BILDAD: HOW CAN WE BE RIGHTEOUS?

(25:16) INTRODUCTION Many scholars draw parallels between the Book of Job and certain literary works of the ancient Near East, from Egypt to Mesopotamia. And even though there may have been many parallels and imitations since Job, the book stands alone both in the Bible and in the world of literature. Nowhere else is the struggle of an innocent sufferer to understand the surrounding tragedy so long, so intense, and so penetrating. Between Job and his four friends, the problem of Jobs misery received attention from every possible angle. Yet there was no resolution, no answer, and no solution until God spoke at the end of the book. His was the last word in all senses of the word last. DATE The Book of Job contains few indications of its date; and since there are no convincing clues, proposals have ranged over many centuries from before the time of Moses to the period between the testaments. In this chapter there are no references to datable people, and the scattered geographical names provide little or no help on this matter. From the point of religious orthodoxy, no view is ruled out because nothing in this book or elsewhere in the Bible demands a specific date for Job. In sum, the door must be left open until some ancient text surfaces or some authentic reference to these people or this book comes to light. Like many of the psalms that elude positive dating, Job the man and Job the book are timeless. This timelessness makes Job easy to preach and apply to the countless sufferers whose situations mirror Jobs. Rather than fret or fabricate a specific date, we should reckon the book as Gods gift to everyone who suffers and knows not why. Job can be anyone, and Yahweh can be everyones God.
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LITERARY GENRE The Book of Job begins with two chapters of prose and concludes with one more. The intervening thirty-nine chapters are all poetry, except for brief introductions to the speakers. This chapter twenty five is such a passage. While exceptions are easy to find, the second line of most pairs repeats the substance of the first. This is a great help in figuring out difficult constructions or in determining the meaning of unknown words. A closer look at the poetry yields rich and fascinating dividends because it is a treasure trove of word pictures, metaphors, similes, tightly reasoned logic, prayers, irony, insults, implications, protestations, exaggerations, fabrications, and interrogations. No single genre describes it all, even though some would say complaint, or lament, or lawsuit is prominent. STRUCTURE Bildad: How Can We Be Righteous? (25:1-6) (1) (2) Gods Greatness (25:1-3) Human Failure at Being Right (25:4-6)

This is Bildads third and last speech, and it is very short. He and the others have run out of things to say to Job. Already they have become repetitious. Zophar has no third speech, and we hear no more of any of them until 42:7. Bildad here makes a very short reply to Job's last discourse, as one that began to be tired of the cause. He drops the main question concerning the prosperity of wicked men, as being unable to answer the proofs Job had produced in the foregoing chapter but, because he thought Job had made too bold with the divine majesty in his appeals to the divine tribunal (ch. 23.), he in a few words shows the infinite distance there is between God and man, teaching us,
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I. II.

To think highly and honourably of God, ver. 2, 3, 5. To think shamefully of ourselves, ver. 4, 6. These, however misapplied to Job, are two good lessons for us all to learn.

THEOLOGICAL ANALYSIS OF THE PASSAGE: In this passage two ways Bildad takes here to exalt God and abase man:-I. He shows how glorious God is... (25:13) 25:1 The first verse in this chapter and in every chapter where there is a change of speaker is a prose introduction. Rather than make a separate point in the outline for such brief preludes, they are included in the first section. In each instance the sentence has two verbs: answered and said. 25:2 Bildad began his first two speeches with insults and irony (8:2; 18:2), much as Job did in his response (26:24). It is a welcome change to hear him begin with this lofty and worshipful theological statement. God rules. He reigns. He resides in the heights, where all is salom, peace/order. 25:3 These two rhetorical questions underscore two divine attributes: God is powerful; he is the Lord of hosts. And second, his revelation of himself is universal (cf. Ps 19:16[27]). (2) And thence infers how guilty and impure man is before Him (25:46) Bildad turned from the perfections of God to the imperfections of humanity. In light of divine demands, all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Rom 3:23). Compared to God, the Creator, the Sovereign, the Judge, we are but maggots and worms. 25:4 With these two questions Bildad emphasized the fact of total depravity. Sin has infected the entire race. Each one inherits it from parents because all of
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us are born of woman. Eliphaz asked similar questions in 4:17, and so did Job in 14:4. 25:5 Speaking cosmically and with hyperbole, Bildad faulted the moon and stars, created bodies incapable of sin, with failure to please God. This too is reminiscent of something Eliphaz said in 15:1516. 25:6 Certainly people cannot be pure in Gods sight because each is a son of man or a descendant of Adam. Paul, speaking of our common Father, said, The first man was of the dust of the earth. . . . As was the earthly man, so are those who are of the earth (1 Cor 15:4748). But Bildad spoke in terms of maggots and worms (cf. Ps 22:6[7]; Isa 14:11), an extreme depiction that seems to deny human worth and dignity as God-given (cf. 7:1720; Gen 1:26 27; 5:13; Ps 8:45). Thus he concluded his short speech, and on this disgusting and hopeless note the words of Jobs friends end. PRACTICAL IMPLICATIONS Since, as Paul wrote to Timothy, all Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, it is serving on us to determine the purpose and value of Job. This Passage tries to give certain practical implications such as men's dominion is often shameful, often despised, but God is always awful. Peace is God's work; where it is made it is he that makes it. He is good to all; the earth is full of his goodness. He has power to destroy; but his pleasure is to show mercy. All the creatures live upon his bounty. So man being little and inconsiderable in comparison with God and with the holy angels: so worthless and despicable, having his original in corruption, and hastening to corruption. What little reason has man to be proud and what great reason to be humble. Let us therefore wonder at God's condescension in taking such worms as we are into covenant and communion

with himself, especially at the condescension of the Son of God, in emptying himself so far as to say, I am a worm, and no man, (Ps.22. 6.) CONCLUSION Although the Book of Job is not a comprehensive explanation of human suffering, it has always caused its readers to ask why suffering occurs. Scripture gives many reasons, but it is difficult (often impossible) even for us who have the complete biblical revelation to understand specific experiences of sorrow and trouble. The condition of the man born blind, for example, was not caused by his sin or that of his parents but so that God might be glorified in his healing (John 9:23). Suffering is not always due to sin. In Job his suffering was not due to sin. It was for some other purpose the idea, that it is for instruction, "discipline' is present there, as it is also in Proverbs. But as we said in the introduction to this book of Job, the full purpose of suffering was still to be revealed in Jesus, even though the premises from which they might have reached a point at least close to that conclusion were already present. What the believer does know, as the Book of Job teaches, is that we serve a personal God who is intimately aware of each person and his or her needs and concerns. Furthermore, the Lord has not only a cosmic plan but an individual purpose he is wisely, justly, and lovingly pursuing in each believers life. Finally, our God is powerful enough to accomplish his will on earth as well as in heaven. Thus, the other purpose of Job is to give comfort to believers of all ages who find themselves in Jobs situation of suffering. Bibliography 1. Job, A practical Commentary: Text and Interpretation, William B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, U.S.A. 1984. 2. Dianne Bergant, C.S.A. Job, Ecclesiastes, The Liturgical Press, Collegeville, Minnesota, 1982.