentially weakness and imperfection, and Omnipotence inconceivable except in alliance with immaculate purity and absolute integrity. Hence
(2) because of being El-Shaddai, not only has he no temptation to resort to inequitable dealings with his creatures, but the bare idea of “perverting justice” is impossible, is wholly unthinkable in connection with him, and even the faintest insinuation thereof infinitely false. (In this sense it is not clear that Job’ as Bildad suggests, had charged God with perversion.) Only the equity of God’s dealings is not always discernible by man. Though the Judge of all the earth cannot do otherwise than right (Gen 18:25), the judged do not always perceive the justness of his decisions. Hereafter the entire course of the Divine procedure on earth will be vindicated in the presence of an assembled universe. Meantime that it is in perfect harmony with the eternal principles of truth and right is an article of faith and a fundamental axiom of reason.
2. Seemingly, yes. As understood by Bildad, it is doubtful if justice can be claimed for all God’s dealings with his intelligent creatures on earth. By justice Bildad meant the principle of rewarding good men with good things, and bad men with evil things, upon the earth and in time. He contended that God could by no possible consideration be induced to depart from administering mundane affairs on this plain and simple principle. Accordingly, he argued that, if men sinned, God was shut up by the aforesaid principle to punish them in time; and, vice versa, that if men were seen to be afflicted, the inference was irresistible that they had transgressedotherwise God would be guilty of perverting justice in visiting them with tribulation. Similarly, he reasoned that God was bound to crown righteous men with prosperity; and that they who enjoyed good things in this life were only reaping the reward of virtue; although he likewise contended that if a good man relapsed into wickedness, he could not escape retribution in the shape of temporal calamity, while, if he repented, he would as surely be conducted back to his former prosperity. Now not one of these dogmatic positions of the ancient sage was correct; and against them all Job vehemently protested. The theory that connects all suffering with sin, though popular (Joh 9:2; Luk 13:1-5), is fallacious. The doctrine that good things are invariably a reward of goodness will not stand the test of facts (Luk 16:25).
III. INAPT ILLUSTRATIONS.
1. The case of Job‘s children.
(1) The assumption. “If thy children have sinned against him.” Outrageously unfeeling was it, even if it had been true, so to lacerate the heart of a bereaved parent. “The words of the wise may be as goads” (Ecc 12:11), but the words of the good should be as “an honeycomb, sweet to the soul and health to the bones” (Pro 16:24). “The tongue of the wise useth knowledge aright” (Pro 15:2), and “a prudent man covereth shame” (Pro 12:16). Entirely unwarranted, it was likewise atrociously cruel. Bildad had no reason whatever to assume that Job’s children had been guilty (in his sense) of wickedness against God. Job’s “it may be” (Job 1:5) was not proof that “it was.” In the general sense in which “all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God” (Rom 3:23), they had doubtless transgressed; in the particular sense that they had perpetrated positive offence against God evidence was completely awanting. Hence, because un-warrented, it was also heinously sinful. Bildad’s imputation was an offence against the dead, against the living, against God.
(2) The inference. “So hath he cast them away for [or, ‘delivered them over into the hand of their’] transgression.” Superficially correct to the extent that all sin has a tendency to autonemesissooner or later it will avenge itself upon the perpetrator thereof (cf. Job 5:2), and that Job’s children had been suddenly cut off by God (Job 1:19); but radically vicious in attempting to connect these twothe principle and the factas cause and effect, since the history explicitly discovers (Job 1:12) that the wickedness of Job’s children was not the occasion of their destruction. They were cut off in pursuance of a divinely formed purpose to try Job. Yet this was no contravention of God’s absolute justice, though on Bildad’s principles it was quite inexplicable.
2. The case of Job himself.
(1) The underlying hypothesis, which was false, viz. that Job was not pure and upright, even in the sense meant by Bildad (verse 6), which Job was, having, like St. Paul, a conscience void of offence both toward God and toward men (Act 24:16), and like St. Peter the answer of a good conscience toward God (1Pe 3:21).
(2) The proffered counsel, which was good. What, To seek unto God; i.e. to make supplication unto him, to address him in prayer. Why? To make God gracious unto him, this beautiful idea being conveyed by the force of the reflex, hithpael of the verb (Davidson). When? Betimes; the verb signifying “to seek early,’ i.e. first in time and first in importance (cf. Pro 7:15; Pro 8:17; Job 24:5). How? Earnestly; this also being implied in the verb “to seek.”
(3) The promised blessing, which was doubtful. This was:
(a) Protection. The cause: “He will watch over thee,” instead of” watching against thee” (Job 7:12). The effect: “And make thy habitation secure;” salute it with peace, and preserve it in safety (cf. Eliphaz’s picture of the good man’s house, Job 5:24; and contrast his cursing of the wicked man’s abode, Job 5:8). The condition: “thy righteous habitation;” i.e. when thy habitation became the abode of a righteous man, God would pronounce it blessed and preserve it in peace.
(b) Prosperity. “Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.” Bildad had no guarantee beyond his own theory for the prediction that a return on Job’s part to piety would be followed by a restoration to material prosperity.
LESSONS.
1. “A soft answer turneth away wrath, but grievous words stir up anger” (Pro 15:1). Bildad’s success would have been greater had his language been milder.
2. Those who undertake the work of teaching others should both see that what they teach is true, and study to speak the truth in love (Eph 4:15). Bildad was wanting in both of these respects.
3. A half-truth is sometimes as dangerous as a whole lie. Bildad’s theology was of this sort.
4. Saints who are vehemently jealous for the Divine honour are often intensely unkind as well as unfair to their fellow-men. Bildad was as cruel towards Job as he was courageous in behalf of God.
5. Beware of sentencing those to perdition concerning whom God has not declared his mind. Bildad manifestly had no doubt as to the fate of Job’s children.
6. It is man’s duty to seek God betimes, whether the habitation of their righteousness prosper or no. Bildad’s prediction must not be accepted as equivalent to God’s promise.
7. The latter end of pens men, if not on earth, at least in heaven, will be one of greatness and glory combined. In this sense alone is Bildad’s statement certainly correct.
Job 8:5, Job 8:6
The picture of a good man’s home.
I. A PRAYING HOME. Where by both parents and children private and family devotion is observed.
II. A PIOUS HOME. Where such devotion is the outcome and expression of inward spiritual life.
III. A PEACEFUL HOME. Where the inmates enjoy the blessed calm of forgiveness, and dwell in love towards one another.
IV. A PROTECTED HOME. Where the eye of God continually rests upon the habitation and all who dwell therein.
V. A PROSPEROUS HOME. Where true spiritual riches are possessed, and as much temporal fortune is enjoyed as God’s wisdom appoints.
Job 8:8-22
Bildad to Job: 2. Wisdom from the ancients.
I. THE TEACHERS. The world’s gray fathers, not the immediate predecessors of Job, Bildad, and their contemporaries, but the progenitors of thesetheir remote ancestors, who are here described as:
1. Early born. In contrast to the men of Job’s time, who are characterized as being late born, literally, “yesterday;” i.e. of yesterday, as if ascending the stream of time meant the same thing as approaching the primal fountains of trutha popular fallacy which the royal Preacher corrects (Ecc 7:10). Antiquity is no sure test of truth; novelty is no sure mark of error. Rather error has a tendency to array itself in a quasi-sanctity derived from age. Many respectable fallacies and popular delusions have descended item remote times. Yet truth that bears the stamp of successive generations is all the more valuable on that account.
2. Long-lived. In comparison with their successors, who are here depicted as a short-lived generation: “Our days upon earth are a shadow” (verse 9); the probability being that Bildad alluded to the remarkable longevity of antediluvian times, and of the patriarchal era immediately succeeding, as affording greater opportunity for making and collecting the results of observations than the brief span of human life at the period when Job and he flourished. Yet the long leisure enjoyed by the Macrobii is now more than counterbalanced by the appliances of modern civilization. So that the results gathered in an ephemeral and shadowy life may rest upon a broader basis of experience than those collected by primeval sages in the course of centuries. Still, were each age dependent on the amount of knowledge it could accumulate for itself, the world’s advancement would be tedious, if not practically at a standstill. Hence the duty of recognizing our obligations to the past, and of transmitting to posterity, not diminished, but if possible augmented, the gathered stores of matured wisdom inherited from bygone generations.
3. Deep-thinking. As men who with powers fully exercised employed the leisure of centuries in observing the phenomena of Divine providence, in comparing their a priori theories with life’s facts; in investigating the profound problems of religion, and, after carefully elaborating the results, crystallized them in brief, sententious maxims, apothegms, parables, “bearing the impress of deep thought, and often deeply trying experience” (Davidson), which were passed along from age to age for the instruction of succeeding generations, in contrast with whom the contemporaries of Bildad and Job, and indeed the short-lived sages of modern times “know nothing.” Bildad’s estimate of the relative values of ancient and modern thought subject to correction on the grounds above indicated.
II. THE TEACHING.
1. The proverb of the papyrus.
(1) The image. A papyrus plant (Cyperus papyrus, L.) a gome, so named from absorbing water, or a reed, an achu, like the Nile grass in Egypt (Gen 41:2), springing up suddenly, not upon dry ground, but on river-banks, in marshes, upon the margin of canals, wherever there is water (verse 11), attaining to remarkable luxuriance even before it is ripe for the sickle, being the finest of all natural grasses (verse 12), then quickly disappearing, withering before any other herb, when once the fierce summer heats have licked up the scanty moisture which caused it to flourish (verse 12).
(2) The interpretation.
(a) The plant, an emblem of the ungodly man who lives in forgetfulness of God (verse 13). Forgetfulness of God, of God’s existence (Psa 14:1), of God’s omniscience (Psa 50:22), of God’s character (Isa 51:13; Isa 64:5), of God’s works (Deu 6:12; Psa 78:10, of God’s Word (Ecc 12:1; Hos 4:6), the essence of ungodliness (Psa 9:17; Eze 22:12).
(b) The water, a symbol of that outward prosperity without which the hope of the ungodly cannot spring. A melancholy truth that wicked men, in whose thoughts God never is (Psa 10:4), have sometimes a hope of eternal life. This not founded on a sure basis; on their own morality, ability, formality, or on some mistaken view they possess of the character of God, instead of on God’s mercy, Christ’s work, and the Spirit’s grace; Commonly dependent on outward circumstances, and not derived from an inherent principle of spiritual life.
(c) The luxuriant verdure while the water lasts, a picture of the hypocrite’s display of religion while things continue prosperous.
(d) The speedy withering when the water fails, a representation of the swift and utter collapse of the hypocrite’s religion and its hope when, in the providence of God, the fostering element of material prosperity is withdrawn.
2. The proverb of the spider‘s web. (Psa 78:14, Psa 78:15.) Changing the simile, the wisdom of the ancients likens the hypocrite to a spider, and his hope to a spider’s web, In respect of
(1) its construction, being deftly and dexterously, with much care and infinite elaboration, built up and fashioned;
(2) its intention, being designed, like the spider’s web, for a habitation, a house for the soul in the day of trial and the day of death;
(3) its attenuation, being as unsubstantial as a thin cobweb spun from the insect’s bowels, and like that fabricated mostly from the hypocrite’s own imagination;
(4) its destruction, being easily cut asunder or detached from its main support, as the cobweb is by the lightest touch of broom or breath of wind; and
(5) its deception, as miserably disappointing the sinner who trusts in it, leans upon it, expects to find support from it, as the cobweb does the spider who clings to it in vain, finding no safety in the threads of his gossamer palace, but along with them being precipitated into dark and dreary overthrow.
3. The proverb of the climbing plant. (Psa 78:16-19.) Disentangling the moral from the fable, we have here presented, under the similitude of a creeping plant, the fortunes of an ungodly man in five stages.
(1) Luxuriant prosperity; like the succulent plant swelling with sap in the sunshine, shooting forth leaves and branches over all the garden (Psa 78:16), twining its roots about the heap of stone, “seeing the inside of stones (Carey), i.e. penetrating into the smallest interstices thereof, “living in the midst of flints” (LXX.), clasping and embracing the stony structure,a striking image of exuberant and seemingly stable prosperity.
(2) Complacent satisfaction; looking down proudly upon his material fortune, as the plant upon its house of stones, regarding it as a solid structure which he has reared and in which he anticipates finding repose.
(3) Sudden destruction; being unexpectedly swallowed up, i.e, violently stricken down either by God (Delitzsch) or by it, the house of stones (David son); in the one case a monument of Divine retribution, in the other an example of the serf-destroying character of worldly prosperityas the plant is, in an evil moment, torn up from its place among the stones.
(4) Public contempt; the former boon companions of the hypocrite in his prosperous days ignoring him, feeling ashamed of him, denying all acquaintance with him, as if the very ground where, the uprooted plant grew were to. disown, it. (cf. Job 18:18; Job 20:27). “Behold, thus endeth his blissful course”a grimly ironical expression.
(5) Utter oblivion; the place left vacant by him in society being immediately filled, and himself completely forgotten; “others in succession springing up from the dust.” What a sermon on the vanity of human greatness! The disappearance from the stage of time of one who has lived in affluence, grandeur, fame, but a momentary wonder, like the dropping of a stone into the calm bosom of a lakea noise, a ripple, and then the stillness resumes its sway
“Or like the snowfall in the river,
A moment whitethen melts for ever.”
(Burns.)
III. THE MORAL.
1. A general principle. God will neither reject a righteous nor assist a wicked man (Psa 78:20). A good man may be cast down, but he cannot be cast off (Psa 94:14; 2Co 4:9). The character (1Sa 12:22; 1Sa 15:29; Job 23:13; Mal 2:16; Mal 3:6), the covenant (Deu 4:31; 1Ki 8:23; 2Ki 13:23; Psa 111:5), the promise (Leveticus 26:44; Isa 54:9; Hos 2:19; Rom 11:29; 2Co 1:20; Heb 10:23), the people (Gen 24:27; Jos 23:14; 1Sa 12:22; 2Sa 23:5; Rom 11:2), of God, all combine to testify the impossibility of God’s turning his back upon a truly pious man,a thought fall of comfort for the Christian (Joh 10:28). Equally do they proclaim the doctrine that God cannot really, however appearances may declare the contrary, take a had man by the hand. Otherwise his Word would be falsified (Psa 34:16), his purity tarnished (Hab 1:13), his Godhead forfeited (1Jn 1:5),an idea fraught with warning for the wicked.
2. A particular application. This being so, on the hypothesis of Job’s integrity, Job might with certitude reckon that God would not cast him off, hut interpose in his behalf, till prosperity once more dawned upon him, and his mouth was filled with laughing, and his tongue with rejoicing (verse 21); while the contrary portion would be allotted to all Job’s enemies and God’s, viz. shame and everlasting destruction (verse 22). What Bildad here affirms of the respective fortunes of the righteous and the wicked is only true when we take into reckoning the eternal futures of both, the everlasting happiness (Psa 73:24; Isa 35:10; Dan 12:3; Luk 10:20; Luk 12:32; Rom 2:7, Rom 2:10; Rom 8:18) of the saint, and the everlasting perdition of the ungodly (Mat 25:46; 2Th 1:9; Rev 21:8).
Learn:
1. If it is wrong to over-estimate, it is also wrong to depreciate, the men and things of bygone days.
2. It is much safer in our reasonings to rest upon the results of experience than to build upon the speculations of fancy.
3. The brevity of life should stimulate to diligence in pursuit of knowledge.
4. The teachings of tradition, though not infallible, have a place and value of their own.
5. It is well that the tongue should only speak what the mind and heart have meditated and prepared.
6. Covet not material prosperity, which may exist without inward piety.
7. Beware of an appearance of religion which has no corresponding reality beneath.
8. The secret of soul-prosperity, as the source of spiritual vitality, is frequent meditation upon God.
9. The entire world of common things is full of parables of heavenly truth to them who can interpret the same.
10. It is possible to make a fair promise at the outset of a Christian profession, and yet eventually fall away.
11. The wicked man’s joy must ultimately be exchanged for sorrow.
12. The sorrows of earth in the case of God’s saints will be succeeded by the hallelujahs of heaven.
Job 8:13
The hypocrite’s hope.
I. A STARTLING DEFINITION. The hypocrite is:
1. An ungodly person. He has an outward pretence of piety, but in reality be is destitute of true religion.
2. A forgetter of God. It is not necessary that his impiety should take the form of flagrant wickedness. That might be easily detected, and would be altogether inconsistent with an appearance of godliness. It is enough that he simply forgets God.
II. AN AMAZING REVELATION. The hypocrite finds himself possessed of a hope, i.e. of God’s favour and of eternal life; which hope is:
1. Like the papyrus, the fruit of his prosperity, wholly dependent on external circumstances.
2. Like the spider’s web, a flimsy, unsubstantial edifice, deftly fashioned out of his own imagination.
3. Like the gourd, complacently self-satisfying.
III. A FEARFUL PREDICTION. The hypocrite’s hope shall perish:
1. Like the papyrus, it may droop suddenly.
2. Like the spider’s web, it may be destroyed violently.
3. Like the climbing plant, it will be blasted shamefully.
LESSONS.
1. Examine well the grounds on which our hope of heaven rests.
2. Seek to be possessed of that good hope which comes through grace.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON
Job 8:1-22
Shall not the Judge of all do right?
The supposed attack of Job, by implication, upon the justice of God gives an opening for renewed admonitions and rebukes on the part of his friends. Bildad now comes forward and delivers a discourse full of noble faith, however its principles may be in this case misapplied. Rebuking the grievous complaints of Job as a wind, full of noise and emptiness (verse 2), he proceeds
I. TO INSIST ON THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD. This is an axiom of his faith. God cannot do unrighteousness. It, is impious to admit the thought for a single moment into the mind. He insists on the inflexibility of God’s rectitude. He will not bend right and duty (verse 3). There can be no twisting, deviation, compromise, with God. His path is ever a straight line. Bildad will therefore rather draw an unfavorable conclusion about his friend than allow the slightest shadow to be cast on the splendour of the Supreme. Job may be guilty, nay, probably is so; but there can be no probability of any failure of right in God. The principle may appear somewhat harshly and rigidly stated; and yet from the sincere, even if narrow and limited, point of view of Bildad no doubt he is in the right. Rather seek any explanation of suffering, or leave it in mystery, than bring a charge against the unbending righteousness of God.
1. Application to the past and present. Following out this reasoning, the fate of Job’s sons would seem to point to the fact that they had committed a deadly sin. And so, too, Job’s present sufferings lead to the inference that he is very far from pure. The terrible example of his sons should be his warning. Yet this is expressed with some kindliness and forbearance. It is put hypothetically: “if thy sons” (verse 4). Bildad, though rigid in doctrine, is not untender at hearta kind of character we often see exemplified in life. But we have the lesson again and again from the conduct of these friends that friendship demands intelligence as well as heart. There is a missing link in Bildad’s reasoning, which destroys its power in the present case.
2. Application to the future. There is hope for the sufferer if he will but betake himself in humility and repentance to God.
(1) There must be the seeking, striving, straining, agonizing effort of the whole soul to recover its lost treasurepeace with him.
(2) There must be prayer, the sincere expression of this desire (verse 5). In life and in thought there must be conversion from evil and towards him, the Good and the Holy, the Gracious, and the Forgiving. The result will be the recovery of the lost happiness.
(a) Innocence will be restored (verse 6); grand hope and promise of the eternal gospelthe crimson stain may be removed from the heart and the hand, past sins and iniquities may be remembered no more. The possibility of a renovation of which men are tempted in themselves to despair.
(b) Divine protection will be felt. God will watch over him (verse 6) or “awake for him.” The Shepherd of Israel, who slumbers not, will guard him from evil by night and by day, in his going out and his coming in.
(c) Peace will be in his homesteadthe peace which dwells with right and innocence. Over garden and orchard, on fields and barns, and around the hearth, will be felt brooding the nameless presence of the favour of God.
(d) There will be increase of prosperity (verse 7). The little one will become a thousand. The seed of right, germinating and producing, will grow to waving harvests of internal joy. of external good. Such are the cheering deductions from Bildad’s high principles, the suggestions of his profound faith. The righteous God will be true to the righteous man. Sin is the only root of sorrow, virtue and godliness the only secret of abiding and eternal bliss.
II. APPEAL TO ANCIENT TRADITION.
1. The wisdom of the primeval fathers the guide of to-day. Bildad founds this upon the fact that:
(1) They lived to a greater age, according to the accepted tradition, than present men. They therefore knew better the abiding laws of life than we of lesser insight, who are of yesterday and brief-lived like shadows (verses 8, 9).
(2) Their wisdom was that of ripe conviction (verse 10). They did not speak at second-hand nor repeat by rote what they had learnt. Theirs was the wisdom of the heart. Contempt is expressed in several places in this book for mere lip-wisdom, the froth of the mouth as opposed to the genuine utterances of the mind (Job 11:2; Job 15:3; Job 18:2).
(3) There was therefore the stamp of sincerity on their wisdom. It came from men who had seen through life’s illusions and cheats, and who had touched the foundation of things.
2. Specimens of ancient wisdom. (Verse 11, seq.) Here Bildad passes into citation of some old sayings, which condense the truths of life.
(1) The papyrus and the grass of the Nile. They cannot live without their proper element and nutriment of water; they quickly wither in its absence. So must it be with man where he is devoid of Divine grace (verse 13). A new figure is introduced in the “paths” of the forgetters of Godthey are lost like a wind-swept tract in the desert (comp. Psa 1:1-6.); and the hope of the unholy “goes under,” disappears like the sun below the horizon’s verge, to be seen no more.
(2) The spider’s web (verse 14). He who trusts in his own strength or resources, without God, will have his confidence rent from him as the spider’s web gives way at a slight touch or at the breath of the wind. The habitation which he thinks secure is but a gossamer thing; it cannot stand (verse 15).
(3) The creeping plant in its pride (verses 16, 17). Before the burning glow of the sun, full of sap, it spreads over the garden, fixing itself firmly among the stones, and proudly lording it, as it were, over them. But when God withdraws the water, it perishes, unpitied by the home which it adorned. The wicked is thus denied and forsaken by his own connections, when he would rely upon them. Such is the pleasure of his way, turned into the deepest misery. Others spring from his remains, like suckers from the overthrown tree; let them take warning by his fate (verses 18, 19). What powerful images of the nonentity of evil! It never really wasand, its semblance passing away, not a trace is left behind.
