Job 8:1-7

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 8:1-7

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 8:1-7

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 Job's familiarity with God. A fundamental assumption in Bildad's 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 Job's only escape is repentance.

[107] V. A. Irwin, The First Speech of Bildad, Zeitschrift fur die alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, 51, 1953, 205-16.

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 God's justice,[108] a question Job has never raised.

[108] See Schrenk, art. Dike, Kittel's TWNT, Vol. II, 174-225.

Job 8:3God (Shaddai) and injustice are incompatible terms. Does God pervert (Heb. ye-'awwetdistort) justice? The verb is repeated for strong emphasis (pervertpervert) on the magnitude of Job's 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 Job's 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] Bildad's inexcusable cruelty is apparent in his suggestion regarding Job's children, i.e., they brought their deaths on themselves. Even though the Hebrew grammar expresses a conditional form, Bildad's deadly apriori concept of God's justice could only more intensely aggravate Job's 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 Bildad's theology). Bildad uses anthro-pomorphismA. V. he would awake for thee.[110] Is the creator of the universe asleep or insensitive to Job's 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 Job's future restoration (chp. 42), though not for the reason suggested by Job's comforter. Bildad is correct in asserting that the wisdom of the ancients is in harmony with his claimsJob 15:8; Deuteronomy 4:32; and Ecclesiastes 8:9.[111]

[111] W. G. Lambert, Babylonian Wisdom Literature (Oxford, 1960), pp. 10-20.