Bildad Speaks and Job Replies

“How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?”…..”To whom hast thou uttered words? and whose spirit came from thee?”…..”My righteousness I hold fast, and will not let it go: my heart shall not reproach me so long as I live.”  Job 25:4; 26:4; 27:6

Job had continued to make his argument that the wicked don’t necessarily suffer in this life, but that they will face judgment after they die.  Bildad then replied to him for the third time, but his speech was centered on God and His power and not on Job’s argument.  Maybe Bildad was getting weary of the back-and-forth arguments concerning the righteous and the evil.  I know I am.  Bildad then began to emphasize the majesty and sovereignty of God.  Matthew Henry wrote that God “is to be feared, feared by all that know Him, and, first or last, all will be made to fear Him.”  Man may attempt to argue with God, but God ALWAYS wins the argument.  Besides, God doesn’t argue.  He lays out the truth of His word, and no one can refute it.

Bildad asked Job how a man can be justified before God.  How could evil man stand before God and claim to be righteous?  Of course, Bildad was inferring that this evil man was Job, who was insisting that God hear him out, but, as Bildad wondered, why should God meet with a man who was born in sin?  Bildad had taken it upon himself to decide with whom God could meet and with whom He couldn’t meet.  That was very brazen of Bildad.  He then asked how much less than God was a man and answered by comparing man to a worm to illustrate how insignificant man is when compared to God.  He was correct in his analysis of the comparison between God and man.  However, Bildad did not allow for the grace of God to play any part in how God deals with His creation.  How would Job react to Bildad’s words?

Job began his reply by asking how Bildad had helped him in his time of desperation.  What good did it do to tell Job what he already knew about God?  Perhaps Bildad thought Job was ignorant as well as evil.  Job was just as wise as Bildad, Eliphaz, and Zophar, but they acted like he was stupid.  Job was being very sarcastic with Bildad because he couldn’t believe how condescending that Bildad was treating him.  Job’s reply was something like this, “How stupid of me to not see how brilliant and wise that you are, Bildad.  I acquiesce to your brilliance!”  What good did it do for Bildad to preach the greatness of God and not include God’s mercy and grace?  Perhaps he wasn’t all that familiar with mercy and grace.

Job then began to add to what Bildad had said about the power, majesty, and glory of Almighty God.  Sinners drowned in the great flood, God spread the skies over nothing and hung the earth in space with nothing to hold it up except His great power.  God stores the rain in His clouds, but measures it out over the earth, He sets the boundaries of the oceans, and these boundaries will continue until the world as we know it ceases to exist.  Coastal cities will not be under water as the climate change gurus claim.  God hides His glorious throne behind the clouds out of the sight of man so that man must have faith to believe in Him.  All nature is at God’s command.  What we know about God is miniscule compared with who God is and what He does as He rules the universe.  The roaring thunder is only a whisper from Him.  Imagine if He lets loose and raises His voice.  The sound waves alone could destroy the entire world.

Job’s three friends had all had their say and apparently had come to the realization that it was no use trying to convince Job that he was a rotten sinner who was receiving the results of his lying, hypocrisy, and whatever other sins of which they had accused him.  They finally gave up and let him continue to vent.  The remainder of what Job had to say to these three men was called a parable, but it seems to be more of a proverb like those which Solomon wrote.  It began as an oath by calling on the living God as the witness to his oath, but there was a little hostility toward God from whom Job had not heard anything in the way of support or defense.  He felt that since God had not given him any relief from his misery then he had little hope to present his case before God and get a fair hearing.  Nevertheless, Job vowed that as long as he lived, and as long as God gave him breath and gave him His Spirit, he would not speak evil, would never lie, and would never deceive anyone, all charges of which his three visitors accused him.

In Job’s mind, he classified those who rebuked and accused him of wrongdoing as his enemy.  Why would Job be a hypocrite if there is no hope for the hypocrite?  Job agreed that the wicked suffer, and that God will punish them eventually.  They may go on for a long time seemingly not receiving justice, living “high on the hog”, and never considering eternity, the afterlife, and the judgment of God.  Their children may suffer for their parents’ sins.  They will die and leave it all, and God will distribute it to whomever He pleases.  The houses of the wicked will not stand the test of time.  Worries over protecting his wealth will keep the wicked up at night.  God will call the wicked from this life unprepared for eternity.  They may try to flee, but there will be nowhere to run to, nowhere to hide.  Job and his friends agreed that the wick would suffer, but their disagreement was about the timing of their punishment.  To completely agree with his friends’ view would be to admit that he was not a righteous man, and Job refused to do that.

Next week:  A condensed version of the remainder of Job’s parable (covers Chapters 28-31).