III. RECAPITULATION. (Verses 20-22.)
1. In the way of solace. God does not despise the innocent. This is a meiosis, a saying less than is meant. He regards, he tends, he loves them, feeds them with water in the desert, keeps them as the apple of his eye. His will is to make them happyto bring smiles to the dejected lines of the mouth, and to fill it with the fruits of praise.
2. In the way of warning. He holds not fast the evil-doers’ hand,” and therefore when they stumble they are helpless. The enemies of the good man will see with shame that he is raised up from every fall (verse 22); and once more, in final reverberation of the thunder of menace, the tent of the wicked shall vanish and be no more!
LESSONS.
1. The distinction between seeming and real prosperitythat which is for a time and that which is for ever.
2. Life by Divine grace, and recovery from seeming ruin. Death without Divine grace, and overthrow of seeming prosperity.J.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Job 8:1-7
The Divine justice.
The words of Bildad, as of Job’s other friends, are often marked by great beauty, and often embody principles of the highest practical value;, but they frequently err in their application. The judgment of the friends upon Job is based upon an error which the entire course of the book is designed to expose. Here a true principle is enunciated respecting the Divine justice; which is shown to manifest itself
I. IS A STRICT INTEGRITY. (Verse 3.) “Doth God pervert judgment?”
II. IS A VIGOROUS PUNISHMENT OF INIQUITY. God gives the sinful up to the fruits of their wickedness (verse 4). But he shows both mercy and judgment.
III. IS A COMPASSIONATE FORGIVENESS OF THE PENITENT. And he exalts his just judgment
IV. BY A GRACIOUS INTERPOSITION ON BEHALF OF THE PURE. (Verses 6, 7.) So that no cause of complaint could remain. The Divine justice is
(1) unimpeachable;
(2) it is displayed in the punishment of vice; and
(3) in the certain reward of virtue, even if long delayed
(4) therefore may men without hesitation commit themselves
(a) to its present treatment, and
(b) to its final decisions.R.G.
Verses l-7
The unimpeachable character of the Divine judgment.
He rendereth to every man according to his works. His ways are equal.
I. HE THAT SINNETH IS PUNISHED. (Job 8:4.)
II. HE MERCIFULLY HEARETH THE PRAYER OF THE CONTRITE. (Job 8:5.)
III. HE BLESSETH THE RIGHTEOUS. (Job 8:6.)
IV. THOUGH HE CHASTISE, HE FINALLY REWARDETH THE UPRIGHT. (Job 8:7.)
To this all the former ages bear testimony, as the recorded or traditional sayings of the ancients bear witness.R.G.
Job 8:8-19
The hypocrite’s hope.
Back to the testimony of the ages (Job 8:8-10) Bildad refers his suffering friend, to find there evidences of the security of the perfect man and the worthlessness of the expectation of the hypocrite. With beautiful figurativeness he illustrates these truths, and only errs in the covert implication that in hypocrisy is to be found the cause of Job’s present sufferings. The hypocrite’s hope vain and deceitful.
I. IT IS TEMPORARY. Passing away as the “rush without mire, or the reed without water.” Quickly it grows up, but as quickly withers. The promise of it is vain. “While it is yet in its greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb.”
II. IT IS UNSUBSTANTIAL AND UNTRUSTWORTHY. AS “the spider’s web.” It is weak, unworthy of any confidence. As the gossamer thread is broken by a touch or even a breath of wind, so his expectation is cut off by the most trivial incident. It has no firmness, no endurance, no permanence.
III. IT IS IMMATURE AND NEVER COMES TO PERFECTION. “It is green before the sun” With rapid haste it strides forth, but only with equal haste to fail. In its own judgment it is firm and enduring as a stone structure. With proud self-confidence so he prides himself. But it is that all may fall to ruin. The destroyer is at hand, even he who casts away.
IV. IT IS FORGOTTEN AND DISAPPOINTING, AND PASSES OUT OF MIND. Its very place denies it. “I have not seen thee.” No greater joy or reward can the hypocrite’s hope afford him. Disappointment is his lot. He sows the seeds of vanity; vanity he reaps. He leans upon a thread which a breath may break. Deceitful himself, his hopes are as the heart which gave them birth. They return to their own. He created them; they are as their maker. From this rude disappointment men may guard
(1) by sincerity of spirit,
(2) by basing their hopes upon a true foundation, for which nothing prepares them but
(3) a thorough honesty and cherished truthfulness.R.G.
Job 8:20-22
God’s care of the perfect man.
To the Book of Job may all sufferers turn for consolation; for though Job is both covertly and openly reproached by his friends, yet through their words there shine many clear statements of truth, and many just reflections on the wisdom, the goodness, and the wise government of God. The Divine care of the upright is very strikingly affirmed. God’s care of the perfect man is
I. TENDER. God does not “cast away” nor despise him, but gently leads him by the hand, as he will not the evil-doers, helping him as none other can help. To that care we have learnt that we may commit ourselves, forasmuch as he careth for us. The Divine, pitiful, compassionate aid is given to meet the need of the frail man. Not therefore, rudely, or with rough and harsh, but with tender, treatment does help the perfect man. The Divine care for the upright is
II. CONTINUOUS. He is faithful to them who put their trust in him- He disappoints the hope of the ungodly, but not that of the righteous. As the hypocrite trusted to a spider’s web which had no strength, and to the unwatered flag which withered, so the perfect man finds in God a Rock of refuge, steadfast and unchangeable. He ever abides. The immutability of the Divine Name is one of the truest sources of consolation to the weary, the troubled, and sad at heart.
III. The Divine care for the perfect man is further A TRUE CAUSE OF JOY AND GLADNESS. He fills the “mouth with laughing” and the “lips with rejoicing.” God gives songs in the dark night of affliction, and brings the true consolation to the sufferer, causing him to shout aloud for very joy. He is a Hiding-place and a Refuge. He is a Spring of water and a Shadow from the heat of the day. He inspires strength to the soul, as with bread he nourishes the body; and comfort to the spirit, as with wine he revives the drooping.
IV. The Divine care for the perfect man, in its retributive judgments, CASTS SHAME UPON HIS ENEMIES. Vindicating the character of his faithful one against the aspersion of his wicked foes, he causes “the dwelling-place” of that wicked one to “come to nought,” and the wicked one himself to “be clothed with shame.” Thus the Divine care is tender towards his befriended one the poor, frail, but faithful son of mancrowning him with honour and glory, making his crown to flourish, while clothing his enemies with shame and confusion of face.R.G.
HOMILIES BY W.F. ADENEY
Job 8:1
Bildad the pedant.
Job’s second friend appears as a pedant, quoting the authority of antiquity, and relying on the tradition of the ancients. His character is not extinct, and the mischief of his blunders is with us to-day.
I. THE POWER OF THE PEDANT. This man bases his influence on certain good qualities.
1. Experience. It is to be supposed that this is of some value. The garnered wealth of experience should be a great test of truth. The rule that has stood the strain of time appears to be confirmed in value. Ideas may be very captivating when they first flash out in their novelty, but some hidden flaw may make them utterly worthless. But the mellow maxim, ripened by years, and enriched with the juices of manifold experiences, comes to us with great claims on our confidence.
2. Humility. It seems to be more humble to trust to those who are older than ourselves, than to set up our own wisdom as a rival of theirs. Who are we that we should pretend to question the wisdom of the ages?
3. Reverence. On the other hand, the associations of antiquity command our reverence. We show respect to grey hairs, and we are moved to similar feelings in view of all signs of age. Coming out of a dim past, hoary with the years, ancient things acquire a certain sanctity. The grand minster, the ruined castle, the worm-eaten cabinet, the rare old book,these things stifle our impertinent modern presumptions by the silent weight of their years. “I love everything that’s old,” says Goldsmith; “old friends, old times, old manners, old books, old wine.”
II. THE FOLLY OF THE PEDANT. This reverence for antiquity may be abused, and it is abused by the pedant, who assumes that all modern requirements are to be settled by some musty rule of the ancients. There are many errors in such a position-
1. Lack of discrimination. Pope writes
“With sharpen’d sight pale antiquaries pore;
Th’ inscriptions value, but the rust adore:
This the blue varnish, that the green endears
The sacred rust of twice ten hundred years.”
Time has brought down loads of rubbish on its stream as welt as some precious cargoes of ancient experience. Pedants mistake scum for cream.
2. Misinterpretation of the value of antiquity. The earlier times, as Bacon tells us, were really the childhood of our race, and we are the true ancients. It is absurd to bind the practice of the adult age by the tentative ideas of infancy. What has been tried through the centuries, and being in frequent use has stood the test of time, has thereby acquired a certain value. But mere antiquity only means an origin in more primitive and less advanced times.
3. The superstition of forms. The pedant delights in forms and rules and exact precedents. But there are no true precedents for scores of things. Indeed, no two occasions are exactly alike. Therefore no human maxims can be large enough to embrace all circumstances. Life cannot be bound by formal rules. We must learn to look facts in the face, and dare to discard ancient maxims when they are proved to be false. Antiquity is venerable, but truth is more venerable. God has given us consciences, and he has promised us the help of his Spirit. Our best guide is not an ancient rule, but the living Christ, who is ever in the midst of his people.W.F.A.
Job 8:3
The justice of God.
Bildad asks if it can be right for Job to complain as he does. Such conduct is an arraignment of the Divine justice. Human judges have been known to twist justice to suit their own purposes; this conduct was and is only too common in the East. But is it to be thought that God would act in this way? Surely the Judge of all the earth must do right (Gen 18:25).
I. GOD‘S JUSTICE IS GOOD AND DESIRABLE. It is the mistake of narrow, one-sided views to confine the idea of God’s justice to his relations with sin and punishment, and to regard it solely as that which provokes his wrath. This mistake leads people t,, have a horror of the very notion of God’s justice. They would be profoundly thankful if it could be blotted out of the list of his attributes. They regard it as solely inimical to them. Their supreme desire is to escape from its clutches. It is to them a most dreadful thing. How contrary is all this to the scriptural idea of the justice of God! In the Bible God’s justice is welcomed with delight in contrast to the terrible injustice of man. It is God’s righteousness, God’s fairness, God’s equal dealing. This must be good and desirable.
II. THE JUSTICE OF GOD IS NOT ALWAYS APPARENT. Sometimes he seems to show himself in the same light as the unjust judges of imperfect human society. We cannot see the equity of his dealings. He even seems to be perverting judgment. Good men suffer, and evil men prosper. This is the common complaint of the Old Testament saints in their trouble (e.g. Psa 73:3). But how is it possible if God is just? There is not only an apparent negligence that lets wrong be done among men unchecked. God himself appears to pervert justice in his own providential dealings, sending calamities to the innocent, and heaping favours on the guilty. This obvious fact was forced on the notice of men, and it raised most perplexing doubts at a time when temporal good was assumed to be the right reward of moral good.
III. WE HAVE GOOD REASON TO TRUST THE JUSTICE OF GOD.
1. He is almighty. He has not the inducement to act unjustly that tempts the weak. Deceit and injustice are the refuges of feebleness. Cowards are unjust. Strength can afford to be magnanimous.
2. He is perfectly wise. He will not blunder into injustice, as the most immaculate human judge may do.
3. He is absolutely good. Our revelations of God’s character should assure us that his justice must be without a flaw, even though all appearances are against it. The faith that will not bear a strain is worthless. If we cannot trust God when he seems to be acting hardly and unfairly, it is little that we trust him when we can see that all is going well. The goodness of God is our security; we must judge of events by what we know of God in Christ, not of God by what we appear to discover in events.
4. Justice is not always what we should expect. The principle must be simple and intelligible. We must believe that justice in God must be what we know as justiceonly infinitely exalted. But the application of this justice may be beyond our conceptions. It may be just for God to do what looks to us now as unfair. Here we must trust and wait for the end.W.F.A.
Job 8:7
A small beginning a great increase.
With irritating admonitionsmost galling in the cruel insinuation that Job’s children had died on account of their sinsBildad presumes to assure Job that if only he is pure God will be just, and will awake to deliver him, so that, though he has a small beginning, his end shall be very great. This was all based on a very false and unjust idea of Job, his past conduct, and his present duty. Nevertheless in itself it opened up a true view of the course of one who is restored to right relations with God.
I. THE CHRISTIAN MUST HAVE A SMALL BEGINNING.
1. In penitence. He must first humble himself in the very dust. No boasting can be admitted into the kingdom of heaven.
2. In childlikeness. We have to turn and become as little children if we are to enter God’s kingdom. This implies humility, simplicity of heart, and the utter self abandonment of faith.
3. In spiritual experience. We can but begin the Christian life as babes in Christ. Our knowledge is small, our strength slight, our spiritual attainment most imperfect.
4. In enjoyment of blessings. We may begin in temporal adversity. There is no promise that the Christian shall be a rich and prospereus man in the world. But whatever the external condition may be, the enjoyment of the real fruits of Divine grace will be but small until the soul has grown into the capacity to receive more of the blessings they bring.
II. THE CHRISTIAN WILL HAVE A GREAT INCREASE.
1. On earth. The Christian life should be one of progress, and it will be if it is healthy. Growth is a law of life, and it is a law that applies to the Divine life in the soul. The healthy Christian will grow in grace; his knowledge will expand; his spirituality will deepen; his capacity for service will widen; his enjoyment of the blessedness of the vision of God will become richer and more intense.
2. In heaven. The best comes last. The great increase is in the “latter end; This is different from the experience of natural life, which reaches a climax in middle life, and then turns towards the decrepitude of senile decay. But there is no such decline for the spiritual life so long as it is healthy. That life knows no old age; it partakes of the unfading glory of the Eternal. For the aged Christian there shall be “light at eventide;” and when his sun has set on earth, it shall rise in heaven in the larger glory of God’s eternal day.
III. GOD LEADS THE RACE FROM A SMALL BEGINNING TO A INCREASE. This is the case naturally in the population which has sprung from one pair of parents, until it has filled the earth with more than a thousand million souls, and which continues to increase at an unprecedented rate. The same is true of civilization and human progress. The law of human life on earth is one of advance and enlargement. Thus we are encouraged to look forward to the golden age. God is educating the race by the process of the centuries, and preparing it for great increase at the latter end. There was a grand advance beyond these Old Testament times when Christ brought in his gospel; the triumphs of the gospel speak of an enlarged increase. But the best is in store in the full coming of the kingdom of Christ. Therefore let us press forward in hope and an eager desire to do our part towards hastening the happy advent of the promised future.W.F.A.
Job 8:8
Lessons from history.
Bildad invites Job to consult antiquity and to attend to that which the fathers have searched out. Even this pedant may remind us that wholesome lessons are to be culled from the gardens of the past.
I. HISTORY TEACHES BY EXAMPLE. Here we can see truth in the concrete. The ideas which we discuss in the abstract are embodied and at work in the living facts of history. We can study republicanism in ancient Greece, and monarchy in the Roman empire; the consequences of heathenism in the pagan world, and the fruits of Christianity in the story of the gospel and its triumphs; the power of the gospel in the romance of missions, and the weakness of man in the failure and ruin of ancient Churches. Here we see not lifeless arguments, but living men. Therefore much of the Bible is history; God’s Word comes to us through man’s life. We should pay more attention to men and facts.
II. HISTORY REVEALS THE ORIGIN OF INSTITUTIONS AND MOVEMENTS. Most of those which we have to do with took their rise in a more or less remote past. If we can trace them back to their source, we can better judge of their whole characters. Much attention is given to the childhood and youth of a great man by his biographer, for therein lies the secret of his after-life. It is well to trace back the Christian story, and see how God has been shaping his Church through the ages. Our religion is emphatically historical. It springs from facts, things done in the past. In this respect it is unique among the religions of the world. All the doctrines of Christianity are lessons of history; they all take their rise in the story of Christ and his cross. Yet we are not bound by pedantic rules and frivolous precedents. We find the origin of our faith in certain facts. The interpretation of those facts must grow with our advancing knowledge, and the application of their lessons must vary with changing circumstances.
III. HISTORY HELPS TO MATURITY OF JUDGMENT. If we are weak and lack independence of mind, it may weigh us down with the incubus of its precedents. This is how it affected Bildad with his veneration for the fathers, and this is how it affects those good Christian people who make the Church Fathers absolute authorities, when they should dare to trust a careful and devout interpretation of Scripture and the ultimate judgments of the Christian consciousness. Yet, on the other hand, there is a good use of the Fathers. The very variety of explanations of Christian doctrines in the past should teach us caution and a large wisdom in treating difficult subjects. The student of history will often know that some pretentious notion, flashed out on the world as a magnificent discovery, is but a thrice-slain error of ancient controversies. Old truth will endure the test of time. But standing on the experience of the ages, we should be able to reach forth to higher truth in the future, the more readily because we thus use the past.W.F.A.
Job 8:11, Job 8:12
The rush and the papryus.
From history Bildad turns to nature, or rather to a traditional saying about natureto an old proverb; possibly it has been suggested from Egyptian lore.
I. THE PLANTS SPRING FROM WATER. Both of these plants grow in marshes or pools, and by the banks of rivers and canals. They both need an abundance of water. man can only live when nourished by the goodness of God. The Christian can only grow to maturity when planted by the unfailing streams of the river of life.
II. THE PLANTS FLOURISH LUXURIANTLY. This is one of the characteristics of succulent plants in moist soil. They grow rapidly and flourish greatly. So, as the goodness of God is no mere sprinkling of refreshment, but a great river with abundance of water, they who live upon it will not be in a meagre and stunted state, but will make great progress and will grow in grace.
III. THE FLOURISHING CONDITION OF THE PLANTS IS PROOF OF THE PRESENCE OF NOURISHING STREAMS. They may be so abundant and so rank in their growth as to hide the water from which they spring; but their very splendour of health and development is a certain sign that they are surrounded by plenteous streams. We know that their roots must be in the water because their stems and upper growth are so green and vigorous. So the existence of prosperity is a sign of Divine goodness. We cannot go so far as Bildad, and take it as a proof of God’s approval, for God is gracious to bad men; but it is a proof of God’s kindness. The spiritual flourishing of Christian people is a certain sign that they are drinking of the living waters. They may be reserved, and may not reveal to us the springs from which they draw, hiding the roots of their spiritual life. Still by their fruits shall we know them, and learn that they must be in vital relations with the Divine source of all spiritual experience.
IV. THE PLANTS FLOURISH FOR USEFUL END. The reed referred to by Bildad is an edible plant; and the papyrus is the material from which paper was anciently made. The prosperity which God gives to man is a talent to be used in the service of life. Spiritual growth should lead to spiritual productiveness. We receive grace from God in order that we may minister to the work of God.
V. WHEN THE WATER DRIES UP THE PLANTS WITHER. These plants are not like the thorns of the desert, which can endure a terrible drought without suffering seriously. They are distinctly denizens of watery places, and without water they must perish. Man’s prosperity must cease when God ceases to bless him. He may ignore the Divine source of his good things, but he must fail if that source is stopped. The Christian more especially will suffer in his better life if he is deprived of the streams of grace. He is like the tree planted by the rivers of water. He in particular needs streams of grace if he is to flourish. He cannot thrive on his own goodly proportions. The most advanced Christian must go back and even utterly perish if he loses the constant supply of grace. We must be in Christ to live the Christian life.W.F.A.
Job 8:14
The spider’s web.
Bildad compares the hope of the impious to a spider’s web, or rather, recalling sayings of antiquity, he quotes an old proverb to that effect. Let us consider the wisdom of this ancient saying by noting characteristics of the spider’s web.
I. IT IS QUICKLY WOVEN. It is one of the most rapidly made fabrics in nature. It puts Jonah’s gourd to the shame. Some men are very hasty in forming foolish hopes. With them the wish is father to the thought. They jump to conclusions that are favourable to themselves. But the sanguine temperament is no guarantee for permanent security. Because we believe readily, we do not believe the more safely.
II. IT IS DELICATE AND BEAUTIFUL TO LOOK AT. We cannot but admire the spider’s web on a bright September morning, when it. is spangled with dewdrops. Its very delicacy of structure adds to the beauty of it. There is nothing coarse about it. Some people have a religion that is refined and delicate and beautiful. They despise the vulgar ideas of other people. Their spider’s web is much more suitable to their superfine culture than the coarse hemp ropes of the religion of less cultivated people.
III. IT IS USEFUL FOR ITS NATURAL END. We have no right to complain that the spider’s web does not sustain our weight when we lean upon it. It was not spun for such a purpose. But yet it serves its own proper end. It is an excellent ladder for its maker, and a perfect trap for his victims. Some of those grounds of hope to which foolish people trust are not utterly false and useless. For example, aestheticism taken for a religion is as a spider’s web. Yet it is useful as a form of culture. Intellectualism is like another spider’s web. While the superfine thinker is spinning his fanciful threads of thought, he is doing little for the business of life. Yet what he does may be good and true in itself, if only he would keep it in its right place.
IV. IT IS EXCESSIVELY FRAGILE. It is just the type of fragility. Therefore all its good points are useless when a man thinks of trusting his weight to it. You but mock the drowning man if you toss him the spider’s web. He must grasp a substantial rope if he is to be saved. Now, Bildad rightly compares the hope of the impious to this web. It is fragile in the extreme.
1. It has no substance The man trusts
(1) to his own wisdom, which is folly in the eyes of God;
(2) to his goodness, which under God’s searching glance is full of sin;
(3) to his prosperity, which cannot endure when the favour of God is withdrawn;
(4) to God’s goodness, which indeed is a rock of refuge, only it is out of the reach of the impious, who only clutch at a shadow of it in their own fancy.
2. It is heavily tried. Here is a question of life and death. A man has to seek a security for his own soul and his eternal interests. The spider’s web may stand slight tests, but not the strain those awful requirements put upon it. AEsthetics, intellectualism, and all other human ideas fail here. We want a strong means of deliverance, the gospel shows us that this is to be had in Christ for those who repent and trust him.W.F.A.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
CHAP. VIII.
Bildad affirms, that if Job was innocent, he would be immediately restored to his former splendor, on his making supplication to the Almighty. He shews that the wicked is like the bulrush, which withers as soon as it is sprung up.
Before Christ 1645.
Job 8:1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite Bildad, whose sentiments are the same with those of the preceding friend, now comes on to the attack, and tells Job, that his general asseverations of innocence are of no avail; that to deny his guilt, was to charge the Almighty with injustice; Job 8:2-3 that if he would not yield to the argument of Eliphaz, drawn from his experience, and strengthened by revelation, he would do well to pay respect to the general experience of mankind, as handed down by tradition; where he would find it established, as a certain truth, that misery was the infallible consequence of wickedness; Job 8:8-20 that therefore they could not argue wrong, who inferred from actual misery antecedent guilt; and, though he might urge that these calamities were fallen on him on account of his children’s wickedness, yet he only deceived himself; for in that case God might indeed have chastised them for their crimes; but he would by no means have destroyed the innocent with the guilty; Job 8:4-7. He would rather have heaped his blessings on the innocent person, that the contrast might have vindicated his providence. He would even have wrought a miracle for the preservation or restoration of such a person: and he concludes, that since, from the known attributes of God, it was impossible he should cut off the innocent, or suffer the guilty to go free, and as no interposition of Providence had happened in his behalf, he thought him in a likely way, by his utter destruction, to prove a terrible example of the truth of that principle which they had urged against him. Heath.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
II. Bildad and Job: Chaps. 810
A.Bildads rebuke: Man must not charge God with unrighteousness as Job has done, for God never does that which is unjust:
Job 8
1. Censure of Job on account of his unjust accusation against God:
Job 8:2-7
1Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said:
2How long wilt thou speak these things?
and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?
3Doth God pervert judgment?
or doth the Almighty pervert justice?
4If thy children have sinned against Him,
and He have cast them away for their transgression;
5If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes,
and make thy supplication to the Almighty;
6if thou wert pure and upright,
surely now He would awake for thee,
and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
7Though thy beginning was small,
yet thy latter end should greatly increase.
2. Reference to the wise teachings of the ancients in respect to the merited end of those who forget God:
Job 8:8-19
8For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age,
and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers:
9(For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing,
because our days upon earth are a shadow):
10Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee,
and utter words out of their heart?
11Can the rush grow up without mire?
can the flag grow without water?
12Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down,
it withereth before any other herb.
13So are the paths of all that forget God,
and the hypocrites hope shall perish:
14Whose hope shall be cut off,
and whose trust shall be a spiders web.
15He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand;
he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure.
16He is green before the sun,
and his branch shooteth forth in his garden.
17His roots are wrapt about the heap,
and seeth the place of stones.
18 If He destroy him from his place,
then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee.
19Behold, this is the joy of his way,
and out of the earth shall others grow.
3. A softened application of these teachings to the case of Job:
Job 8:20-22
20Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man,
neither will He help the evil doers:
21Till He fill thy mouth with laughing,
and thy lips with rejoicing.
22They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame;
and the dwelling-place of the wicked shall come to nought.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
The aspect which this first discourse of Bildads presents to us is far from being particularly controversial or violent, such as would correspond to the conjectural signification of the name , = son of strife (see on Job 2:11). It attaches itself to the conclusion of the preceding discourse of Job, in that it at once proceeds to show how entirely unjust is Jobs conduct in accusing God of a want of compassion, and of despotic harshness, whereas God in determining the lot of mankind never acts otherwise than justly (Job 8:2-7). He then illustrates and supports the proposition that God causes an evil and sudden end to overtake those who apostatize from him by certain wise proverbial sayings of the ancients (Job 8:8-19). He closes by prominently setting forth the twofold activity of the retributive justice of God (vers, 2022), a conclusion which is so far conciliatory in its tendency in that it gives stronger expression to the hope that Job, through repenting of his sin, would experience the justice of God rewarding him, than to the fear of the opposite, or a warning of the consequences of his impenitence. [It is to be specially noted in this connection B. makes no reply to the harsh personal reproaches of Job 6:14-27, but confines himself to the subject-matter. Dillmann]. Of the three divisions of the discourse, which are somewhat unequal in length, the first comprises 2 strophes, the second 4, the third 1, each of three verses.
2. First Division: Rebuke of Jobs unjust accusation of God, as though He were unmerciful and unjust towards him, Job 8:2-7.
First Strophe: Job 8:2-4. [The certainty that retributive justice will punish the sinner].
Job 8:2. How long wilt thou speak such things?, as elsewhere (Job 18:2; Job 19:2): lit. until when, quousque tandem [An exclamation of impatience. Dav. The friends had expected that after so thorough and unanswerable an argument as that which Eliphaz had delivered in their name, Job would at once acknowledge himself convinced, an expectation which Eliphaz himself had confidently announced at the close of his discourse.The fact proves to be just the reverse: Job speaks more defiantly than at first. And so Bildad introduces his discourse with his exclamatory , a veritable Quousque tandem abutere patientia nostra. Schlottm.] , these things, i.e., such things as thou hast spoken. [Said contemptuously, as also in the next member]. And the words of thy mouth are a boisterous wind? Properly a continuation of the preceding interrogative construction: how long shall the words of thy mouth be a boisterous wind? i.e., like such a wind in respect of their emptiness [and bluster], as well as of their sweepingly destructive tendency (comp. Job 15:2; Job 16:3; 1Ki 19:11). For , poetic synonym of (Job 1:19) comp. Job 15:10; Job 31:25; Job 34:17; Job 34:24; Isa 17:12. [The word is peculiar to the book of Job and Isaiah].
Job 8:3. Will God pervert the right, or the Almighty pervert justice?i.e., canst thou think for thy part that, etc.? Canst thou in sober earnest accuse God of injustice? Observe the repetition of the verb , on which there rests an emphasis which for Job was particularly stinging. Umbreit. [Davidson, e.g., more correctly on the whole perhaps: the repetition of pervert shows that it is not the emphatic word, while the variation of the divine names, as well as their position at the head of the clauses, throws the emphasis on the Divine Beingwill God, etc. The distinction between and is substantially that already given by Schultens: the former designates the justice of God as embodied in act, actio judicandi; the latter as a principle or rule in the Divine mind.E.].
Job 8:4. If thy children have sinned against him.Only to spare Jobs feelings Bildad avoids saying: because thy children have sinned, and so leaves it apparently uncertain whether this formed the ground of the Divine decree concerning their fatebut only apparently, since he clearly regarded this decree as a punishment for their sins, as the conclusion proves. [Conant thinks this hypothetical use of to be not at all in the spirit of Bildad. He takes it to be concessivethough thy sons have sinned against Him, and He hath given them, etc., if thou thyself wouldest seek God, etc. To which it may be objected: (1) This makes the protasis needlessly long. (2) It destroys the evident contrast between verses 4 and Job 5 : between the hypothetical proposition concerning the childrens sin in the former, and the conclusion therefrom, and the similar hypothetical proposition concerning Jobs repentance in the latter, and the conclusion therefrom in Job 8:6-7. is undoubtedly used in the same way in both propositions, and if conditional in the latter, is conditional also in the former. At the same time it does not seem that Bildad uses in the former case out of any particular consideration for Jobs feelings. He uses it apparently in its purely logical sense, and this, too, with an assumption of the truth of the supposition which makes itself felt throughout the entire verse.E.]Then hath he given them over into the hand of their transgression. , lit., then hath He let them go into the hand, (i.e., into the power) of their transgression, subjected them to the influence of their guilt. [An expression of fearful energy (Dav.) implying the self-retaliatory power of sin, the certainty that the moral order of the universe, enforced by the Divine will, will punish the transgressor.E.] Comp. Job 9:24; Jdg 4:9; 1Sa 23:20.Concerning the retrospective reference of the verse to Job 1:19, come. Introd., 8, No. 3.
Second Strophe: Job 8:5-7. [The certainty that retributive justice will reward Job, if pure.]
Job 8:5. But if thou seekest earnestly unto God. , constr. prgnans, as above Job 5:8 : , to sue God for anything, to turn oneself to Him with earnest entreaty. , thou, puts Job in emphatic contrast with his children (Job 8:4 a), as one who still has time to repent and to be reconciled, as the condition of the restoration of his prosperity. [And makest supplication to the Almighty.Davidson calls attention to the fine force of reflex Hithp., seek to make God gracious to oneself. Observe also in this verse as in Job 8:3 the use in parallel clauses of El and Shaddai, the names most suggestive of Gods power to uphold the moral order of the universe, thus using the terror of the Lord to persuade Job.E.]
Job 8:6. If thou art pure and upright.This new conditional clause is not co-ordinate with the preceding, but subordinate to it: provided, namely, thou art really pure and upright, if it be really the case that thou, etc.Surely then He will awake for thee. , surely then, verily then, emphatic introduction of the conclusion, as in Job 13:18. , He will awake, arouse Himself for thee (comp. Psa 35:23), namely, for thy protection and deliverance; not: He will watch over thee, take thee under His care (Hirzel, Delitzsch [Dav., Renan, Merx] etc.), which would be altogether at variance, with the usual signification of the verb . And restore, in integram restituet; the LXX. correctly: ) the habitation of thy righteousness, i.e., the habitation where thou, as a righteous man, dost dwell and enjoy the fruits of thy righteousness (Dillmann).On see on Job 5:3.
Job 8:7. And if thy beginning was small thy end shall be exceeding great.In addition to the restoration of his former prosperity he promises him something new and yet more glorious, an unconscious prophecy of that which in the end actually came to pass (Job 42:12), exactly like the promise of prosperity in the latter part of Eliphazs discourse: Job 5:8 sq. , lit., and thy last end (thy latter estate, in contrast with , thy former estate, thy prosperity in the beginning) will flourish greatly. is here exceptionally and ad sensum construed as masculine; hence the form (comp. Ewald, 174 e), instead of which Olshausen unnecessarily proposes to read , with as subject.
3. Second Division: A reference to the wise teachings of the ancients touching the merited end of those who forget God. [In respect of its artistic, flowery, and yet concise style (as well as in respect of the searching practical character of its contents), this passage forms the climax of the whole discourse. Ewald.]
First Strophe: Job 8:8-10. Praise of the wisdom of the ancients, by way of introduction to the express testimonies of that wisdom which follows.
Job 8:8. Inquire, I pray, of the former generation.As to the challenge in general, compare Deu 32:7. For with , see 2Ki 8:6; for the orthographical form instead of , see below, Job 39:9 ( instead of ). Whether the indefinite expression be rendered by the singular, as above, or by the pluralformer generationsis a matter of indifference. In any case no particular generation of the past is intended, as appears, also from the following expressiontheir fathers, (i.e., the fathers of those former generations).And give heed to the research of their fathers:i.e., to that which their fathers had investigated and learned to the experimental wisdom therefore of the fathers reaching back into the remotest antiquity., research (Job 5:9; Job 9:10; Job 34:24), here in the sense of the object, or the results of research, that which is searched out. With supply , which is elsewhere put in connection with the Hiphil. Olshausens emendation , suggested by Deu 32:10, is unnecessary.
Job 8:9. For we are of yesterday, and know nothing.This is the reason why we should hold to the tradition of the ancients. Lit., we are yesterday, i.e., of, or belonging to yesterday ( = , Ewald, 296, d). The stress here laid on the ephemeral character of the present generation is then in the second member illustrated and strengthened by the figure of a shadow (); comp. Job 14:2; Psa 102:12 (11); Psa 109:23; Ecc 6:12; Ecc 8:13, also the Greek phrase (Pindar, Pyth. 8, 99; comp. Sophocles, Aj. 126, 1236; Ant. 1155; Euripides, Med. 1224, etc.) This fact, that the life of men is so perishable and short is the reason for the demand here made that we should apply ourselves to the wisdom of the ancients, the term of a single human life being insufficient to fathom the eternal laws which rule the universe; to ascertain these we must consult the collective experience of humanity throughout the past. There is no specific proof that the author here had in mind the remote generations of the primeval world, to wit, the macrobiotic races of the ante-diluvian period.
Job 8:10. Will not they teach thee [ emphatic], say to thee [, say, rather than speak, because their words are cited in the verses following], and bring forth words out of their heart?The heart is mentioned here as the seat of understanding and reflection, in contrast with Jobs expressions, as the mere empty products of the lips (Job 8:2; Job 11:2; Job 15:3, etc.; comp. (Job 34:10; Job 34:34), a man of heart, i.e., of understanding. In regard to , proment, proferent (Vulg.), comp. Mat 13:52.
Second Strophe: Job 8:11-13. First specimen, as reported by Bildad, of the wise teachings of the ancients, not indeed cited verbally, but still reproduced freely, and in exact accordance with the sense. [This introduction of the proverbial wisdom of antiquity in Bildads discourse is a masterly stroke of art, worthy of especial note (1) Because of the new and interesting element which it contributes to the rhetorical variety of the book. (2). Because of its significance as a feature in our authors dramatic portraiture of character, Bildad being here presented to us as the disciple of tradition, the proverbial philosopher, in contrast with the more mystically inclined Eliphaz, and the more dogmatic and self-assertive Zophar. (3). Because of the contribution thus furnished to the material of the book, to the discussion of its great problem, Bildad here furnishing to this discussion the voice of tradition, even as Eliphaz had furnished the voice of the supernatural world. See below Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 1.E.].
Job 8:11. Does the rush grow up without mire [or, except in the marsh]?, according to the Hebr. etymology from , to swallow, absorb, fistula bibere (comp. Job 39:24; Gen 24:17), but also at the same time an Egyptian word (Copt, kam, cham, reed), denotes here, as in Exo 2:3; Isa 18:2; Isa 35:7, the Egyptian papyrus reed, which grows in the marshes of the Nile, but which, according to Theophrast, grows also in Palestine, the papyrus-shrub (Cyperus papyrus L.). The mention of this Egyptian product does not constitute a conclusive argument for the composition of the poem in Egypt, or by a poet of Egyptian origin, and all the less that Bildad is here only quoting the words of another and an older sage. Comp. Introd. 7, c. [Bildad likens the deceitful ground on which the prosperity of the godless stands to the dry ground on which, only for a time, the papyrus or reed finds water, and grows up rapidly; shooting up quickly, it withers as quickly; as the papyrus plant, if it has no perpetual water, though the finest of grasses, withers off when most luxuriantly green, before it attains maturity. Delitzsch; see also Smiths Bib. Dic., Art. Reed]. Does the reed-grass thrive without water? reads in the Egyptian Greek of the LXX. (Isa 19:7), and of the Book of Sirach (Job 40:16) , and, as Jerome learned from the Egyptians, signifies in their language omne quod in palude virens nascitur, hence the grass of the Nile-marshes, seed-grass, Nile-grass (Copt. ake, oke = calamus, juncus). Instead of of the first member, we have here , in the sense of without; for the former comp. Job 30:28; for the latter Job 24:10; Job 31:39; Job 33:9, etc. [ is properly constr. st. of noun, failure, lack.] Of the two synonymous verbs, in the first member signifies a shooting up on high, an expression suitable to the size of the papyrus, which grows to the height of ten feet; (another form of , Job 8:7; comp. Gesen. 75, Rem. 21 [ 74, Rem. 22]), in the second member, a luxuriant out-spreading growth, an expression suitable to the nature of the marsh-grass.
Job 8:12. While yet (it is) in its greenness (Son 6:11) is not cut down: lit. is not to be mowed down, not to be cut down, a circumstantial clause [a proper Imperf., in a state of not cut, un-cut. Dav.] comp. Ewald. 341, b.Then, sooner than all grass must it dry up: because, namely, the condition of its existence, water, is all at once withdrawn, so that now it decays and withers sooner than common grass. As parallels in thought, comp. Job 5:3; Mat 6:30.
Job 8:13. So are the ways of all who forget God.A closing application of the comparison precisely similar to that in Pro 1:19, where also the expression ways is used of what happens to men, their fate (comp. also Psa 1:6; Job 23:10; Wis 5:7, and often). For as a synonym of , the ungodly, comp. e.g.Psa 9:18 (17); Psa 50:22. And the hope of the ungodly perisheth: comp. Pro 10:28. as in Job 13:16; Job 15:34; Job 20:5, and often. [In all these passages, and whereever the word occurs, the Eng. Ver. renders hypocrite, which is altogether incorrect, the idea of dissimulation not, belonging to the word at all. This rendering is the more strange, seeing that the cognate verb is always correctly rendered to be polluted, profane, corrupt, etc.E.] Dillmann correctly calls attention to the fact that the figure of the reeds and grass of the marshes perishing by the sudden drying up of the water is intended to illustrate, not the judgment which will visit those who have always been ungodly, but only those who were at one time righteous, and therefore prosperous, but who afterwards fall away from God. In so far the description conveys a somewhat different thought from that in Job 5:3.
Third and Fourth Strophes: Job 8:14-19. A further description of the judgment of God upon the wicked, founded on the proverbial wisdom of the ancients.
Job 8:14. He whose confidence is cut asunder. as in Job 5:5, an independent rel. pron., connecting the verse with what goes before; not a causal particle: quippe, quoniam (Del.). is hardly a substantive, either of the signification gourd (Reiske, Hahn) or gossamer (Saadia, in Ewald-Dukes, Beitrge zur Gesch. der lt. Auslegung, I., 89). [Frst and Hengstenberg prefer regarding it as a noun, meaning that which is to be rejected.] Both as to the form and substance of the word, the only justifiable construction of it is as a Kal Imperf., deriving it either from =,fastidire (Vulg. and many of the ancients, also Schultens), or with the Pesh., Chald., Kimchi, Rosenm., Gesen., and most of the moderns, from a verb =) ), to cut oft (he, whose hope is cut off, cujus spes succiditur); or, which may be still more correct, from , not elsewhere to be met with, and meaning to cut, to be brittle, to break asunder, and so treating it as an intransitive verb, rather than as Kal Imperf. with a passive signification [comp. Ewald, 138, b].And his trust is a spiders house:i.e. that in which he trusts (, sensu obj., of the object of the trust), proves itself to be as perishable as a spiders web, which the slightest touch, or a mere puff of wind can destroy. For this figure comp. Isa 59:5, also the Koran, Sur. 29. 40, and the Arabic proverb quoted by Schultens, Umbreit, etc.: Time destroys the wall of the skillfully built castle, even as the house of the spider is destroyed.
Job 8:15. More specific expansion of Job 8:14 b.He leaneth on his houseas the object of his confidence, like the man spoken of in Schillers Bell: Fest wie der Erde Grund, etc. Comp. on Dan 4:26. [But it stands not; he holds fast to it, but it endures not. There is a certain gradation of thought in the verse. The ungodly first leans, stays himself on his house, but it gives way beneath him; finding this to be the case, feeling his trust giving way beneath him, he strengthens his hold on it (), grasps it with all his might, as a sinking man seizes violently on anything within his reach; but in vain! He and his hope all tumble to ruin together.E.]
Job 8:16 sq. After thus dwelling briefly (Job 8:14-15) on the comparison of a falling house, the description now returns to the previous figure derived from the vegetable kingdom. For the marsh-reed, however, there is substituted the climbing plant, with its high and luxuriant growth; and the comparison is so presented that between the figure and the thing figured there is no sharp line of distinction observed, but each blends with the other.
Job 8:16. Green is he (the of Job 8:13, who is here conceived of as a climbing plant) in the sunshine: in the same heat which causes other plants to wither.And his sprouts run over his garden ( [his suckers] as in Job 14:7; Job 15:30): i.e. the whole garden in which he, this luxuriantly growing, creeping plant, is placed, is filled and over-run with his root-sprouts which cling to all about them.
Job 8:17. His roots entwine themselves (lit. are entwined) over heaps of stone; he looks upon a house of stone: in the sense, that is, that having grown up on it, he eagerly clings to it, as to a firm support. [On Cocceius remarks: non timet locum lapidosum, sed imperterritus videt. He gazes on it boldly and confidently, with the purpose of making his home in it. Hengst.] By this is naturally to be understood a real stone house, its walls being of this material (comp. Gen 49:22, according to the correct explanation of modern commentators), not anything figurative: e.g. the solid structure of his fortune, as Delitzsch explains it. Several modern commentators (Bttcher, Ewald, Stickel, Frst, Dillmann) take = (as in Pro 8:2), hence in the sense of between, in the midst of, and , according to its primary signification, in the sense of: to pierce through, to split between; hence: to pierce through between the stones, viz. with its roots. Possible, but perhaps too artificial. [The LXX. translate: , taking in the sense of , and evidently reading or substituting for . Gesenius regards here as a bold metaphor, seeing the stones, for feeling them with the roots. Noyes and Renan regard the expression as describing the depth at which the plant takes root. The latters rendering is: His roots are intertwined at the rock; he touches the region of the granite. Wordsworths comment is interesting: He surveyeth a house of stones; he is like a tree which seems firmly rooted in a heap of stones, and looks down, as it were, with a domineering aspect, and a proud consciousness of strength on a house of stone, in which he appears to be firmly built, as in a marble palace; and yet he will soon be withered and rooted up, and vanish from the face of the earth.Observe the order of the comparison. The sinner had been first likened to a plant of papyrus or reed-grass, with its tall green stem and flowery tuft flourishing in the watery slime, but suddenly withered, when the soil in which it is set is dried up: he is next compared to a shrub sprouting with fresh leaves, and shooting forth its luxuriant branches, mantling over the wall of the garden; and lastly he is likened to something still more robust, to a tree striking its roots downwards into a cairn of stones, and looking down with proud confidence on its house of rock, and seeming to defy the storm. We scarcely seem justified, however, in assuming a different plant or tree to be intended in Job 8:17 from that described in Job 8:16.Conant thinks that the explanation long ago given by Olympiodorus is the true one; viz. that the wicked is here likened to a plant springing up in a stony soil, and perishing for lack of depth of earth: to which Davidson justly replies that the stones assist, not impede the growth of this kind of plants, and Job 8:17 is still occupied with the detail of the luxuriance of the plant.We are thus led back to the view of Zckler, Schlottm., Hengst., etc., as on the whole the simplest and best; that both verses describe the same plant, Job 8:16 as overrunning the garden with its creepers, Job 8:17 as clinging stoutly to its house of stone.E.]
Job 8:18. If He destroys it from its place.The subj. in (comp. the same verb in Job 2:3) is either to be left indefinite: if one destroys him from his place [as if he is destroyed], Umbreit, etc.; or, which is better suited to the poets whole style and mode of thought, God is to be understood as the subject. On the contrary, in the second member: It shall deny him: I have never seen thee], the subject to be supplied with the verb is unquestionably: his place (). It is a highly poetical conception which is here presented: the native ground, or the place of growth of an uprooted tree, i.e. of a transgressor cast down from the height of his prosperity, being, as it were, ashamed of him, denying him and refusing to know anything more of him.
Job 8:19. Behold this is the joy [ironically said] of his way:i.e. so does it end, his pretended joyful way of living (comp. on Job 8:13); so sudden, calamitous is the end of his course. And out of the dust shall others sprout up.Others ( collect., comp. Ewald, 319, a), i.e. other men blessed with external prosperity, whose happiness will either prove more enduring, or, in case they too fall away from God, will as surely crumble away as his.
Third Division and Fifth Strophe: Application of the wisdom of the ancients, as just cited, to the case of Job: Job 8:20-22. [The picture just given suggested a solemn warning to Job to beware of incurring such a fate. Bildad, however, instead of giving to the application this minatory turn, uses a milder and more conciliatory tone, encouraging Job to repentance, by promises of the divine favor.E.]
Job 8:20. Behold, God despiseth not the pious man, and grasps not the hand of evil-doers:i.e. in order to help and support them; comp. Isa 41:13; Isa 42:6; Psa 73:23; as also the figurative expansion of this truth just given Job 8:12 sq.
Job 8:21. [Expanding, with personal application, the thought of Job 8:20 a].While He will fill thy mouth with laughter, and thy lips with rejoicing.Delitzsch (referring to Job 1:18; Psa 141:10) rightly interprets at the beginning of this verse in the sense of while, and takes the whole verse as the protasis of which Job 8:22 is the apodosis. Others take in the less suitable sense of yea even (Umbreit), or amend to , yet, comparing the passage with Psa 42:6 (Cocceius, Honbigant, Bttcher, Ewald, Stickel, Dillmann). For the expression: to fill any ones mouth with laughter, comp. Psa 126:2; for the text , instead of (the case being accordingly the reverse of that in Job 8:11, b), comp. Gesenius, 75 [ 74], 21, b.
Job 8:22. [Expansion of 20b, with personal application to Jobs enemies.]They that hate thee shall be clothed in shame: the same comparison in Psa 35:26; Psa 109:29; Psa 132:18. Observe how persuasive and conciliatory in this conclusion of Bildads discourse, in that he wishes for the haters of Job the worst fate, the portion of the ungodly; thus unmistakably separating himself and his friends from that class, and placing himself decidedly on the side of Job.And the tent of the wickedit is no more.For the use of the term tent as a concrete expression for the totality of well-being, comp. Job 5:24. Altogether too artificial is the explanation of Dillmann and others, denying the identity of the wicked with the haters in the first member, thus rendering the at the beginning of this member adversatively: but the tent of the wicked is no more, as though Psa 1:6 were a parallel passage, and the whole discourse of Bildad, notwithstanding the milder tone assumed in the last strophe, should still close with a warning or a threat. That this is in truth the case, only indirectly (i.e. in so far as the whole of Job 8:22 dwells on the miserable lot of the wicked, without recurring to the description of Jobs prosperity, and closing with that), see in the Doctrinal and Ethical Remarks, No. 3.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
The similarity of this first discourse of Bildad to that of Eliphaz is so marked that it can almost be termed an abbreviated repetition, differing considerably in the application of several particulars, of that with which Eliphaz had already charged Job. The same censorious introduction and the same mitigating and conciliatory close! And in the body of the discourse the same exhortation to betake himself to God in penitence and in prayer for help, with the accompanying promise of salvation (comp. Job 8:5 seq. with Job 5:8 seq.); the same figurative vesture frequently for one and the same truth, as, in particular, the description, twice occurring (Job 8:12 and Job 8:18), of the sudden withering and perishing of a plant of luxuriant growth, an unmistakable copy of the description first given by Eliphaz in Job 5:3 seq. Another noteworthy point of similarity between the two discourses is that Eliphaz, in order more vividly to set forth and more forcibly to emphasize the central thought which he inculcates, presents the same in the form of a divine revelation brought to him mysteriously by night, while Bildad seeks to accomplish the same result by introducing the ancient teachers of wisdom as speaking, in place of himself (comp. Job 8:8 seq. with Job 4:12 seq.). In this citation from the traditional Chokmah he gives a free reproduction of the same, in like manner as Eliphaz in his account of the vision had furnished an ideal, poetic picture. [It was a hard stroke on Job to see not only his friends of the present, but all good and wise men of the past, marshalled against him; and tremendous must have been his force of conscience to resist and drive from the field such outnumbering odds. Davidson. It is a very important point which Bildad here makes. There is no surer way of falling into error than for one individual or one age wilfully and proudly to cut loose from its connection with the whole, and to resolve to be wise independently and alone. That is historical rationalism, of which that which is commonly called rationalism is but one species. The witness of tradition indeed is to be received cum grano salisand at this point the friends are at fault. Something more is required than a correct understanding; the truth transmitted by historic tradition always has aspects which have not yet been completely developed; it is not enough to bring forward the wholewe must also, when new problems present themselves, be prepared to build up the New on the basis of the Old. That was the point where Elihu had the advantage over the friends. Hengstenberg.] It seems accordingly as though the poet had purposed to put Bildad forward as simply an imitator of Eliphaz, destitute of independence, and to present his continuation of the discussion of the latter as a weaker reproduction of the same, his object being thus to cast into the shade and to subordinate the spiritual significance of the friends and their position as compared with that of Job.
2. At the same time, however, this discourse is not wanting in new thoughts, which show that it aims to attack Job from another side than that chosen by his former critic. Eliphaz had argued against Job from the doctrine, derived from experience, of the absolute universality of human sinfulness. Bildad strenuously maintains against him the inexorable justice of God, who does not let the sinner go unpunished, nor the righteous unrewarded. His fundamental thought is presented in Job 8:3 : Will God pervert the right, or the Almighty pervert justice? or, as it is somewhat differently conceived, and with a particular application to Jobs case in Job 8:20 : Behold, God does not spurn the godly, nor take fast hold of (lend support to) the hand of evil-doers. The entire discourse is devoted to the discussion of this proposition, that the immutability of Gods justice (His justitia judicialis, tam remuneratoria quam punitiva) is demonstrated alike in its treatment of the evil and of the godly. Every part of the discourse aims to establish thisthe admonitory reference to the punishment inflicted on Jobs children (Job 8:4), the exhortation to him to beseech God for help and reconciliation (Job 8:5 seq.), the striking illustrations given of the perishableness of the prosperity of him who forgets God (Job 8:11 seq.), and the concluding promise of happiness to him, if (as Bildad hopefully assumes he will do) he will repent and return to God (Job 8:21 seq.). Like Eliphaz, or indeed in still higher measure than he, Bildad seems, in all that he says on these points, to establish himself entirely on the truth. There seems to be scarcely any thing in his words unscriptural, partial, or at all censurable. On the objective side, that which relates to the righteousness of Gods treatment, his words seem as Little liable to the charge of a one-sided narrowness, as on the subjective side, or that which sums up the case for Job, they are liable to that of inconsiderateness or unloving harshness.
3. That this, however, is only on the surface is evident from the painful venomous dart which at the very beginning almost of his discourse he aims at the heart of Job in the harsh judgment which he pronounces on his children, in the assertion, hypothetic indeed in form, but direct in its application, that their sudden death was the consequence of their sin, the merited punishment of their crime. At the bottom of this assertion there lies unquestionably a one-sidedly harsh, gross and external representation of the nature and operations of Gods retributive justice. He is evidently entangled in the short-sighted doctrine of retribution which prevailed in antiquity, both within the theocracy, and in general in the monotheistic oriental world. He imagines that he is able, by means of the common-places formally stated in Job 8:2; Job 8:20 to solve all the riddles of life. Hence the self-righteous, Pharisaic condition to which he subjects the saving efficacy of Jobs penitent supplication to God: if thou (i.e., provided thou) art pure and righteous (Job 8:6)back of which we see clearly enough the implied thought: if thou art not righteous, all thy praying and beseeching is of no avail! Hence still further the malicious indirect attack on Job which is conveyed by the wise teachings of the ancients (Job 8:11 seq.) respecting the sudden destruction of the man who forgets God! It would seem as though by these descriptions of the sudden withering and perishing of the Nile-reed, and of the destruction and uprooting of the thriving climbing-plant, Jobs fall from the height of his former prosperity was pictured. We can imagine that it is in Bildads thought to exclaim to his friend, like Daniel to king Nebuchadnezzar, The tree it is thou, O king! (Dan 4:17 [20] seq.). Even the practical application at the close of the discourse, with its prediction of prosperity, has imparted to it by all this a flavor of bitterness to him who is addressed, especially seeing that the last words of the speaker dwell on the certain destruction, and the inevitable punishment, which the wicked incur, as though the stern moralizer must perforce repeatedly relapse out of the tone of promise into that of censure and menace (comp. on Job 8:22). The fundamental error in Bildads argument lies in a rigidly legal interpretation of the idea of. justice, unmodified by a single softening ray from an evangelical experience of Salvation and of the merciful love of God as Fathera representation of the nature of divine justice which is directly opposed to the proper sense of , (terms which denote the divine activity only as conditioned and ruled by Gods holiness, or holy love). It is by this error that all that is harsh and one-sided in his discourse is to be explained. He knows nothing of a God disciplining and proving men in love, as a father his children. All human suffering he regards as simply and solely an infliction of Gods retributive justice, which begins to punish when man turns away from God, and abates the suffering only when he returns to him again. If Bildad had represented Jobs suffering as a chastisement of divine love, which was to humble him in order the more to exalt him, Job would then have been constrained to humble himself, although Bildad might not have been altogether in the right. But Bildad, still further than Eliphaz from weakening the erroneous supposition of a hostile God which had taken possession of Jobs mind, represents Gods justice, to which he attributes the death of his children, instead of His love, as the hand under which Job is to humble himself. Thereby the comfort which Jobs friend offers to him becomes a torture, and his trial is made still greater; for his conscience does not accuse him of any sins for which he should now have an angry instead of a gracious God. (Del.)
4. Notwithstanding these one-sided and erroneous characteristics, the present discourse furnishes to the practical expositors something more than material for criticism from the stand-point of the New Testament faith and religious consciousness. What it says in vindication of the righteous dealings of God, is in itself considered, and especially in contrast with Jobs unseemly and passionate complaints, well grounded and unassailable. We might just as well find a difficulty with descriptions of the righteous administration of the world similar to this, such as are found in the Psalms (Psalms 1; Psalms 7; Psa 18:21 [20] seq.; Psa 34:13 [12] seq.), and find in them nothing but expressions of religious perversity, and of an unevangelical way of thinking and acting; and yet such a view of those expressions, occurring as they do in quite another connection, would be entirely without foundation. The poetic beauty, moreover, of the illustrations of the miserable lot of the wicked in Job 8:11 seq. would lose all value if we were to apply this one-sided critical standard to the discourse, and to consider it only as the expression of a disposition of hypocritical work-righteousness. This the homiletic expositor is evidently not bound to do. Besides those one-sided and harsh features of the discourse, he may and should give prominence also to that which is eternally true and beautiful in it, as an inspired eulogy of the righteous intervention of the Godhead in the destinies of mankind. Anda point which in particular is not to be overlookedhe must bear in mind that, as is shown by the wise sayings of the ancients, quoted by Bildad from a gray antiquity, the knowledge which experience brings of Gods retributive justice as visibly exercised in this world was possessed by the pious of our race even in the earliest times; and still furtherthat for this knowledge of Gods holy and righteous ordering of the worlda knowledge which is deeply impressed on the universal consciousness of mankind, and which is kept fresh and vivid by great historical examples, such as the histories of Noah and his contemporaries, of Abraham and Lot, of Joseph, Moses, Korah, Balaam, etc.the only foundation which can be assumed as underlying all else is a positive original revelation in the beginning of humanitys history.And this is what determines the value and applicability of the following selections from practical exegetes of the past, which are here given as
Homiletic and Practical Remarks on Single Passages
Job 8:3; Job 8:8. Brentius: Such as do not understand the glory of Gods Gospel, but are unwisely carried away by zeal for the Law, say: the way of the Lord is not just, because He forgets the wickedness of him who repents, and the goodness of him who relapses into sinwhereas, according to what is decreed in the Law, evil is to be punished and good rewarded. But they hear it said again: I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, saith the Lord God; return ye, and live, and all your sins shall be forgotten.Zeltner: Nothing is easier or more common with the world than by a precipitate judgment to sin against ones neighbor in respect to his misfortunes, especially when believers are concerned. Although God visits the iniquity of fathers on their children, the calamities which befall pious children are nevertheless no proof that they or their parents have sinned (Joh 9:3).
Job 8:8 seq. Cocceius: There is no doubt but that fathers ought to transmit the revelations which they have received from God to their children and to other men; and that, moreover, through Gods blessing, the truth has been preserved for a time among some through such tradition; although the conjecture is not improbable that our fathers (from the time of Moses on) delivered much to writing.Brentius: Our life, as its origin was most recent, so is its end most swift; so that some one has well said: Man is a bubble, which having suddenly arisen on the face of the water, soon perishes. Seeing then that our life is most short, prudence in the management of affairs should be learned from those who are older, and from our ancestors; for the authority of the aged is sacred and venerable.
Job 8:11-19. Starke (according to the Weim. Bib.): The hope of hypocrites is perishable; for it is founded not on God, but only on that which is temporal and perishable (Psa 37:35 seq.; Psa 49:12; 1Co 7:31; 1Jn 2:17).Wohlfarth: The prosperity of the ungodly is only apparent: so teaches the wisdom of the ancients, so preaches the Holy Scripture, so testifies experience, so proves the nature of things. For the happiness of sin is neither real, nor satisfactory, nor enduring. The peace which makes us truly happy is not dependent on external possessions.Vict. Andreae: The wise proverbs of antiquity, to which Bildad (with affected humility) refers Job, are intended to teach the latter that as there are no reeds without a marsh, so also Jobs calamity in strict propriety could proceed only out of his great wickedness; wherefore Job must not wonder at it; nay, his confidence in his good conscience would be a treacherous support, as he will soon enough find to his cost.
Job 8:20 seq. Brentius: Although the ungodly may seem to flourish and to be blessed in this world, they are nevertheless exposed to the curse, which in its own time is revealed. And as the ungodly now behold the afflictions of the godly in this world with the greatest rejoicing of soul, so again in Gods judgment day they will be the laughing-stock of all creatures, and will be confounded before them: Isaiah 66Cocceius (on Job 8:20): From hence it is apparent that it happens to the ungodly as to the papyrus and sedge; to the godly as to an herb that is transplanted. The justice of God cannot therefore be accused, as though it would not reward each one according to his way of living. For although the papyrus and the grass are attached to the water, they do nevertheless dry up. And although a good herb may be dug out, it is nevertheless planted anew elsewhere with a great increase of fertility and utility. A measure of happiness for the ungodly does not dishonor Gods justice; trusting in their happiness they are brought to shame and confusion; neither is it dishonored by the affliction of the righteous, which is for their good.Zeltner: Just as the suffering of the godly is no proof that they have been rejected by God, so also the brilliant prosperity of the ungodly is no proof that they are in Gods favor. But God permits such things to happen in order to test His peoples patience, faith and hope, and, at the right time, to save them and make them happy forever. Therefore, my Christian brother, continue pious, and keep in the right (Psa 37:37).
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
We have here a new speaker, but to the same old account. Bildad the Shuhite, seconds what Eliphaz had advanced; and in his condemnation of Job, seems to rest the conclusion of the argument upon this issue, that God would shortly interpose, and prove Job’s hypocrisy.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, (2) How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? (3) Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? (4) If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression; (5) If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; (6) If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. (7) Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase. (8) For enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (9) (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:)
The very ground which Bildad sets out upon was ill founded. Job had never said that GOD did pervert judgment. He had indeed complained in the bitterness of his soul; but not a word to accuse GOD of perverting judgment. He seems to take a new argument to irritate poor Job’s mind, by insinuating that the death of Job’s children was a judgment from GOD upon them for their iniquity; which, admitting it had been true, was an act of great unkindness to the poor father, in thus reminding him of the source of his affliction. Reader! I pray you, pause and remark. with me, how sharp the exercises of Job were. The messengers which came to him at the first were all treading upon the heels of each other, and all fraught with evil tidings, worse and worse. So here again, his friends, which came under a supposed offer to comfort him, only succeeded one another in sharper reproof. Precious JESUS! how sweet is it in our sorrows, to have thee as a Comforter to fly to.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 8:8-9
If we do not take to our aid the foregone studies of men reputed intelligent and learned, we shall be always beginners.
Burke, Appeal from New to Old Whigs.
What makes the Radical of the street is mostly mother-wit exercising itself upon the facts of the time. His weakness is that he does not know enough of the facts of other times.
Morley, Studies in Literature, p. 125.
‘In his adoration of what he recognized as living,’ says Mr. Symonds ( Shelley, pp. 40 f.), ‘Shelley retained no reverence for the ossified experience of past ages. The principle of evolution, which forms a saving link between the obsolete and the organically vital, had no place in his logic.’
Speaking of Gibbon’s first work, an essay in defence of classical literature and history, Mr. Cotter Morison ( Gibbon, p. 35) observes that ‘this first utterance of his historic genius was prompted by an unconscious but deep reaction against that contempt for the past, which was the greatest blot in the speculative movement of the eighteenth century’.
References. VIII. 11-13. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi. No. 651. VIII. 14. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Job, p. 40. IX. 2. J. Smith (Edinburgh), Christian World Pulpit, 1890, p. 346.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
The First Speech of Bildad
Job 8
Considering the whole case, we must never forget the exact condition in which the three comforters found Job himself. This is not a merely speculative discussion, all the men being upon equal terms, and all enjoying the luxury of intellectual vitality, and the delight of talking over subjects which have no practical bearing: one of the men is hardly alive. What was his condition? Children all dead, flocks destroyed, camels carried away, servants slain by the edge of the sword, and Job smitten “with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal; and he sat down among the ashes.” A man in such circumstances is not likely to enjoy any exercise in merely intellectual gymnastics. The other men were simply lookers-on; they did not feel the pain. It is one thing to observe a sufferer, and quite another to be that sufferer himself. The words of the sufferer cause him suffering; they come a long way, they struggle forward from the very centre of the heart; they are coloured with blood; they are accentuated with agony. Keeping this fact in view, we must make large allowances for the kind of utterance in which Job indulged. Bildad had but to answer Job had to suffer. They who view grief in the abstract, they who have only to lecture grief or account for it, are not themselves likely to speak as he will speak in whose soul the iron is far thrust. We may be tempted to lecture Job. The only thing that can ever make us understand the Book of Job is to be in something like the situation of Job himself. We cannot preach ourselves into the meaning: we must die into it.
Bildad charges Job with running off into mere talk:
“How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?” ( Job 6:2 ).
To Bildad it was mere rhetoric. To those who are not in keenest that is to say, most vital sympathy with the sufferer, all that the sufferer may say will be of the nature of mere talk a rhetorical evaporation a kind of suicide in eloquence. So it must ever be in all kinds of suffering. If a speaker be charged with a message which he must deliver, being perfectly aware that every word will bring back insult, sneer, disbelief, in proportion as he feels the pain of his mission will he be charged with being a mere verbal craftsman, having skill in vocal tricks, and pleasing himself with trope and image and appeal. The kind of man represented by Bildad lives in all ages, listens to all speakers, treats all occasions in the same high and uncondescending manner. What is Bildad wanting in? He is wanting in sympathy, wherever you find him. Not that he is without feeling. A man may have tears in his eyes, and yet have no sympathy in his heart, because the tears may relate to circumstances, accidents, transient phases of the event, and the soul may be all the while out of sympathy with the central meaning, the inner and divine suggestion.
Bildad copied Eliphaz. We find in him precisely the same lofty theological tone, the same design always to appeal to the justice of God the immeasurable righteousness as against the measurable sufferer. The tone of the third verse is surely not without nobleness: “Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?” As much as to say, If he does so in this instance, it is the first time he ever did it. A man’s words may be right, and yet the tone in which he speaks them may fail to carry the words to the mark to which they are addressed. We may even so challenge the righteousness of God as to make men feel its burdensomeness. We cannot hurl the whole of the righteousness of God against a man in one great thunder-shock without blowing out his feeble prayer and discouraging him in his prostrate attitude. Even righteousness must be accommodated to human weakness when the approach of it is intended to be not a threatening but a gospel. Then there are hours in which we cannot bear to hear about righteousness, law; the words themselves are tyrannous, overwhelming: we want to hear about pity, tenderness, hope; and, blessed be God, pity, tenderness, and hope may be so preached as still to involve all that is grandest and most enduring in the divine righteousness. We are not preaching righteousness when we are exercising severity. Austerity is but one form of the law. When the law comes to be properly read by its writer, it will be so read as to discover in it mercy, and hope, and pity, and love.
Job’s two comforters for only two have spoken up to this point find the difficulty of applying general principles to particular cases. But it is in the application of such principles to such cases that true spiritual skill is discovered. We should frighten the world by preaching righteousness only. We should discourage mankind by being too grandiloquent upon the unchangeableness of mere law. Bildad had seized the idea that God was righteous, God was just, whatever God did was beyond all challenge and criticism, and with this weapon he smote the prostrate patriarch. His principle was right; his application of it was defective. To tell the world that railway accidents are but as one to a million is to preach a very comfortable doctrine, but it is not at all comfortable to the friends of the one man who was killed. We must, therefore, be very careful how we apply general statistics to individual sufferers. Who would think of going to a family the head of which had been killed in a railway accident to preach the doctrine that after all such catastrophes occur very rarely, and that according to statistical authority they only occur as one to a million of the population? What a comforting doctrine to the family that has been bereaved! Better keep out of view the statistical phase. Better proceed upon another line altogether. Better say, How sad the case is; how pitiful the whole position in which you as a bereaved family are placed! But let us see what we can of brightness even in this distress: the woe is very great; the loss is, humanly speaking, irreparable, but even here perhaps, by patient waiting, we may discover some alleviating circumstance, or some thought that leads in the direction of palliation and assuagement of the heart-pain. A tone of that; kind may reach the bereaved heart, but some grand statistical demonstration that accidents occur but very seldom would only aggravate the suffering it was clumsily intended to mitigate.
Bildad will put the case with some discernment, but may perhaps lose himself in the very nicety of his discrimination. In the ministry of sympathy we must not be too discerning, discriminate, critical, and hair-splitting. Bildad ventures upon very delicate ground in the fourth verse.
“If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression.” ( Job 6:4 )
Well, even there Bildad might shelter himself behind Job: for did not Job say in the first instance, and may he not have given some indication of it to his friends, that “it may be that my sons have sinned”? They were at all events taken away. Bildad assumes that they may have been taken away on account of their transgression. But, he would say, that is over; all that is past, and beyond recall: it may be as thou hast thought in thine heart that thy children have sinned, and that God has punished them in the very midst of their iniquity. Now he comes to lay the emphasis upon the word “thou,” in the fifth verse: “If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes.” As a general rule, such a word as “thou” is rather to be slurred than pronounced with weight of emphasis or sharpness of accent. It is but a secondary word in a sentence, and is to be spoken trippingly by the tongue, and almost lost in the vocal exercise; but as spoken in the argument of Bildad, the word “thou” is the emphatic word in the sentence, and is meant to balance the word “children” in the first part of the argument: If thy children have sinned and been taken away, who can help it? The circumstance is beyond all amendment and reparation; but if thou still a living man if thou wouldest seek unto God, if thou wert pure and upright, the case might be wholly different. So Bildad fixes his eyes upon the point of hope. He says, perhaps not flippantly, The children are gone, why mourn over their graves? Weeping cannot recall them; it is not in human power to recover those that are dead; therefore betake thyself to the point of hope; that point of hope is in thyself, if thou wouldest seek unto God, if thou wert pure and upright; it is from that point that the new departure must begin. Bildad’s speech is in these respects full of wisdom. He points Job in the right direction. “If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes.” We always fall back upon God in grief. The word “God” comes easily into our speech in the dark and wintry night-time of desolation, bereavement, solitude. Even atheists negatively pray. There are hours when we are not afraid to speak the name of God. Men who would never mention it in business, or on the highways of life, who would never dream of uttering it whilst they were driving in the golden chariot of abundance and prosperity, may whine it out to doctor, or nurse, or ghostly ministrant, in the black night-time of conscious self-helplessness. Is God, then, not more than what is known as righteous? Are not his eyes full of tears? Is not the mighty hand capable of expressing itself in softest touch? If men have taken liberties with God, what if God himself may be partly accountable for this? If he had struck the universe with a lightning-rod every time it sinned, the universe might not have trifled with him; if for every iniquity there had been an instantaneous and everlasting hell, creation might have been held upon its good behaviour. But good behaviour founded upon a philosophy of fear is only vice in a fit of dejection.
Bildad instructs Job in the right tone. In the fifth verse he uses the word “supplication.” That English word does not give the full meaning of the speaker. In the word which Bildad used there was a red line of blood, there was a cry for mercy, there was a confession of error, there was a music of contrition. Job was not called to write out a legal document, to go into court and take his stand upon it, and to argue his case before the bar of the Almighty, with the dignity of an injured man, and with the eloquence of one who was in a righteous passion; he was called upon to fall down, to fasten his eyes in the earth, to be the publican of the gospel before the time, to say, God be merciful to me a sinner! Thus, it is not enough to come in the right direction namely, to God we must come in the right tone, with the right quality of words; we must bring with us not argument, defence, and the spirit of exultation, but weakness, self-renunciation, self-helplessness, and trust in the living God. He is merciful as well as just.
Bildad then assures Job of a grand issue: If thou wilt do this, “though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase” ( Job 6:7 ). All beginnings are small. When does God ever begin at the supreme end or at the point of culmination? The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed. The coming of the day is a little whitening of the east, but that little dawn means that the whole arch of heaven shall presently be bright with ineffable glory. Do not judge by the beginning. Rather have fear of any beginning that is large, overwhelming. Better begin low, and proceed little by little, to the whole height of God’s generous purpose.
Now in his further speech Bildad is philosophical and strong:
“For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?” ( Job 6:8-10 ).
This argument has often been misunderstood. It has been supposed that in the ninth verse Bildad was showing the emptiness and worthlessness of all human knowledge; the word “we” has been supposed to include the whole of the human race; then the text would read: For all men whenever they have lived, whoever they may be all men are but of yesterday, and know nothing. That may be in a sense true, but it was not the truth spoken by Bildad. The speaker was meaning that the men who were then waiting upon Job in a visit of sympathy were but moderns, contemporaries, children of yesterday; whatever they might say would have upon it the weakness of novelty. Bildad therefore says, Take no account of us, we are hardly born; but search back in history, a century, ten centuries; get back as far as you can, and let the days that are venerable teach thee. It is marvellous how much store has been set on antiquity by the greatest thinkers, whether Christian or pagan. Aristotle says, “The more ancient a witness is the more creditable and the more credible.” Aristotle was not a Bible prophet, and therefore his name may be quoted with some effect to those who think that all men out of the Bible were necessarily great men. A Latin judge has said, “Nothing can be more ancient to me.” What did he mean by the word “ancient” in such a case as that? He meant nothing could be more trustworthy, reputable, respectable. The farther you go back in history the farther you get away from the refinements of a technical civilisation from that miserable casuistry which can make the worse appear the better cause from that skill in dialectics whose business it is to twist meanings and pervert purposes and discolour all that appeals to the senses. But is there not a meaning still deeper than that? Certainly. In all this wish to go back, and to have antiquity on one’s side, lies the sublime doctrine that out of eternity must come the rule and proper direction of time. Why do we not amplify all instincts, and all solid reasonings, and all well-tested arguments, and give them their highest aspect and their completest force? We are accustomed to consult the antiquary upon certain difficult questions. The most learned judge asks, Is there a precedent? The most profoundly philosophical student in law, in history, in philosophy, is delighted to find that a thousand years ago yea, five thousand years since judgment was pronounced upon this very case, whatever it may be. Nothing will satisfy the truly scholarly and disciplined mind but getting right back to origins. Such a mind must have a Book of Genesis in its literature. This is supposed to be right, and we are not disposed to question its rectitude; but what is the true interpretation of this? Why this love of antiquity? Why this searching back from precedent to precedent? Why this quest of origin? The meaning is that we want to hear what eternity has to say. When allusion is made to our sin, we cannot be contented with modern instances, and novel discourses and theories; we must be taken back to Adam, beyond him: what waits us there in that deep depth of eternity? This, that the Lamb was slain from before the foundation of the earth; in other words, the atonement wrought out by Christ, for the redemption of men and the forgiveness of sins, was not a point in history; it was the very centre and supreme thought of eternity. It is only because truth is eternal that it can accommodate itself to passing phases and immediate experiences. Truth did not come into the world at a given point in history; it is the expression of eternity; it is an Incarnation of Godhead; it is a visitant from the upper spaces. This is the reason why men cannot get rid of it. If it were the latest invention, it might be superseded; if it were the discovery of a single mind, some greater mind might arise that would overthrow it; but truth comes up from eternity, fills the little day to overflow, and passes on from age to age, the contemporary of every century, because the expression of eternity.
Now Bildad resorts to the final point of Eliphaz. He concludes his discourse with words of promise. Having thrown a proverb or two at the head of Job; as, for example, “Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water?” having discoursed, it may be, in a satirical vein, upon water-plants, showing that they are only green and flourishing so long as they are full of water, and that when the water ceases their greenness fades; and having told him, needlessly, that “the hypocrite’s hope shall perish,” for there was no hypocrisy in Job; having touched upon the frail tenement of the spider as a type of the refuge of men who tell lies, he refers to one who “is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden,” a heart that is rooted in God, a soul that lives in eternity, so that, come winter, come summer, come famine of food, or thirst of water, come what may, this heart looks on to the stone-house, the rock that cannot be shaken; and having wrought himself up into this noble ecstasy Bildad concludes his speech with words of comfort:
“Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow. Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers: till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing. They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nought” (Job 6:19-22 .)
Bildad began with criticism, he ended with sympathy. Who could do otherwise? The sight was heart-rending. He who would have taken his stand upon eternal principles was forced down into pity and thoughtfulness and human consideration, when he saw the man smitten all over with sore boils, without one healthy spot upon his whole flesh; robbed by thieves without name; smitten, crushed, forsaken, an offence to those nearest and dearest to him. Sometimes we are thus forced into sympathy. Sometimes there is more strength in our argument than in our sympathy, yet we cannot withdraw without some words of promise. This is not so with Jesus Christ, who comes to us in our distress and helplessness and uttermost misery. He does not speak words only: he dies to redeem us. Himself bare our sins, carried our iniquities; yea, he took to himself our diseases, he was loaded with our putridity, our deathfulness, he took it all. That was sympathy! Not to talk to your grief, but to absorb it; not to enumerate your diseases, but to transfer them to himself. This is a great mystery; but a mystery falls becomingly into the whole history of Christ. It is a mystery not of darkness but of light; a mystery not as indicating a difficulty of the intellect, but as pointing to a supreme effort of the heart, how to die, and yet to live; how to take the iniquities and diseases of the world, and to bear them away. Ask us to explain it, and we say we have no words. Speech dies at that point. Ask us if we feel it, and we say, radiantly, gratefully, Yes, we feel it all, and know it to be true.
Note
Job’s disease. The opinion that the malady under which Job suffered was elephantiasis, or black leprosy, is so ancient, that it is found, according to Origen’s Hexapla , in the rendering which one of the Greek versions has made of Job 2:7 . It was also entertained by Abulfeda ( Hist. Anteisl., p. 26); and in modern times by the best scholars generally. The passages which are considered to indicate this disease are found in the description of his skin burning from head to foot, so that he took a potsherd to scrape himself ( Job 2:7-8 ); in its being covered with putrefaction and crusts of earth, and being at one time stiff and hard, while at another it cracked and discharged fluid ( Job 7:5 ); in the offensive breath which drove away the kindness of attendants ( Job 19:17 ); in the restless nights, which were either sleepless or scared with frightful dreams (Job 7:13-14 ; Job 30:17 ); in general emaciation ( Job 16:8 ); and in so intense a loathing of the burden of life, that strangling and death were preferable to it ( Job 7:15 ).
In this picture of Job’s sufferings, the state of the skin is not so distinctly described as to enable us to identify the disease with elephantiasis in a rigorous sense. The difficulty is also increased by the fact that ( shechin ) is generally rendered “boils.” But that word, according to its radical sense, only means burning, inflammation a hot sense of pain, which, although it attends boils and abscesses, is common to other cutaneous irritations. Moreover, the fact that Job scraped himself with a potsherd is irreconcilable with the notion that his body was covered with boils or open sores, but agrees very well with the thickened state of the skin which characterises this disease.
In this, as in most other Biblical diseases, there is too little distinct description of the symptoms to enable us to determine the precise malady intended. But the general character of the complaint under which Job suffered bears a greater resemblance to elephantiasis than to any other disease. Kitto’s Cyclopdia of Biblical Literature.
Fuente: The People’s Bible by Joseph Parker
(See the Job Book Comments for Introductory content and general conclusions and observations).
V
THE FIRST ROUND OF SPEECHES
Job 4-14.
This debate extends from Job 4-31 inclusive. There are three rounds of speeches by all the four except that Zophar drops out in the last round. Each round constitutes a scene in Act II of the drama.
In this chapter we will discuss Scene I and commence with the first speech of Eliphaz (Job 4-5) the points of which are as follows:
Introduction (Job 4:1-2 ). In his introduction he deprecates grieving one so afflicted but must reprove Job,
1. For weakness and inconsistency. The one who had instructed, comforted, and strengthened others in their troubles, faints when trouble comes to him (Job 4:3-5 ).
2. Because Job had neither the fear of God nor personal integrity, for the fear of God gives confidence, and integrity gives hope, but Job’s complaint implies that he had neither confidence nor hope, therefore he must be devoid of the fear of God and of integrity (Job 4:6 ).
3. Because the observation of the general trend of current events argued Job’s guilt. The innocent do not perish; those who reap trouble are those who have sowed trouble and plowed iniquity. Ravening lions, though strong and terrible, meet the hunter at last (Job 4:7-11 ).
4. Because revelation also convicts him. Eliphaz relates one of his own visions (Job 4:12-17 ), very impressively, which scouted the idea that mortal man could be more just than God, or purer than his maker. But Job’s complaint seemed to embody the idea. Eliphaz argues from his vision that a pure and just God crushes impure and unjust men and suggests the application that Job’s being crushed reproves his impurity and injustice (Job 4:18-21 ).
5. Because Job’s outcry against God was foolish and silly, and since no angels would hear such complaint, or dare to avert its punishment (Job 5:1-2 ) there can be no appeal from the supreme to the creature.
6. Because observation of a particular case illustrates Job’s guilt (Job 5:3-5 ). The circumstances of this case seen by Eliphaz, make it parallel with Job’s case; a certain foolish man took root and prospered for a while, but the curse smote him suddenly and utterly; his children perished, his harvest was eaten by the hungry, and all his substance was snatched away.
7. Because these results are not accidental, nor of earthly origin, but must be attributed to God who punishes sin. Because man is a sinner he is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward (Job 5:6-7 ).
The remedy suggested to Job by Eliphaz is as follows:
1. Take your case to God confession of sin and repentance are suggested (Job 5:8 ) who will exalt the penitent (Job 5:11 ) as certainly as he has frustrated their craftiness (Job 5:12-14 ) and so the poor may have hope after the mouth of their iniquity is stopped (Job 5:15-16 ).
2. Instead of murmuring, count yourself happy in receiving this punishment, and after penitence expect restoration of prosperity (Job 5:17-27 ).
On comparing this analysis with that given by Dr. Tanner (see his Syllabus on the speech of Eliphaz) it will be noted that the author here differs widely with Tanner in his analysis and interpretation of this speech. Tanner presents Eliphaz as assuming the position that Job was a righteous man and that God would deliver him. The author presents Eliphaz as taking the position that Job had sinned, which was the cause of his suffering and that he should confess and repent; that he should count himself happy in receiving this punishment, and thus after penitence expect the restoration of prosperity. It will be recalled here that the author, in commending the Syllabus of Dr. Tanner noted the weakness of his analysis at this point.
There are several things notable in this first speech of Eliphaz, viz:
1. The recurrence in all his speeches of “I have seen,” “I have seen,” “I saw,” showing that the experience and observation of a long life constituted the basis of his argument.
2. The good elements of his arguments are as follows: (1) He refers to the natural law of sowing and reaping (Cf. Gal 6:7 ); (2) the sinner’s way to happiness is through confession and repentance; (3) chastisement of an erring man should be recognized as a blessing, since it looks to his profit (Cf. Pro 3:11 and the use made of it as quoted in Heb 12:5 ).
3. The bad elements in his speech are as follows: (1) His induction of facts ignores many other facts, particularly that all suffering is not penal; (2) He fails in the application of his facts, since the case before him does not come in their classification; in other words, through ignorance he fails in his diagnosis of the case, and hence his otherwise good remedies fall short of a cure.
4. The exquisite simplicity and literary power of his description of his vision, makes it a classic gem of Hebrew poetry.
The following points are noted in Job’s reply (Job 6-7) :
1. The rash words of my complaint are not evidence of previous sins, but the result of immeasurable calamities from the hand of God. They cannot be weighed; they are heavier than the sandy shores which confine the ocean; they are poisoned arrows from the quiver of the Almighty which pierce my very soul and rankle there; they are terrors marshalled in armies by the Almighty (Job 6:1-4 ).
2. The braying of an ass and the lowing of an ox are to be attributed to lack of food, not meanness. Let the favorable construction put upon the discordant noise of hungry animals be applied to my braying and lowing (Job 6:5 ), for in my case also there is the hunger of starvation since the food set before me is loathsome and without savor (Job 6:6-7 ).
3. I repeat my prayer to God for instant death, because I have not the strength to endure longer, nor the wisdom to understand (Job 6:8-9 ; Job 6:11-13 ) but while exulting in the pain that slays me, my consolation still is, that I have not denied the words of the Holy One (Job 6:10 ).
4. Instead of moralizing on the causes and rebuking suspected sins, friends should extend kindness to one ready to faint, even though he forsake the fear of God (or lest he forsake, Job 6:14 ). This is like the story of the drowning boy who asked the moralizing man on the bank to help him out first and then inquire into the causes of his mishap.
5. In your treatment of me, ye are like a deceitful brook, roaring with water only while the snow on the mountains is melting, but being without springs, directly you run dry. The caravans from the desert that come to it hoping, turn aside from its dusty channels and perish. So you that seemed like a river when I was not thirsty, put me to shame by your nothingness now that I thirst. Compare “Wells without water . . . clouds without rain” in Jud 1:12-13 .
6. Is it possible that you condemn me because you apprehend that otherwise I might ask you for help? In your moralizing are you merely hedging against the expectation of being called on to help a bankrupt sufferer, by furnishing a reward or ransom for the return of my stolen flocks and herds? Do you try to make me guilty that you may evade the cost of true friendship (Job 6:21-23 )? I have asked for no financial help, but for instruction. How forcible are right words !
7. But you, instead of explaining my calamities have been content to reprove the words of my complaint, extorted by the anguish of my calamities, words that under the circumstances should have been counted as wind, being only the speeches of one that is desperate.
8. The meanness of such treatment in your case would prompt in other cases to cast lots for the orphans of the dead and make merchandise out of a stranded friend by selling him as a slave (Job 6:27 ). This is a terrible invective, but more logical than their argument, since history abundantly shows that some believers in their creed have done these very things, the argument being that thereby they are helping God to punish the wicked.
9. He begs them to turn from such injustice, look on his face and behold his sincerity, concede his ability to discern a thing which is wicked, and accept his deliberate statement that he is innocent of the things which they suspect (Job 6:28-30 ).
10. He laments his case as hopeless (Job 7:1-10 ). Here Job asks if there is not a warfare to man and his days like the days of a hireling. His waiting for relief was like a hireling waiting for his wages, during which time he is made to pass months (moons) of misery. In this hopeless condition he longs for relief and would gladly welcome death from which there is no return to the walks of this life.
11. Job now lifts his voice in complaint to God (Job 7:11-21 ). In the anguish of his spirit he could not refrain from complaining that God had set a watch over him and terrified him with dreams and visions. He was made to loathe his life and again to wish for death. Then he closes this speech by raising the question with the Almighty as to why he would not pardon him if he had sinned (as his accusers had insinuated) and take away his iniquity. Here he addresses God as a “watcher of men”; as one who had made him a target for his arrows. Now we take up the first speech of Bildad, the Shuhite (Job 8 ).
The substance of this speech is as follows:
1. He charges that Job seeks to make himself better than God, then he hints at the sins of his children and insinuates that Job does not pray, for prayer of the right sort brings relief (Job 8:1-7 ).
2. He exhorts Job to learn the lesson from the past. The wisdom of the fathers must be good. Therefore, learn the lesson of the ancients (Job 8:8-10 ).
3. He contrasts the fate of the wicked and that of the righteous, reasoning from cause to effect, thus insinuating that Job’s condition was the result of a cause, and since (to him) all suffering was the result of sin, the cause must be in Job (Job 8:11-22 ).
The substance of Job’s reply is,
1. True enough a man cannot be righteous with God, since he is unable to contend with him. He is too wise and powerful; he is invincible. Who can match him (Job 9:1-12 )?
2. Praying does not touch the case. He is unjust and proves me perverse. Individual righteousness does not avail to exempt in case of a scourge. He mocks at the trial of the innocent and the wicked prosper. Then Job says, “If it be not he, who then is it?” This is the climax of the moral tragedy (Job 9:13-24 ).
3. There is no daysman betwixt us, and I am not able to meet him in myself for Judgment (Job 9:25-35 ).
4. I will say unto God, “Why? Thou knowest I am not wicked.” Here it will be noted that a revelation is needed in view of this affliction (Job 10:1-7 ).
5. God is responsible for my condition; he framed and fashioned me as clay, yet he deals with me as milk or cheese; it is just the same whether I am wicked or righteous; changes and warfare are with me (Job 10:8-17 ).
6. Why was I born? or why did I not die at birth? Then would I have escaped this great suffering, but now I must abide the time until I go into the land of midnight darkness (Job 10:18-22 ).
The substance of Zophar’s first speech is this:
1. What you have received is not as much as you deserve; you are full of talk and boastful; you are self-righteous and need this rebuke from God (Job 11:1-6 ).
2. You cannot find out God; he is far beyond man; he is all-powerful and omniscient; man is as void of understanding as a wild ass’s colt (Job 11:7-12 ).
3. Put away your wickedness; you need to get right and then you will be blessed; you should set your heart and house in order, then all will clear up; then you will be protected from the wicked (Job 11:13-20 ).
Job’s reply to the first speech of Zophar embraces three chapters, as follows:
1. No doubt you are the people and wisdom will die with you; I am not inferior to you; you mock and do not help; I, though upright, am a laughingstock and you, who are at ease, have contempt for misfortune; God brought this about (Job 12:1-6 ).
2. Learn the lessons from nature; the beasts, the birds, the earth, and the fishes can teach thee; everybody knows these things; the ear tries words and the palate tastes food, and wisdom is learned by age (Job 12:7-12 ).
3. God is the source of wisdom and power; he deals wisely with all men; he debases and he exalts (Job 12:13-25 ).
4. I understand it all as well as you; ye are forgers of lies; ye are physicians of no value; your silence would be wisdom; you speak wickedly for God, therefore your sayings are proverbs of ashes and your defenses are defenses of clay (Job 13:1-12 )
5. Why should I take my life in my hand thus? I want to be vindicated before I die; “Though he slay me, yet will I trust him”; I know that I am righteous; therefore I have hope (Job 13:13-19 ).
6. He pleads his cause with God; he asks two things of God, viz: (1) that he would put an end to his bodily suffering and (2) that he would abstain from terrifying him; then he challenges God to call him; then he interrogates God relative to his sins, God’s attitude toward him and his dealings with him; and finally charges God with unjust dealings with him (Job 13:20-28 ).
7. Man that is born of woman is frail and sinful; man’s weakness should excite pity with the Almighty; that which is born of an unclean thing is unclean and since a man’s days and months are numbered, why not turn from him as an hireling and let him rest (Job 14:1-6 ).
8. The hope of a tree, though it be cut down, is that it will sprout again but man’s destiny to lie down in death and rise no more till the heavens pass away should be a cause for mercy from God (Job 14:7-12 ).
9. In despair of recovery in this life Job again prays for death; that God would hide him in the grave till his wrath be past; that he would appoint him a day, in the hope that if he should die he would live again; his destiny is in God’s hands and therefore he is hopeless for this life (Job 14:13-17 ).
10. Like the mountain falling, the rock being removed out of its place and waters wearing away the stones, the hope of man for this life is destroyed by the providences of God; man is driven by them into oblivion; his sufferings become so great that only for himself his flesh has pain and only for himself his soul mourns (Job 14:18-22 ).
In this round of speeches the three friends have followed their philosophy of cause and effect and thus reasoning that all suffering is the effect of sin, they have, by insinuations, charged Job of sin, but they do not specify what it is. Job denies the general charge and in a rather bad spirit refutes their arguments and hits back at them some terriffic blows. He is driven to the depths of despair at the climax of the moral tragedy where he attributes all the malice, cunning, and injustice he had felt in the whole transaction to God as his adversary. They exhort him to repent and seek God, but he denies that he has sinned; he says that he cannot contend with the Almighty because he is too high above him, too powerful, and that there is no umpire, or daysman, between them. Here Job is made to feel the need of a revelation from God explaining all the mysteries of his providence. In this trial of Job we have ‘Satan’s partial victory over him -where he led Job to attribute the evils that had come upon him to God. This is the downfall in Job’s wrestle with Satan. He did not get on top of Job but gave him a great deal of worry. We will see Job triumphing more and more as he goes on in the contest.
QUESTIONS 1. What the points of Eliphaz’s first speech?
2. What things are notable in this first speech of Eliphaz?
3. What the points of Job’s reply (Job 6-7)?
4. What the substance of Bildad’s first speech?
5. What the substance of Job’s reply?
6. What the substance of Zophar’s first speech?
7. What Job’s reply?
8. Give a summary of the proceedings and results of the first round.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
Job 8:1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
Ver. 1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said ] Bildad (who was of the posterity of Shuah, Abraham’s son by Keturah, Gen 24:1-2 ) interrupteth Job, and endeavours to maintain what Eliphaz had spoken; nevertheless, it appeareth by this chapter, Job 8:5-6 ; Job 8:20-21 , that his opinion was not so rigid as that of Eliphaz: for he grants that a righteous man may be afflicted, but yet so, that if God restore him not speedily, he may be censured, cast, and condemned as unrighteous. He passeth (as they do all) some hard censures upon Job; and is paid in his own coin by him; who saith that he was, according to his name, a wicked kinsman; for is naught, and an uncle. With what judgment men judge they shall be judged. Mat 7:2 .
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job Chapter 8
The reasoning of Bildad is precisely the same principle as that of Eliphaz. It is all founded on God’s moral government, i.e., the impossibility of causing God grief, and casting down to the ground a really righteous man, and the certainty of His bringing to naught every wicked man. It is all founded upon what is going on in the world now. There was no faith in it. There was conscience, conscience toward God; but conscience, however useful and highly important, as it is, for the soul, never does, nor can it ever, reveal God. It detects our bad state, and the more it is purged by divine grace through redemption the clearer is its judgment. But that was not the case then. Everything was more or less confused, and God was merely regarded as a righteous God. But God is the God of all grace. And many people confound God’s grace with His goodness; but the goodness of God is quite a different thing from the grace of God. The goodness of God is that which flows out in every sort of kindness, and in patience with us and consideration of our weakness. But the grace of God means not merely His love, but His love rising above sin; His love triumphing over all our evil.
Now it is clear that that never was nor could be, till Christ came, and it was not even when Christ did come. It was in His death on the cross; it was there and then for the first time that all the love of God met all the evil of man. Both worked fully out, but had never worked fully out before. Man had never shown himself so wicked as round the cross of the Lord Jesus. And it, was universal; it was not merely the multitude, though it is a terrible thing to see how fickle the multitude is. They are just the same to this day, and they will never be any other until the Lord change the face of all peoples. The same crowd that cried, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” and applauded Him to the skies, with one mouth cried, “Crucify him, crucify him!” within a few days. Well, and how was that? It was the power of Satan. It was their unbelief, because their applause was nothing. Applause is merely human feeling excited at the moment, and that feeling may give way to a totally opposite one, and very quickly. Why, even the children of God are not always to be trusted. The children of God are the most foolish people in the world in many respects. And the reason is because Satan hates them, and Satan entraps them, and they are apt to be deceived by appearances. Some never seem to take warning from the word of God; they are always ready for some new thing; and the consequence is, always tumbling into some mess or another.
Well, this has always been the case; it was the case in the experience of the apostle Paul. “I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ, unto another gospel; which is not another” – it is no gospel at all. It was man but once born; it was poor wretched, fallen man that was the groundwork. That is the same thing with christians now. They are carried away by man, and they are all so anxious to get man to applaud them, and to sacrifice and compromise everything in order to get the assent and consent of people that want to be saved, that have no kind of judgment in things divine, for this never can be had unless we not only have Christ, but know what it is to be crucified to the world and the world unto us. That is, it must be a thorough-going work, and the children of God shrink from that; consequently, they will read anything that merely keeps up their spirits, just like a boy at night whistling through a churchyard. Anything that will keep up their spirits – every little dram, every little sentiment, every little phrase – perhaps a very bad and poor phrase – but still there it is, and that keeps up their spirits. Well now, friends, that is the way to get removed from Him that called us; because it is entirely by growing in grace, and by dependence upon that grace, that we are kept from all these snares that more particularly surround the people of God. At the time of the cross the people of God were the Jews, and that was the reason why they were the worst of all.
And now in Christendom, in the world as it is now, who are the most guilty? Who are ripening now for the severest judgment of God? The world-church. I do not mean by that the Established Church; it will take in the Dissenters just as well. The Dissenters are further away in some respects than even the Anglicans. They are howling politicians, howling for their own will, and calling themselves, in the most extraordinary manner, “passive resisters.” Why, “passive resistance” is passive nonsense! You cannot be passive and resisting. If you are resisting you are not passive. It is the same kind of thing as people talking about the Roman Catholic Church; but if it is Roman it is not Catholic, and if it is Catholic it is not Roman, and the two things are just a marvellous piece of contradiction. But what I mean is this – there are different spheres. There are high spheres and low spheres; there are spheres of grandeur and there are spheres of wretchedness of every kind – dishonesty as well as all kinds of contention. And it is upon that that the awful judgment of God is coming.
Babylon is more loathsome to God than “the Beast.” The Beast is open self-will rebelling against God; but Babylon is that which is a harlot in God’s eyes, and pretends to be the spouse of Christ. And it is that pretension – that high pretension of being the holy bride of Christ – accompanied by the greatest unholiness and the greatest laxity of doctrine when pretending to be the orthodox, the holy Catholic, Apostolic, and I know not what else. Well, that is Babylon, but that is only high Babylon; there is low Babylon too; and all Babylon, no matter whether high or low – all will be the greatest object of God’s fury. For that is the expression of the term. It is His highest indignation. It is all this pretension to what the world has not. They are now giving up true religion as much as possible. What is the intent? To carry on religion with the world, that is Babylon. It is the confusion of two things that cannot be united, and there they are – the greatest and worst confusion that is possible to be.
The Babylon of Christendom is a great deal worse than the Babylon of the Chaldees. What privileges had they? Why, they were the heathen; but there you have only the human mind; in Christendom you have got the New Testament. There they pretend to have the Holy Ghost. There they can give the Holy Ghost to a baby! and they can give the Holy Ghost to a priest! Or they can do anything; bring fire – not from heaven, but from hell, to burn the martyrs of God. They can do anything that is wicked and is at the same time a pretence against God. Well, I say, because of them you must not be surprised that any who have got the truth in a measure are for that very reason the great object of Satan’s desire to draw them into what will undermine and destroy. Therefore we need to be guided; we need the guidance of God; we need not to be taken in by appearances and fair promises and good desires that will never keep the same for one day or hour. But on the contrary, the better you desire, if you are not subject to God the more easily you will be drawn into that which will oppose God.
No doubt, nobody means that no christian could be like the Galatians – you do not mean that. They thought they were in the better state. They thought they were getting on, that they were not so narrow minded as some people, that they were not so very bigoted as Paul. Paul was too much in one line; they were the large people; they were the liberal people. And so it was that they got into this terrible snare of the devil. The same thing repeats itself in every age. And I believe that there are persons on the face of the earth that are as much the object of Satan’s wiles as the Galatians. But that is no reason to be discouraged; not to be discouraged is the necessary consequence of having the truth – a necessary consequence that Satan dislikes and dreads, and will leave no stone unturned to prevent.
Why was it that Job came to this terrible plight in the Book we are reading? Because God said “There is nobody like him on the earth – a perfect man, a man thoroughly, all round – of integrity.” Yes, but there was one thing that neither Job nor his friends understood, and that was grace; and it could not be understood. He did know that God was a faithful God, and his piety led him to feel, and to stand to it, that all the troubles he came into were from God. And so they were, because the devil even had disappeared. It was not merely the devil that endeavoured to cast him down. That he did most fully in both the first and second chapters. But at the end of the second chapter he was defeated and baffled, and went off, and never re-appeared.
It is the greatest mistake to suppose it is only the devil. In the millennium there will be sin and death when the devil is bound. In point of fact, the occasion of Job’s breaking out so violently was his three dear friends; and they were pious men, too. But what about that, unless you are guided of God? And that is the very thing that this Book is so instructive in – that we cannot trust to be led even by a pious man. With the best of intentions we require God’s guidance and to be kept to it. And it was these three pious men by their conduct, so far from God’s thoughts, so thoroughly judging by appearances, it was that that made them think that there must be something very bad in Job, after all his appearance, after all his life that seemed so fair, and after everybody thinking that there was nobody like Job. Certainly, if God said there was nobody like him, you may depend upon it that all pious people thought the same. And it was true, but still there was the great lack; because Job till he got Christ as an object, made an object of his own piety, and thought a great deal of himself.
It is one of the greatest mistakes that a believer can make – to think a great deal of himself. I think I drew attention to a beautiful word of the apostle Paul that teaches the very contrary – “esteeming others better than ourselves”; and that means any christian. And yet the christians may be full of faults in this way or that way. But still, who is the person whose faults I know better than anybody’s? My own. And therefore I can honestly and loyally count a man better than myself. I do not know his faults to be anything like the faults I know of myself. Of course, others have the very same and are called to the very same feeling, and they may have more reason, too; that is another question altogether. But we have to do with the fact that we know what we are, and we ought to know and it is a great thing to grow in knowing, that we are not only nothing for guidance, but we are worse than nothing in the sight of God. Our nature is declared to be the flesh in enmity against God. And that is what we know working out, Other people may not see it; other people may not have any reason to see it. But that is what every christian should know who is not like Job, admiring himself because he is not like other people. That is, he is like the Pharisee. “God, I thank thee I am not as other men.”
Yes, that is a very bad state; nothing could be worse – nothing worse in a believer. And these dear saints at that day were in imminent danger, every one of them, not even excepting Job. Job had a better knowledge of God, comparatively, than they; and Job stuck to it with amazing tenacity, first that all the trouble that came upon him was from God; that it was God who allowed it all to come upon him. He could have hindered every bit of it – and that he could not understand. Why, why, why? He had a thoroughly good conscience as far as that was concerned; he had no sin upon him at all, no particular defect of any sort. It was a question of self and not of sin; it was a question of never having judged himself in the presence of God fully.
I should like to know how many here in this room have judged themselves in that way now? I think they had better search and see. That is surely a very great lesson to learn, and it is a lesson that nobody likes to learn. It is always extremely painful, and it is very humbling to our comfortable thoughts of ourselves. Because we are occupied perhaps with the gospel, and we see that the gospel is completely clear. That does not touch self. It ought to lead to it; but it may not at all. And consequently there may be people most zealous in the gospel that are peculiarly ignorant of themselves – peculiarly so. They are generally occupied with other people, and have not much time for sober reflection and self-judgment; and therefore, active work in the Lord may become a snare unless in subjection to Christ. Then we learn in the power of God’s Spirit to judge everything of flesh in ourselves. That is where they were all wrong, and it is bringing out that clearly – that it is not merely a question of the righteous government of God; but it was then the secret of grace. Now the grace is published; now it is proclaimed; now it is preached; now it is manifested; and therefore, now it is a far more serious thing. And there was what these Galatians overlooked entirely. They had never learnt that yet; they were converted through the apostle; they were brought into the full joy of as good a gospel as ever was preached in this world – a great deal better than any of us preach it now. They were brought into that by the preaching of that blessed man – and yet they had not profited, to judge themselves. And it is this that we all need most deeply, in order that we may be kept from the snares that surround us, and which may spring upon us at any moment, even from friends just as dear as the three friends of Job. They were the occasion of this downfall, and that in a way that only God could have accomplished.
Well now, Bildad follows the line of Eliphaz, and says: “How long wilt thou speak these things?” He could not in the least understand it. “And how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind?” Because Job could not understand why, as he was quite sure of the perfection of God, quite sure of the faithfulness of God, quite sure that God loved him, quite sure that he loved God; ‘How has all this come upon me; what is the key to all this terrible suffering that I am sure God has sent?’ He would not lay it upon circumstances.
But there were, to add to the terrible agony that he passed through outwardly, inward agonies. It really was one billow after another overcoming this poor man in such a sea of trouble as never came upon any man since the world began. How was all that? He was stung by the insinuation of his friends (he held to it firmly that it was all false) that he was not a true man, and that he did not love God. He was not conscious of a single sin; nevertheless, he owned it was God. That was what made the riddle, and no wonder at all. It was impossible that it should not have been a riddle, in those days, except by special teaching of God. There was one that appeared later, and Elihu did in some measure understand; but it was the Lord who put an end to all the uncertainty.
Now that Christ has come, there is no ground for it; only, beloved friends, we may treat the gospel now very much as is done in Christendom, and regard it as pretty much the same thing as there has always been, only with a little more light – a sort of new edition of Judaism – improved, that is all. Whereas it is entirely new – it is an absolutely new creation, a new light altogether. It is not merely the dim torch, as it were, on the earth . it is the light of heaven revealed in our Lord Jesus They had none of that – none whatever. There was a looking for Him, but it was entirely in an earthly way. They looked to Him as the Messiah; they looked for Him as one who would meet their difficulties; but it was very, very shallow – anything that any one of them knew about it. We must not confound prophetic anticipations with the experience of the saints. The prophets did not always understand their own prophecy. They had to search and learn what the meaning was, just as you have to do now; but if you have all the prophecies, they do not give you what the gospel does.
The gospel is the revelation of God’s righteousness. They were all occupied with man’s righteousness produced by divine goodness, by faith, by looking for the Messiah; but they had no idea of the total judgment of man, and that this is an entirely new thing from God, communicated to the soul. This is what Christendom has never endured and never possessed. It has Christianity, but a very small amount of Christianity is quite enough for Christendom. Well, here then this man breaks out into this rebuke of Job for his extreme feeling. How could a man do anything but feel? And what were they about that they did not deeply feel for him? There they were, quite comfortable; and there they were, judging there must be something very bad; and I need not tell you that that deeply wounded the poor injured man. It was pouring vitriol into his wounds; it was not binding them with wine and oil, cleansing the wound, but, on the contrary, deepening and poisoning it.
And these were his three friends! What a lesson! Well, Bildad goes further, however. He says, “If thy children have sinned against him and he have cast them away for their transgression” – there they thought they had him. How could God do such a thing as to kill all his children unless there was something very bad in them? It was all the same principle, and the same false principle. And what shows the falsity of the principle is the universal test. Bring Christ in. Was it any want of God’s delight in Christ that allowed Christ to be the greatest sufferer, far beyond Job? It was therefore altogether a false estimate, and a false principle underneath the estimate, to imagine that there must be evil in the person that came to this depth of suffering.
“If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression” – they never could rise above that – “If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; if thou wert pure and upright” – ah! there they were at it again! It was not merely the children then that had transgression! “If thou wert pure and upright” – why, Job was much more so than they – “If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee.” Certainly not; the Lord was going to have the trial brought to its full completion; and He allowed all these discussions in order to bring out everything that was in their hearts, and then came He in with His own word completely casting down these principles which governed the three friends, and Job not able properly to answer them.
He could demolish their arguments, but that is a very’ different thing. A clever man could, of course, easily overthrow a foolish reasoning; but that is a very different thing from getting in the truth. The truth requires God and His word and His Spirit; and we never can have these in a difficulty except by entire dependence upon God. And if we have got any self-will at work. which was very much the case with Job as well as with his three friends – self-will is a most darkening thing – you never can have the certainty of the will of God where self-will is not steadily seen and judged as altogether beneath you. “Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase.”
Then he appeals to another thing. Eliphaz had spoken of his own personal experience. Bildad differs in the manner in which he defends their theme by bringing in the traditions of other people. Those are the two ways in which men are apt to slip away from the truth – confidence in self; confidence in other people no better than oneself; confidence in anyone but God. So he says,” Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age” – for people think that a little further back is where we should go. Why, beloved friends, we want to go back to the beginning; we want to go back to God’s beginning. People talk about the early fathers; well, that is a great deal too late; why do not they talk about the apostles? Because they are as far from them as they can possibly be! There is not the slightest resemblance – except the mere name of things – a totally different reality. And so it was here. Had they gone back to the garden of Eden? Ah, that is not a former age; that was the beginning where God manifested Himself.
They were all arguing on the ground of righteousness. Not one of them had taken in, up to this and for long after, any thought of grace. And Job only arrived at it at last by the intervention of God. There he was dust and ashes. There he took the place of nothingness and worse than nothingness; and then it was he was blessed; then it was that he was vindicated by God, and not till then. So Bildad goes on with this, “Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart?” But we want the words out of God’s heart; it is not any but His heart that can do. “Can the rush grow up without mire? Can the flag grow without water?” Well, that is just what their condition was – mire and water, no substance at all, but just mire and water; and their thoughts were no better than the flag that grew out of the water, or the reed that grew out of the mire. And he talks about the hypocrite being no better than a spider’s web. That is just exactly what they were, though they were not hypocrites; but still they were all wrong in their reasonings, and wrong reason is never better than a spider’s web.
And so he describes in a very lively and wonderful manner the man that had known the hypocrite, and all this was a sly hit at Job. There is where they were so very wrong. “He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. He is green before the sun, and his branch shooteth forth in his garden. His roots are wrapped about the heap” – to get a little strength from the heap – “and seeth the place of stones.” That is what the reed does in order to get tenacity. “If he destroys him from his place, than it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee”. That is the case with man upon the earth; he passes away, and his memory is so forgotten that the place itself even says it never saw him, or it was all completely forgotten. This he applies to the hypocrite. “Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man.” But God was trying and troubling the perfect at that very moment; they never could take this into their minds; they did not understand it nor believe it in the slightest degree, and hence their reasons were all false, and more than that, thoroughly unkind; and it is a sad thing to be unkind to what is good and true, as also it is a sad thing to be very kind to what is not good and what is not true. This is what they were about; that is where they got through want of the guidance of God, and of the truth.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
Chapter 8
So Bildad, the next friend, speaks up and he said,
How long will you speak these things? how long will your words of your mouth be like a [big, bag of] wind? Does God pervert judgment? or does the Almighty pervert justice? If your children have sinned against him, and he has cast them away for their transgression ( Job 8:2-4 );
And okay now, he’s getting on my kids. They’ve sinned and God wiped them out. And now you going to blame God?
If you would seek unto God before, and make your supplication to the Almighty; If you were pure and upright; surely he would awake for thee ( Job 8:5-6 ),
He would take up your cause.
and he would make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. Though your beginning was small, yet the latter end should be greatly increased. For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (For we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon the earth are like a shadow [on the sundial]:) Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? Can the rush grow up without mire? ( Job 8:6-11 )
Now picture the rushes growing up beside the river there in the mud along the river.
can the flags grow without water? While it is yet in his greenness, it is cut down, it withers before any other herb ( Job 8:11-12 ).
So Job, you’re like a reed that is growing up. But the mud dries up and while it is still green, you’re being cut off. The hypocrites are this way, Job. You must be a hypocrite.
So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish: Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider’s web. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand: he shall hold it fast, but it shall not endure. He is green before the sun, but his branch shoots forth in his garden. His roots are wrapped about as the heap, and he seeth the place of stones. If he destroys him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee. Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the earth shall others grow. Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evildoers: Till he fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with rejoicing. They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame; and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nothing ( Job 8:13-22 ).
Basically, Job is saying, “Look.” I mean, Bibdad is saying to Job, “God is fair, God is just. Plead your cause before God. Get right with God, Job, and everything is going to be okay. That’s your problem. You’re a hypocrite and what you need to do is just get right with God. Things will straighten out. You’ll be blessed and all again. But something’s wrong, Job. Can’t happen, you know, unless there’s something seriously wrong.” “
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Job 8:1-7
Job 8
BILDAD’S FIRST SPEECH:
BLUNT BLUSTERY BILDAD THINKS HE KNOWS THE ANSWER;
HIS BRUTAL; DISCOURTEOUS BEGINNING
Job 8:1-7
“Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,
How long wilt thou speak these things?
And how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a mighty wind?
Doth God pervert justice?
Or doth the Almighty pervert righteousness?
If thy children have sinned against him,
And he hath delivered them into the hand of their transgression;
If thou wouldest seek diligently unto God,
And make thy supplication unto the Almighty;
If thou wert pure and upright:
Surely now he would awake for thee,
And make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.
And though thy beginning was small,
Yet thy latter end would greatly increase.”
To paraphrase Bildad’s words: “You old bag of wind, how wrong you are! Doesn’t God know enough to give you just what you deserve? Your children sinned, and look what happened to them; but if you will just repent and turn to God he will yet richly bless you!
“This speech of Bildad’s was inconsiderate, unfeeling and discourteous.” “He insists that God is just; and that Job’s troubles are evidence of his wickedness, and that if he would only turn to God, all would be well again.” As Matthew Henry observed, “Job’s friends, like the messengers of his disasters, followed each other in rapid succession, the messengers with evil tidings, and his friends with harsh censures, perhaps both the messengers and the friends being unaware of how effectively they fitted into the design of Satan. The messengers were calculated to drive Job from his integrity; and the friends, chosen by the evil one, sought to drive him from the comfort of that integrity.”
A comparison of the speeches of Eliphaz and Bildad reveals that there was a progression. “Eliphaz, at first, was gentle and considerate, but Bildad was abrupt and harsh.”
“Bildad’s conviction that righteous living inevitably leads to prosperity is by no means obsolete.” This writer once attended the funeral of a well-known popular Sheriff in Burkburnet, Texas. He lost his life, trying to save the lives of others when, during a Red River flood, he crossed the threatened bridge to close the Oklahoma entrance. On the way back, he was swept away when 169′ feet of the bridge collapsed. In the conversations heard at the funeral, one said, “Well, I thought he was a good man; but evidently he was evil. Look what God did to him”!
Yes, as Bildad insisted in this speech, “This is the wisdom of the fathers” (Job 8:8); but how wrong it is! In our sin-cursed world, headed on a collision course with disaster, in outright rebellion against God, worshipping not the God of all grace, but the god of this world – Yes, in this world it is often, far too often, that it is the wicked who prosper, and the righteous who suffer. From the days of Abel who was slain because his deeds were righteous (1Jn 3:12) to the Christian woman who lost her job this week because she refused to participate in the immorality and drunkenness of her contemporaries, the total experience of the human race denies the glib theology of Job’s friends.
This age-old error is today prevalent in our own country. Hesser explained why. In the days of the great English writer Chaucer, “The ideal man was presented as the poor man; and the rich religious leaders of Medieval times were severely attacked in Canterbury Tales; but John Calvin taught that God would not justify reprobates by giving them prosperity. Successful business men were therefore honored as God’s elect. When the Calvinistic Puritans settled America, they brought with them this evil doctrine, along with other Calvinistic errors.” The near-universal habit of churches in choosing successful business men as their ruling committee reveals the influence of that old theology.
“If thy children have sinned against him (God)” (Job 8:4). Barnes wrote that the word “if,” as used here means “since”; and James James Moffatt’s translation of the Bible, 1929, agreed with this, rendering the passage, “Though your children sinned against him.”
Pope identified this verse as an important witness to the unity of the Book of Job: “This verse connects the Dialogue and the Prologue, indicating that the two are not independent compositions.”
Kelly properly noted that, “One purpose of the Book of Job is to challenge the mechanical view of life,” represented by Bildad’s speech. In Bildad’s view, the rich and prosperous people are the saints of God, and the poor, distressed and suffering people are the wicked. The stupidity of that view is matched only by that of the people who accept it.
Of course, God blesses his children; but their sufferings are inevitable because our whole human family, in the greatest extent, are dominated and controlled by that Evil One whom our progenitors chose to obey, rather than the Lord. “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven”! Luke’s account of this beatitude is, “Blessed are ye poor”!
E.M. Zerr:
Job 8:1-2. The three friends took turns speaking to Job, while he had to do all the talking for his side. In all of the speeches of the three we will see the same thread of thought, accusing Job of having done some great sin and receiving the afflictions as a punishment. In this paragraph Bildad charged Job with being what the modern language calls “a windy speaker.”
Job 8:3. This affirms that God is never unjust in any of his dealings, which was something that Job never denied.
Job 8:4-5. Bildad even intimated that the afflictions were because of the sin of Job’s children. But that theory will not hold good, for even if they had done wrong they were not living then. Neither would the afflictions of Job be in punishment for sins of his children committed before their death. In Job 1:5 we read that Job was faith- ful in atoning for all possible wrongs of his children.
Job 8:6. This is the same old doctrine of the three friends. Awake for thee means that God would be merciful to Job if he would purify himself by proper actions.
Job 8:7. Bildad unconsciously predicted the very thing that did occur (Job 42:12), but it did not come on account of the reasons that Bildad was assigning to it.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
In answer to Job, the next of his friends, Bildad, took up the argument. There is greater directness in his speech than in that of Eliphaz. By comparison it lacks in courtesy, but gains in force. He made no reference to Job’s attack on his friends, but proceeded to make one statement of the righteousness of God from two standpoints. He first protested against the idea which Job’s complaint had seemed to advance, that God’s dealings are ever unjust with the righteous (1-7). It would be better for him to recognize that his children had died on account of their sin, and himself turn to God. Next he affirmed that those who forget God can no more flourish than can the m h without mire, or the flag .without water. The paths of such as forget God are described with great force (8-19). The two things are then summarized (20):
God will not cast away a perfect man, Neither will He uphold the evildoers.
This is followed by an expression of hope concerning Job. Here again we have the same general thought as appeared in the speech of Eliphaz, namely, that God is righteous, and prospers the just, and punishes evil. No direct charge was made against Job. He was left to make his own deduction and application.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
God Will not Cast Away
Job 8:1-22
Bildad now takes up the argument, appealing to the experience of former generations to show that special suffering, like Jobs, indicated special sin, however deeply concealed. He feels that God could not pervert judgment, and that the sudden destruction of Jobs children proved that they had transgressed.
Job 8:11-13 are probably quoted from an old poem, embodying the sententious observation of some older generation, which compared the ungodly to the rapid growth and more rapid destruction of the papyrus plant. Job 8:14-15 compare the state of the ungodly to the slight fabric of the spiders web, fine-spun, flimsy, and insecure. Job 8:16-19 employ yet another comparison-that of the weeds, which grow to rank luxuriance, spreading over heaps of stones and even walls, which they are figuratively said to see in the distance and creep toward; the very earth is ashamed of them, as presently they lie withered on the path. But notice the assurances that God will uphold all those who return to Him. Be of good cheer; thou shalt yet praise Him!
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Job 8:7
Little beginnings in your hearts will lead to great ends.
I. The first thing I should mention is the little feeling that people have in their own hearts about their sin. Josiah was a very good boy. What is said about him? “Because thine heart was tender, and thou didst humble thyself before God” (2Ch 34:27). That was a sure beginning.
II. Sometimes we feel a battle in our hearts, a struggle, something good and something naughty. They seem to fight. At last we get the victory over something. That is a sure beginning when boys or girls begin to feel a struggle in their own hearts, because by nature people feel no struggle. So God said to Adam and Eve, “I will put enmity”-a struggle. It is a sign for good.
III. Notice another thing-beginning to feel an interest in good things. Some children do not like going to church, reading their Bibles they think stupid and dull, and they only do it because they must. When a boy or girl finds a pleasure in these things, then there is a good beginning.
IV. When you try to be useful, when you begin to be religious, you will want to do good things. Your small things will become great things; that is, your soft heart will get softer, till it becomes quite soft enough to take the impression of God’s image. The struggle with sin will go on till you get a victory over your own sins and over Satan, and you will come forth more than conquerors. Your pleasure in good things will increase; you will go on and on in usefulness while you live, till finally you will go to that place where “His servants shall serve Him” throughout eternity.
J. Vaughan, Children’s Sermons, 1875, p. 82.
Reference: Job 8:7.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vi., p. 311.
Job 8:9
One only appears in the centuries of human existence who speaks of immortality as One who knows He is the most lowly of the sons of men. Yet He talks of providence, of immortality, as God might talk, could His voice come down to us from the eternal silence. He does not reason, but declares truths beyond the range, above the scope, of reasoning. He came forth alive from His own sepulchre, thus attesting the non-reality of death, the continuity of life through the death-slumber.
I. If God is our Father, if He exercises a loving providence over us, if He hears our prayers, if He has ordained for us a life beyond death, how shall we know it? Nature is voiceless. Revelation alone can meet these desires of ours, can answer these questions which every awakened consciousness must ask. Jesus Himself is the best proof of the Divinity of the revelation which He gave, or rather which He was and is. His is the most potent spirit that ever dwelt on the earth; His is the mightiest force at work in our world.
II. Here then, in Him “who hath abolished death, and hath brought life and immortality to light,” we have our sure resort and remedy under the depressing consciousness of which our text gives us the formula. Taught by Jesus, we can say, I am not lost; I am not forgotten in the crowd of beings, in the crush of worlds. Thou who art the life of all that live hast made me, in my littleness and lowliness, the partaker of Thine own immortality.
A. P. Peabody, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 273.
References: Job 8:11-13.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 651. Job 8:13.-Preacher’s Monthly, vol. v., p. 62. Job 8-Expositor, 1st series, vol. v., p. 26. Job 9:13.-Ibid., 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 286. Job 9:21.-Ibid., vol. iv., p. 286. Job 9:25, Job 9:26.-J. Budgen, Parochial Sermons, p. 102. Job 9:30-35.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. v., p. 192.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 8 Bildads Address
1. How long, Job? (Job 8:1-7)
2. Enquire of the former age (Job 8:8-10)
3. Gods dealing with the wicked and the righteous (Job 8:11-22)
Job 8:1-7. Bildad the Shuhite now speaks to Job. He is less dogmatic than Eliphaz, and less courteous, but more outspoken. He must have lost his patience listening to Jobs reply. Especially does he resent what Job had said about God, the insinuations which had fallen from his lips. But we shall see he too follows the logic of Eliphaz, that God punishes Job for his sins. He starts in at once to rebuke Job for what he had said. How long, Job, wilt thou speak these things? How long shall the words of thy mouth be like a mighty wind? By the latter expression he insinuates that Jobs speech was tempestuous like the wind, and as empty as the wind. He declares, what certainly is the truth, that God cannot be unrighteous. In this way Bildad called a decisive halt to the dangerous utterances Job had made, forced to it by Eliphazs cold and dogmatic assertions. Job, inasmuch as he repudiated the accusation of being a sinner, and being punished for his sins, was rapidly approaching the verge of charging God with being unjust. Then Bildad deals a cruel blow to the man upon the ash-heap. He tries to illustrate the principle he defends, that God only punishes sinners, by the children of Job, that they sinned and were wicked and therefore God dealt with them in His righteousness. It has been freely rendered in this wise:
It may be thy sons gainst Him have sinned
And He, through their rebellion, cut them off.
How that must have pained Job! Then he exhorts Job to seek God diligently and it would not be in vain. He has his ifs. if thou wouldest seek unto God–and–If thou wert pure and upright.
Job 8:8-10. But he is a traditionalist. He appeals to the past. For inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and apply thyself to that which their fathers have searched out. We, in our generation, are but of yesterday, and know nothing. Zophar also appealed to the fathers.
Job 8:11-22. And here we have the wisdom of Bildad as he learned it from the past. It is all true and sublimely stated; the wicked cannot prosper; their doom is certain. On the other hand God will not cast off the perfect man. But Job is in the place of one who is cast off, therefore he must belong to the wicked who do not prosper. This is hidden beneath Bildads rhetoric. Yet beautiful are the closing sentences of his first address, the truth of which was fully acknowledged by Job in his reply.
But perfect men God never casts away
Nor takes He evil-doers by the hand.
Wait! Then one day He fills thy mouth
With laughter and thy lips with joyous shouts.
And they who hate thee shall be clothed with shame,
And tents of wicked men exist no more.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Bildad
Bildad is a religious dogmatist of the superficial kind, whose dogmatism rests upon tradition (e.g.) Job 8:8-10 and upon proverbial wisdom and approved pious phrases. These abound in all his discourses. His platitudes are true enough, but then every one knows them.; Job 9:1; Job 9:2; Job 13:2 nor do they shed any light on such a problem as Job’s.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Bildad: Job 2:11
Reciprocal: Job 4:1 – answered Job 18:1 – Bildad Job 42:7 – Eliphaz
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
As Job closed his reply to Eliphaz, he made the confession, “I have sinned,” realizing that God is the Observer of mankind. We might have expected that Bildad, as he began to speak, would have made some allusion to this, but he does not appear to do so. Instead he accused him of uttering words like the blowing of a strong wind, and, to maintain the rightness of all God’s judgments, he insinuated that Job’s children must have been cast away as the penalty of their transgression. This must have been a bitter stroke at Job, since he had so regularly offered sacrifice on their behalf. Nevertheless he advised Job that if only he would be upright and seek God, he would be blessed in his latter end.
In verses Job 8:8-10, Bildad revealed his own standpoint in the argument that was developing. He set great store by the accumulated treasures of human wisdom. Even in these remote times it was possible to search in the records preserved from even remoter times. If Eliphaz argued from his own observation – what he personally had seen, – Bildad argued from tradition – what could be learned from the records of earlier days. He distrusted a deduction from one’s personal experience, since the days of a man upon earth are but “a shadow.”
Hence in the rest of the chapter he summarized what tradition would teach, illustrating his point by things in nature, like the rush and the spider’s web. He claimed that all history showed that God requited man according to his deserts. If evil, he is cut off. If good, he is prospered. To tell Job that, “the hypocrite’s hope shall perish,” was a cut this time not at Job’s children but at Job himself.
This brought forth from Job the striking words recorded in Job 9:1-35. He began by acknowledging the rightness of God’s disciplinary ways, but raised the all-important question, as to how a man could be right with God. In our day the pithy sentence, “Get right with God,” has been used to awaken interest in the Gospel message. It might well provoke the reply, “Yes, but how is it to be achieved?” This is just the enquiry that Job made in verse Job 8:2, and the rest of the chapter reveals how earnest and sincere he was in asking it, for he suggested and examined four possible answers. Each suggestion commences with an, “If.”
The first is of course verse Job 8:3. Supposing man adopts a defiant attitude and contends with God; what then? Disaster, and no justification! Sin has made mankind into rebels, hence to defy God is their first instinct. But Job saw how ruinous such an attitude would be. God is so infinitely great that no rebel can prosper, and down to verse Job 8:19 he continues this theme. The earth and the heavens with their constellations proclaim the Creator’s greatness and glory.
At verse Job 8:20, Job suggested another possible answer, How could he be just with God? Well, could he justify himself? This would at least mean a forsaking of the defiant attitude and the tacit admission of being wrong, and thus needing to be justified. Self-justification is a very attractive proposition, yet Job only stated it to dismiss the idea as impracticable. He knew he had only to open his mouth to condemn himself. Moreover he who would justify himself before the searching eye of God must be able to establish his own perfection. Nothing short of that would satisfy, as verse Job 8:20 shows. He went on to assert that even if he were perfect God would judge and destroy him, for he only knew perfection as it is estimated according to human standards.
In verse 27, we find his third “If…” He could not defy the God of heaven nor could he justify himself: then should he give up hope, abandon his quest for the answer, and give himself up to the careless pursuit of enjoyment? Human nature has not changed, for many of us have pursued just the line of thought which Job disclosed here; only he immediately discarded the idea, realizing how vain it was. If we carelessly forget, God does not forget. The sinner will not evade the judgment of God by declining to face the question.
The fourth “If…” occurs in verse 30. Job has discarded three suggested answers to his question those of defiance, of self-justification, of careless forgetfulness. What about a course of self-improvement? Would that help in the solution of the question? He has only to state it, to reject it with equal decision. He knew that melted snow would give distilled water of the purest kind, having the greatest power of absorbing and removing defilement. The figure he used is most graphic. If he achieved something like this in his own character and life, what then? Why, God would plunge him in a dirty ditch as the only fit place for him. And even then, he himself, beneath his clothes, would be dirtier than they! The defilement was in himself and not in his surroundings. His rejection of the idea of achieving justification by a process of self-improvement could not be more decisive.
How evident it is that Job knew that he was a sinful creature before his holy Creator, and that he possessed in himself no means of getting right. That being so, his only hope was in the intervention of a third party; but no such third party, or “daysman,” was known to him. His three friends could not act the part, nor could any other man, since the daysman must be great enough to lay one of his hands upon Almighty God, and gracious enough to lay the other upon poor diseased and sinful Job.
How pathetic are the words that close this chapter! If only there were an efficient intermediary, how different it would be; but, says Job, “it is not so with me.” Have we ever thanked God with sufficient fervour that it is so with us? The fact is that though he may not have known it, Job was sighing for the advent of CHRIST. We can now rejoice in the “one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus” (1Ti 2:5). By Him the ransom price was paid, so that it is possible for a man to be just with God.
But for Job there was no apparent answer to his question, so we are not surprised that Job 10:1-22 is filled with his further words of complaint and sorrow coupled with pathetic appeals to God. He had just said of God, “He is not a man, as I am,” hence he was aware that he was as nothing before His holy eyes, that searched him through and through. In verse Job 8:2 he appealed to God to show him the reason why He contended with him by these disasters. In verse Job 8:6 he again admitted “iniquity” and “sin,” yet in the next verse he said, “Thou knowest that I am not wicked,” using this term evidently in the sense in which Eliphaz uses it when we come to Job 22:15.
Yet, on the other hand, he knew that God’s standards were far higher than his, and hence woe would come upon him if he were wicked, and that even if he were righteous he could not lift up his head in the presence of God. He was filled with confusion; his affliction increased; he again complained that he had ever been born, and as to the future he had no light. Death was to him as “a land of darkness,” as we see in verses Job 8:21-22. We have to pass on to New Testament days to get such a word as that, “the true light now shineth” (1Jn 2:8).
Yet even today there are all too many who regard death as the taking of “a leap in the dark.” And indeed it is that to them if the Christ, presented to them in the Gospel, be neglected or rejected. For such there is no excuse, whilst for Job there was every excuse. Again we affirm that the gloom of this excellent saint of Old Testament days should move us to much thanksgiving to God, who has brought us out of darkness into His “marvellous light.”
In Job 11:1-20 we have the brief speech of Zophar, the third of Job’s friends, and reading it, we note that his tone is a little more severe even than Bildad’s was. Possibly he was irritated by the fact that Job had not accepted the charges and arguments of the other two, but it was overshooting the mark and unfriendly to charge him with a “multitude of words,” of being “full of talk,” of uttering “lies,” and of mocking. Nor had he claimed to be “clean” in the sight of God. Zophar does not as yet reveal the standpoint from which he speaks, but he oracularly declared that Job really deserved from God’s hands severer punishment than he was getting. Seeing that his suffering exceeded any other of which we have record, and that the discussion centred around God’s disciplinary dealings in this life, and did not look into eternity, this again strikes us as harsh and dogmatic in the extreme.
From verse Job 8:7 onwards, however, he did say some striking things that have truth in them, as other Scriptures show. It is indeed true that man cannot by his searching find out God. It is equally true that man, being sinful, is “vain,” or, “empty,” or, “senseless,” and is born like “a wild ass’s colt.” Zophar evidently felt that Job needed to recognize these things, without much consciousness of how they applied to himself. If the men of this twentieth century recognized them, it would puncture their inflated pride. They may find out means of destroying human lives by the hundred thousand, but they cannot find out God. He can only be found in Christ, who has revealed Him.
Zophar’s final words of counsel (verses Job 8:13-20) also have truth in them. Verse Job 8:14 in the New Translation begins, “If thou put far away the iniquity which is in thy hand;” that is, he again assumes, like the others, that Job is after all an evil man, holding tight to his sins. Here he was wrong, though his counsel to put away evil and turn to God was good, and his description of the happy result of so doing was correct enough.
Job 12:1-25. The tone of extreme dogmatism so noticeable in Zophar’s utterance, no doubt prompted Job to begin his reply on a very sarcastic note. His words, “No doubt but ye are the people, and wisdom shall die with you,” have almost passed into a proverb, to be used against the dogmatism of self-conceit. He claimed to have understanding equal to his friends, and in verse Job 8:5 he reminded them that he, who was in this slippery place, shone like a warning lamp, only to be despised by those who were in easy and comfortable circumstances, as his friends were.
In verse Job 8:6 Job challenged the main position that his friends had taken. They asserted that God always rewards the pious with earthly prosperity and visits disaster upon the head of the wicked. He maintained that it was not so, but that there were cases when robbers prospered and those who provoked God were secure. In proof of this he referred to what could be seen in the lower creation – beasts, birds and fishes. He alluded, we suppose, to the disorder that the sin of man has introduced even there, so that the weaker meet with disaster and destruction from the stronger, and all this by the permission of God. Just as the mouth tastes meat so had his ear tried their words, and found them worthless.
From verse Job 8:13 to the end of this chapter Job reviewed the ways of God in His dealings with men. He acknowledged that “wisdom and strength” are His as well as “counsel and understanding.” Yet he felt that God’s exercise of these wonderful qualities were full of mystery. Again and again those who are great and wise – counsellors, judges, kings, princes – are spoiled and overthrown. He lived in days when, after the flood, nations had come into being. He had seen such increased and then destroyed. Men, who had been so wise as to become chief among the people, suddenly lose their understanding and grope in the dark without a light, or stagger like a drunken man. Now why was this?
Eliphaz had based his condemnation of Job on what he himself had observed. Well, Job too had powers of observation, and he had seen all these things of which he had just spoken, as he affirmed in the opening verses of Job 13:1-28. He did not claim to be superior to his friends, but at any rate he was not their inferior, yet he acknowledged that God’s dealings mystified him, being far above and out of his sight. So, as verse Job 8:3 indicates, what he desired was to speak to the Almighty and reason with God, rather than spend his time in reasoning with his friends.
Still, there his friends were, and we can see that by this time Job had been goaded into retorts of a more biting kind. What he wanted was truth for his mind and healing for his body. They were only “forgers of lies,” and “physicians of no value.” He counselled them to hold their peace and listen to what he had to say; and up to verse Job 8:13 he continued in this strain. He felt they had talked as though speaking on God’s behalf, and in so doing had misrepresented Him. In this, no doubt, Job judged rightly.
In verses Job 8:14-19, God, rather than his friends, is before the mind of Job. We can discern two conflicting elements. On the one hand, there was a remarkable spirit of faith, which led him to take all that had transpired from His hand and not concern himself with the agents of the disasters, which had stopped short of his death. He had desired to die, and if God should answer this request and slay him, he would not lose confidence but still trust in Him. This indeed was excellent, but at the same time Job revealed his very weak spot in his determination to “maintain,” or “defend” his own ways before Him. So we see that in a true saint very real faith in God may exist, and yet be marred by a very determined measure of self-esteem. This it is, which gives such great value to this remarkable book, since the flesh in us, who are saints today, is just the same as it was in Job some four thousand years ago.
Thus it is, that Job proclaimed that God would be his salvation and that ultimately he would be justified. But in verse Job 8:20 he more definitely addressed himself to God. He accepted his sorrows as being from the hand of God and asked that His hand might be removed from him, so that he might stand before Him on easier terms. Verse 23 shows that directly Job felt himself to be before God he acknowledged iniquity and sins. He wished to know how many they were, since he felt, as the succeeding verses reveal, that the retribution he was suffering went beyond his real deserts. He was like a man with his feet in the stocks, and thus an easy target for those who wished to throw things at him.
As we read his words, we cannot but feel the pathos of them, and are not surprised at his cry of lamentation, which opens Job 14:1-22. In the far-off days of Job human life was perhaps three times longer than it is today; yet it was after all “of few days,” and then it was “full of trouble,” just as it is today, so that viewed in the light of the eternal God, he is but like a fading flower or a fleeting shadow. Job was conscious of this as regards himself and so he knew he could not stand the Divine inspection, nor stand before Him in judgment. Moreover he knew that he was not clean in the sight of God, and he was sure no one could produce the clean out of the unclean.
The Authorised Translation in verse Job 8:4, puts the word thing, in italics. Darby’s New Translation inserts rather the word, man. This is another of the tremendous questions that Job asks, and this time he answers it – quite rightly too. No man can accomplish it in himself, and much less achieve it for others. Moreover, when we turn to the New Testament, we find that God does not propose to do it. The error that troubled the Galatians was the idea that the law had been given to clean men up, and hence even Christians had to put themselves under it and accept circumcision as the sign of it, in order to lead clean lives. The emphatic word correcting this is, “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision availeth any thing, nor uncircumcision, but a new creation” (Gal 6:15). The believer is not the “old man” cleaned up. He is newly created in Christ, with a nature which in its essential character “cannot sin,” as affirmed in 1Jn 3:9.
Man being of few days, his life in this world must terminate in death, and the time when he goes is determined by God, as verse Job 8:5 states. But, what then? Job felt he was just like an hireling filling out his day, and he wished that God would give him rest until the end came. But again, what then?
We have to pass on to verse Job 8:14 before we find him actually stating the third tremendous question that filled his mind, but evidently it was in his mind as he commenced his argument in verse Job 8:7. He did not know how a man could be “just,” or “right” with God. He knew that no man could produce that which is clean out of that which is unclean. And now comes the question, “If a man die, shall he live again?” As yet, on this point, no clear and decisive light was shining before him, and in his heart.
This being so, he started to reason the matter out. He took the analogy of a tree, which had been felled, when for long its root had been in the earth. He had seen the years pass so that the stump that was left had begun to decay. Yet a change had come. Something had happened, an earth-tremor had perhaps cracked the rocks and opened up a fresh channel for water to reach its roots. Then, as a consequence, the dead tree had come to life and sprouted again. The hope of Job was that something like that lay before mankind.
Evidently boo it was more than a hope, for in verse Job 8:12 he infers that men will “awake,” and “be raised out of their sleep,” but that this would not come to pass, “till the heavens be no more.” How true this is, as to the masses of mankind who die in their sins, we see when we read Rev 20:11-15. We must remember that the fact of there being a resurrection of the just a full thousand years before the resurrection of the unjust, had not come to light in the days of Job. Verse Job 8:13 makes it manifest that Job in his mind connected the fact of resurrection with the manifestation of God’s wrath, from which he desired to be hid, and the rather to be remembered in mercy.
The words of Job in verses Job 8:14-15 are very remarkable. We may often have wondered how the faith of an Abraham embraced such things as are recorded in Heb 11:10; Heb 11:16, seeing that in his day there was no public revelation of these heavenly things, as far as the Scripture record goes. So with Job here. He recognized that he had an ” appointed time,” when his “change” would come; that there would be a Divine “call,” to which he would “answer,” inasmuch as he was a “work” of God’s hands. In thus speaking he was taught of God, as we can see in the light of the New Testament.
We pause to ask if we have ever thanked God in any adequate way that we walk in the light of the resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ from the dead? Have we ever given sufficient weight in our souls to the statement of the Apostle Paul in 2Ti 1:10, which in the New Translation reads, “Our Saviour Jesus Christ, who has annulled death, and brought to light life and incorruptibility by the glad tidings.” Immortality is not the word here. That the soul of man survived death, and resurrection lay ahead, was believed in Old Testament times, as Job’s words here show, and as the Lord made plain in controversy with the Sadducees of His day. What was not made known was that for the saint resurrection will mean entrance upon a new and incorruptible order of things. This was demonstrated when our Lord rose from the dead. Hence we have.no need to discuss the matter and reason it out, as Job does here. The whole truth of it has been plainly revealed.
Thus Job had a certain measure of hope and expectation but, as the closing verses of the chapter show, all was for the moment swallowed up in the miseries of his present situation. Once more the speech of Job ends upon a note of gloom. His last word is “mourn.”
There can be no doubt that the excellent men who lived before Christ did view death in that light. A striking exhibition of it is seen in the case of Hezekiah – read what he committed to writing, recorded in Isa 38:9-14. The day had not yet dawned when a saint could look death full in the face and write of “having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better.” Again we say, how great the privilege of living in this Gospel day!
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Job 8:1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite Bildad, whose sentiments are the same with those of the preceding friend, now comes to the attack, and tells Job that his general asseverations of innocence are of no avail; that to deny his guilt was to charge the Almighty with injustice; that, if he would not yield to the arguments of Eliphaz, drawn from his experience, and strengthened by revelation, he would do well to pay respect to the general experience of mankind, as handed down by tradition; where he would find it established, as a certain truth, that misery was the infallible consequence of wickedness; that therefore they could not argue wrong who inferred from actual misery antecedent guilt: and though he might urge that these calamities were fallen upon him on account of his childrens wickedness, yet he only deceived himself; for in that case God might have indeed chastised them for their crimes, but he would, by no means, have destroyed the innocent with the guilty: he would rather have heaped his blessings on the innocent person, that the contrast might have vindicated his providence. He would have even wrought a miracle for the preservation or restoration of such a person; and he concludes that since, from the known attributes of God, it was impossible he should cut off the innocent, or suffer the guilty to go free; and, as no interposition of providence had happened in his behalf, he thought him in a likely way, by his utter destruction, to prove a terrible example of the truth of that principle which they had urged against him. Heath and Dodd.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 8:7. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should be great. Many great patriarchs, like Jacob, had once but a small beginning.
Job 8:11. Can the rush grow. The LXX read, the papyrus, the leaf of which was used as paper among the Egyptians; and the tallipot leaf is used in a similar manner in India.
Job 8:15. He shall lean upon his house. The LXX, Though he moat his house; i.e. with a ditch or drain, and parapet; yet it shall not stand. This reading relieves the text of the idea of leaning on his house. Schultens vaguely quotes here an Arabian proverb, that those who trust to any thing but God, build their house like that of a spider, and the spiders house is a weak one.
REFLECTIONS.
Bildad having entered into all the views of Eliphaz, in Jobs case, here rises to give the counterpart of his friends speech. He seems almost impatient with Job, that in all his bitter complaints, he had made but a slight and common mention of sin. Therefore conceiving the spotless tribunal of divine justice to be tacitly arraigned for so severely afflicting the innocent, he stands forward to advocate the cause of heaven, and to silence the bitter complaints of a man under the righteous strokes of God. Lest Job should reject his pleas on the ground of inexperience, he owns he was of yesterday, that he might appeal to antiquity with irresistible force. Doth God, he asks as Abraham when pleading for Sodom, pervert judgment? Gen 18:25. Enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and search the records of the fathers.
The advocate for the equity of providence is emboldened to plead against Job, because, if he were pure and upright, God would surely now awake, being roused by piercing complaints, and make his habitation prosperous. He would follow his ancient rule; be his friend, and not his foe. Bildad by saying if thou wert pure, first takes it for granted that Job was impure; and secondly, that if he were pure, God would now arise to deliver him. Here he doubly erred. God will indeed deliver the righteous, but he will do it in his own time. The appeal to antiquity farther emboldened him to plead against Job, because it was clear from all their wise sayings, that the wicked can no more prosper than an aquatic plant can flourish in a dry soil; it droops and withers before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God; so the hypocrites hope shall perish. He weaves himself a fine cobweb, but it tears with a touch. He builds himself an inviting house, but it falls by a slight pressure; he adorns his gardens, but they wither as the wilderness. Here is the termination of all his joys: and he being rooted out, others shall grow up in his place.
From this highly figurative speech of Bildad, we may farther perceive how grossly, wise men may err in their views of providence and grace. They wade through every branch of literature: they dig in the mines of history, and store their minds with heaps of knowledge: but for want of experience and deep attention, they often wretchedly fail in drawing forth from their mental store, just conclusions concerning providence, and sound maxims for life and conduct. Bildad, in a general view, was perfectly right in his conclusions when he appealed to the fathers. The vast line of worthy patriarchs were certainly flourishing and happy in their lives: and Shaddai was to them an alsufficient defence. But did no temporary clouds obscure the lustre of their meridian sun? What befel Abel; what did Noah suffer at the deluge; and what did Abraham feel when Sarah was detained? Therefore we should be diffident in judging of providence, and sober in all our conclusions. Providence is a grand theatre of knowledge where God presides, and sheds rays of wisdom on a world of pupils, just as fast as they are able to imbibe their lustre.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 8:1-7. Opening of Bildads First Speech.The two younger friends, says Duhm, make a less favourable impression than Eliphaz. Bildads great point is the discriminating rectitude of God, who unfailingly rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked. His whole idea of fortune and misfortune is even more mechanical than that of Eliphaz. The idea that God remains an unchangeable factor, and the relation of man to Him only changes, comes out if possible even more clearly in opposition to Jobs idea of a God who has changed and may again change his relation to him. The other point of importance in Bildads speech is that he supports his doctrine, not like Eliphaz from revelation, but from the wisdom of the ancients.
Bildad, in beginning his speech, passes over in complete silence all that Job has said as to the lack of sympathy evinced by the friends. He expresses the dislike, natural to the sober man that he is, of Jobs passionateness, and above all of Jobs doubts of Gods righteousness; for such to him was the meaning of Jobs why, though Job himself was really more concerned about Gods love. He says in a very few words all that can be said from his miserable standpoint (Duhm). God is righteous (Job 8:3). Jobs children have perished; that proves that they were sinners outright. Read (cf. mg.), If thy children have sinned against him. He has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. Job, however, has not been wiped out of existence as a hopeless sinner, but God is calling him to repentance. If he repents, God will show His regard for his righteousness in no uncertain manner by a visible restoration to prosperity (Job 8:5-7). Bildad unhesitatingly interprets the facts by his dogma. His counsel to Job is the same as that of Eliphaz, but it is much more bluntly and curtly stated. Bildad wastes no words.
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
BILDAD’S CRUEL RESPONSE
(vv.1-22)
Bildad’s response to Job was much more brief than that of Eliphaz, but following along the same line. He did not begin in the conciliatory way that Eliphaz did, however, not even attempting to show any understanding of Job’s feelings. Rather, he spoke as one exasperated, immediately accusing Job of allowing words to issue from his mouth that were only “a strong wind” (v.2). “Does God subvert judgment? Or does the Almighty pervert justice?” he asks (v.3). He was ignorant of how God was dealing with Job, but was sure God was punishing him righteously, though he had no knowledge of any actual evil on Job’s part.
Then he makes a cruel thrust at Job by suggesting that Job’s sons had died because they had sinned against God, so that God coldly cast them away for their transgressions (v.4). This was not true, but what was Job to answer? Thus, Bildad condemned Job’s dead sons, then proceeded to attack Job himself, telling him that if he would earnestly seek God in supplication and if he were pure and upright, then God would surely immediately awake for him and turn his misery into prosperity (vv.5-6). Of course in this he implied that Job had not been pure and upright and had not before earnestly sought God. But now, if he would do as Bildad advised, Job’s end would increase abundantly, though his beginning was small (v.7).
Eliphaz had appealed to his own observation in supposing that Job was guilty of some secret sin (ch.4:8), but his observation settled nothing. Now Bildad appealed to tradition , “Inquire, please, of the former age, and consider things discovered by their fathers; for we were born yesterday, and know nothing, because our days on earth are a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words from their heart?” (vv.8-10). Actually, in this Bildad contradicted what Eliphaz had said, for if Eliphaz had only been born “yesterday”, what value was his observation? But Bildad’s appeal to tradition was just as empty as the appeal of Eliphaz to observation, for Bildad came to the wrong conclusion also.
Yet Bildad had much to say that was right and good. The papyrus will not grow without a marsh, nor the reeds without water (v.11). There is always a reason for things developing, but Bildad did not interpret that reason accurately in Job’s case. Also he says that a reed may wither while yet green, and he uses this as a simile for those who forget God (vv.11-12). True enough, but he was suggesting wrongly that Job had forgotten God, and the fact that Job’s hope seemed to be perishing indicated that he must be a hypocrite (v.13). It is certainly true that the hypocrite’s hope shall perish, but to apply this to Job was totally unfair.
Bildad saw that Job’ confidence had been shaken, and considered his confidence was “cut off,” as though he had been trusting a spider’s web (v.14). He further says, “He leans on his house, but it does not stand” (v.15). Of course he is thinking of the fact that Job had depended on the stability of his house, but it had collapsed: all his family was gone.
In verses 16 and 17 he speaks of the hypocrite at first growing green in the sun, his branches spreading out, his roots wrapped around the rock heap, seemingly prospering well. But he may be destroyed from his place, with his place denying that it had ever seen him (v.18), that is, with no evidence that he had ever been prosperous. This description may be true indeed of the hypocrite in his eventual exposure and humiliation, but Bildad hinted that since Job had suffered things similar to the destruction he speaks of, therefore Job must be a hypocrite! But Bildad did not yet know the end of the story, and his assumptions were ill-considered and false.
“Behold, this is the joy of his way” (v.19), that is, the joy of the hypocrite is only brief and ends abruptly. “And out of the earth others will grow.” The hypocrites will be forgotten, for others will be born to take their place. In contrast to this, “God will not cast away the blameless, “while He will not uphold evil doers (v.20). If Job were blameless, God would fill Job’s mouth with laughing and his lips with rejoicing (v.21). No doubt Bildad was implying that Job could even yet find such blessing if he would return to living a blameless life. Then also, even those who hated Job would be clothed with shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked would be reduced to nothing (v.20). He did not mean to say that Job was wicked, but that the wicked who opposed Job would then be subdued.
If we consult the psalms of David, we shall find that David had a far better understanding of God’s ways than either Eliphaz or Bildad expressed, and far better also than Job understood when passing through his dreadful ordeal. Psa 11:4-5 tells us, “The Lord is in His holy temple, the Lord’s throne is in heaven; His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men. The Lord tests the righteous.” Faith recognises that the Lord is high above us, His wisdom infinitely greater than we realise. And from His place of highest authority, He tests the children of men. This is through adversity and trouble. No doubt He tests all men, but when some fail the test they are virtually discarded. What then? Then “the Lord tests the righteous.” He gives them additional trouble to test them thoroughly. Job only learned this later.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
3. Bildad’s first speech ch. 8
Bildad agreed with Eliphaz that God was paying Job back for some sin he had committed, and he believed God would show Job mercy if he confessed that sin. However, Bildad built his conclusions on a slightly different foundation. Eliphaz argued from his own personal experience and observations (Job 4:8; Job 4:12-21). Bildad cited a more reliable authority: the experience of past generations that had come down through years of tradition (Job 8:8-10). He was a traditionalist whereas Eliphaz was an existentialist.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The justice of God 8:1-7
Bildad’s initial words contrast with Eliphaz’s. Whereas Eliphaz was gentle and indirect, Bildad was impatient and insensitive. He accused Job of being a blow-hard (Job 8:2).
"Bildad is objective and analytical in his speech about God and man. As a result he is a neat but superficial thinker. He is a moralist, and in his simple theology everything can be explained in terms of two kinds of men-the blameless (tam, Job 8:20 a; used of Job in Job 1:1) and the secretly wicked (hanep, Job 8:13 b). Outwardly the same, God distinguishes them by prospering the one and destroying the other." [Note: Andersen, p. 140.]
Bildad’s callous reference to the death of Job’s children (Job 8:4) amounts to: "They got just what they deserved!" His point was that if Job was not sinning, God would be unjust in allowing him to suffer calamities. He asserted that God does not punish righteousness (Job 8:6; Job 8:20). He erroneously assumed his basic premise that all suffering is punishment for sin, the retributive dogma.
"Obviously the friends’ theology was far more important than Job." [Note: Bullock, p. 34.]
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
XIX.
VENTURESOME THEOLOGY
Job 8:1-22
BILDAD SPEAKS
THE first attempt to meet Job has been made by one who relies on his own experience and takes pleasure in recounting the things which he has seen. Bildad of Shuach, on the other hand, is a man who holds to the wisdom of the fathers and supports himself at all times with their answers to the questions of life. Vain to him is the reasoning of one who sees all as through coloured glass, everything of this tint or that, according to his state or notions for the time being. The personal impression counts for nothing with Bildad. He finds no authority there. In him we have the Catholic theologian opposing individualism. Unfortunately he fails in the power most needed, of distinguishing chaff from grain. Back to antiquity, back to the fathers, say some; but, although they profess the excellent temper of reverence, there is no guarantee that they will not select the follies of the past instead of its wisdom to admire. Everything depends upon the man, the individual, after all, whether he has an open mind, a preference if not a passion for great ideas. There are those who go back to the apostles and find only dogmatism, instead of the glorious breadth of Divine poetry and hope. Yea, some go to the Light of the World, and report as their discovery some pragmatical scheme, some weak arrangement of details, a bondage or a futility. Bildad is not one of these. He is intelligent and well-informed, an able man, as we say; but he has no sympathy with new ideas that burst the old wine skins of tradition, no sympathy with daring words that throw doubt on old orthodoxies. You can fancy his pious horror when the rude hand of Job seemed to rend the sacred garments of established truth. It would have been like him to turn away and leave to fate and judgment a man so venturesome.
With the instinct of the highest and noblest thought, utterly removed from all impiety, the writer has shown his inspiration in leading Job to a climax of impassioned inquiry as one who wrestles in the swellings of Jordan with the angel of Jehovah. Now he brings forward Bildad speaking cold words from a mind quite unable to understand the crisis. This is a man who firmly believed himself possessed of authority and insight. When Job added entreaty to entreaty, demand to demand, Bildad would feel as if his ears were deceiving him, for what he heard seemed to be an impious assault on the justice of the Most High, an attempt to convict the Infinitely Righteous of unrighteousness. He burns to speak; and Job has no sooner sunk down exhausted than he begins:-
How long wilt thou speak these things?
A mighty wind, forsooth, are the words of thy mouth.
God:-will He pervert judgment?
Almighty God:-will He pervert righteousness?
If thy children sinned against Him,
And He cast them away into the hand of their rebellion;
If thou wilt seek unto God,
And unto the Almighty wilt make entreaty;
If spotless and upright thou art,
Surely now He would awake for thee
And make prosperous thy righteous habitation.
So that thy beginning shall prove small
And thy latter end exceedingly great.
How far wrong Bildad is may be seen in this, that he dangles before Job the hope of greater worldly prosperity. The children must have sinned, for they have perished. Yet Job himself may possibly be innocent. If he is, then a simple entreaty to God will insure His renewed favour and help. Job is required to seek wealth and greatness again as a pledge of his own uprightness. But the whole difficulty lies in the fact that, being upright, he has been plunged into poverty, desolation, and a living death. He desires to know the reason of what has occurred. Apart altogether from the restoration of his prosperity and health, he would know what God means. Bildad does not see this in the least. Himself a prosperous man, devoted to the doctrine that opulence is the proof of religious acceptance and security, he has nothing for Job but the advice to get God to prove him righteous by giving him back his goods. There is a taunt in Bildads speech. He privately believes that there has been sin, and that only by way of repentance good can come again. Since his friend is so obstinate let him try to regain his prosperity and fail. Bildad is lavish in promises, extravagant indeed. He can only be acquitted of a sinister meaning in his large prediction if we judge that he reckons God to be under a debt to a faithful servant whom He had unwittingly, while He was not observing, allowed to be overtaken by disaster.
Next the speaker parades his learning, the wisdom he had gathered from the past:-
“Inquire, I pray thee, of the bygone age,
And attend to the research of their fathers.
(For we are but of yesterday and know nothing;
A shadow indeed, are our days upon the earth)-
Shall not they teach thee and tell thee,
Bring forth words from their heart?”
The man of today is nothing, a poor creature. Only by the proved wisdom of the long ages can end come to controversy. Let Job listen, then, and be convinced.
Now it must be owned there is not simply an air of truth but truth itself in what Bildad proceeds to say in the very picturesque passage that follows. Truths, however, may be taken hold of in a wrong way to establish false conclusions; and in this way Jobs interlocutor errs with not a few of his painstaking successors. The rush or papyrus of the riverside cannot grow without mire; the reed grass needs moisture. If the water fails they wither. So are the paths of all that forget God. Yes: if you take it aright, what can be more impressively certain? The hope of a godless man perishes. His confidence is cut off; it is as if he trusted in a spiders web. Even his house, however strongly built, shall not support him. The man who has abandoned God must come to this-that every earthly stay shall snap asunder, every expectation fade. There shall be nothing between him and despair. His strength, his wisdom, his inheritance, his possessions piled together in abundance, how can they avail when the demand is urged by Divine justice – What hast thou done with thy life? This, however, is not at all in Bildads mind. He is not thinking of the prosperity of the soul and exultation in God, but of outward success, that a man should spread his visible existence like a green bay tree. Beyond that visible existence he cannot stretch thought or reasoning. His school, generally, believed in God much after the manner of English eighteenth-century deists, standing on the earth, looking over the life of man here, and demanding in the present world the vindication of providence. The position is realistic, the good of life solely mundane. If one is brought low who flourished in luxuriance and sent forth his shoots over the garden and was rooted near the spring, his poverty is his destruction; he is destroyed because somehow the law of life, that is of prosperity, has been transgressed, and the God of success punishes the fault. We are made to feel that beneath the promise of returning honour and joy with which Bildad closes there is an if. “God will not cast away a perfect man.” Is Job perfect? Then his mouth will be filled with laughter, and his haters shall be clothed with shame. That issue is problematical. And yet, on the whole, doubt is kept well in the background, and the final word of cheer is made as generous and hopeful as circumstances will allow. Bildad means to leave the impression on Jobs mind that the wisdom of the ancients as applied to his case is reassuring.
But one sentence of his speech, that in which (Job 8:4) he implies the belief that Jobs children had sinned and been “cast away into the hand of their rebellion,” shows the cold, relentless side of his orthodoxy, the logic, not unknown still, which presses to its point over the whole human race. Bildad meant, it appears, to shift from Job the burden of his childrens fate. The catastrophe which overtook them might have seemed to be one of the arrows of judgment aimed at the father. Job himself may have had great perplexity as well as keen distress whenever he thought of his sons and daughters. Now Bildad is throwing on them the guilt which he believes to have been so terribly punished, even to the extremity of irremediable death. But there is no enlightenment in the suggestion. Rather does it add to the difficulties of the case. The sons and daughters whom Job loved, over whom he watched with such religious care lest they should renounce God in their hearts-were they condemned by the Most High? A man of the old world, accustomed to think of himself as standing in Gods stead to his household, Job cannot receive this. Thought having been once stirred to its depths, he is resentful now against a doctrine that may never before have been questioned. Is there, then no fatherhood in the Almighty, no magnanimity such as Job himself would have shown? If so, then the spirit would fail before Him, and the souls which He has made. {Isa 57:16} The dogmatist with his wisdom of the ages drops in the by-going one of his commonplaces of theological thought. It is a coal of fire in the heart of the sufferer.
Those who attempt to explain Gods ways for edification and comfort need to be very simple and genuine in their feeling with men, their effort on behalf of God. Everyone who believes and thinks has something in his spiritual experience worth recounting, and may help an afflicted brother by retracing his own history. But to make a creed learned by rote the basis of consolation is perilous. The aspect it takes to those under trial will often surprise the best meaning consoler. A point is emphasised by the keen mind of sorrow, and, like Elijahs cloud, it soon sweeps over the whole sky, a storm of doubt and dismay.