Thread by @JamesBejon

THREAD: Job Chapter 8. Bildad’s response.

#TwitCom: Please join me in my walk through the #book of #Job.

TITLE: ‘If I understand all mysteries and have all knowledge…’

For the previous instalment (i.e., Job’s response to Eliphaz), see below:

https://twitter.com/JamesBejon/status/1231296306116808704

SUMMARY:

In ch. 8, Bildad makes his first contribution to Job and his friends’ debate.

His speech consists of:

🔹 a criticism (8.2–4),

🔹 a challenge (8.5–7),

🔹 an appeal to authority (8.8–10),

🔹 a couple of illustrations of the wicked’s demise (8.11–19), and

🔹 a final challenge (8.20–22).

Bildad is of much the same mindset as Eliphaz, but he adopts a far less tactful approach.

He has sat and listened patiently as Job has ignored Eliphaz’s argument (chs. 6–7), and has decided a different approach is required.

A good place to start, of course, might have been for him to *listen* to what Job has to say,

or to ask Job some questions and let him answer them.

But, instead, Bildad decides to go on the offensive.

Eliphaz’s softly-softly approach has clearly failed.

It is time for some tough love.

Or at least for some toughness.

‘How long will you continue to make such statements?’, Bildad asks Job (8.2).

That the cry ‘How long?’ (עד אן/אנה)—the archetypal cry of the sufferer (cp. 19.2 w. Psa. 13.2–3, 62.4, Jer. 47.6, Hab. 1.2)—is first heard in the book of Job on the lips of Bildad is a sad irony.

‘Do you think God perverts justice?’, Bildad continues (8.3a).

‘Or God brings righteous (people) to ruin’ (יעות צדק).

‘If your children sinned against God’, he says, ‘wouldn’t God have (rightly) given them over to the consequences of their transgressions?’ (8.4),

which is a remarkable thing for him to say to Job.

We may even be meant to read Bildad’s words as ‘*When* your children sinned against God…’ (אם בניך חטאו: cp. the syntax of 7.4, 9.23, 10.14, 14.5, etc.),

which is no doubt what Bildad thinks has happened. (In Bildad’s world, Job’s children would not have been slain unless they’d committed some great sin.)

Either way, Bildad’s statements are unlikely to feature in a book on how to comfort the bereaved (except as an example of what not to do).

‘If you now act with purity and uprightness (ישר)’, Bildad goes on to say, ‘God will arise on your behalf and restore you’ (8.5–6).

In other words, Job simply needs to pull himself together and make peace with God, and all will be well.

And it is not only Bildad who says so; it is ‘the wise’ as a whole (8.8–10).

As such, Bildad argues in a very similar way to Eliphaz,

but, whereas Eliphaz appeals to numbers (5.27), Bildad appeals to tradition.

Bildad’s is the voice of ‘the fathers’—the voice of experience and orthodoxy (8.8–10).

In 8.11, we come to the main body of Bildad’s speech,

which consists of two separate illustrations of the fate of the wicked (8.11–15, 16–19).

First, Bildad describes a plant which becomes detached from its water-supply.

The plant continues to survive for a while, but then withers prematurely,

which, Bildad says, is a picture of all those who forsake God.

They detach themselves from their source of nourishment, and perish soon afterwards.

In 8.16–19, Bildad goes on to describe a different plant, which exhibits an unusual mix of characteristics.

Although its life ends in destruction, it is said to be green and lush and to have well-spread roots.

It is also said to experience ‘joy’ (משוש) in life.

As a result, some commentators take 8.16–19 to depict a *righteous* individual (as opposed to a second wicked individual),

but the text of 8.16 doesn’t give us any indication of a change in subject matter,

and nor does 8.20’s summary statement. (‘God does not reject the blameless’ summarises 8.4–10, while ‘God does not sustain those who do evil’ summarises 8.11–19.)

I therefore take 8.17–19’s imagery to depict the merely *apparent* stability of the wicked and their merely *temporary* joy (in contrast to the genuine stability and permanent joy of the righteous).

The roots of the wicked may *look* healthy, but they are superficial; they are entwined around stones rather than sunk into nutritious soil (cp. 8.17 w. 29.19).

Meanwhile, the wicked may experience a certain amount of joy, but it is short-lived (8.19), per Zophar’s statement in 20.5 (‘The gladness of the godless is but for a moment’).

The overall sense of 8.11–19 is, therefore, as follows:

Sometimes the wicked perish quickly (8.11–15), and sometimes it takes longer (8.16–19). But, one way or the other, God gets his man (8.20b), as he’s done in Job’s case.

We should not, however, miss the deeper and more subtle implication of our text.

Our author does not portray the wicked in ambiguous terms by accident.

He does so because, if we simply consider people’s prosperity (or otherwise) in the present world,...

...it is very easy to confuse the righteous and the wicked.

Indeed, it is impossible not to do so (cp. Jesus’ parable of the wheat and the tares: Matt. 13.24–26),

which is the whole problem with Job and his friends’ theology.

In terms of their present-world prosperity, the wicked are often indistinguishable from the righteous (Psa. 73),

which is why Bildad and his friends cannot simply look out at the world and divide its population into ‘the righteous’ and ‘the wicked’ on the basis of their prosperity (or lack thereof).

That is not, of course, the point *Bildad* wants to bring out in 8.11–19;

rather, it is one of many clues our author has left us in order to help us as we go.

Just as seeds of hope are buried within Job’s speeches, so seeds of self-defeat are buried deep within his friends’.

SOME BRIEF COMMENTARY:

Bildad’s world is black and white.

God never perverts the course of justice (8.3).

God never refuses the requests of the blameless (8.20a).

And God never sustains the lives of the wicked (8.20b).

Since, therefore, God has withdrawn his sustenance from Job, Job must have committed a great sin (cp. 8.20), for which Job must now repent (8.4–7).

If he does, all will be well (8.20–22); otherwise, only judgment awaits him (8.11–19).

Bildad is no doubt impressed with his argument.

It is spirited, eloquent, and powerful.

Huge swathes of it, however, are either mistaken or irrelevant,

which our author brings out by means of a number of textual clues/indicators.

🔹 In 8.4–5, Bildad tells Job his children have sinned (חטא) and been handed over (שלח) to judgment (יד פשע), in light of which Job should rise early and plead with God for mercy.

Yet ch. 1 employs these same words to describe a very different situation.

Job *did* regularly rise early.

Each day, he would atone for his sons’ sins (חטא).

Each feast day, he would summon (שלח) and consecrate them.

And, contra Bildad’s claim, Job’s sons were not given over to the consequences of their transgressions (יד פשע) (8.4); they were given into the hand (יד) of Satan (1.12).

Bildad’s claim is, therefore, badly mistaken.

🔹 In 8.6, Bildad tells Job God would have defended him if he was an upright man (ישר), and would even now restore his ‘righteous estate’ (נות צדק) if Job asked him.

Again, however, Bildad is mistaken.

Job has ended up in Satan’s sights precisely because of his uprightness (ישר).

And Job’s righteous estate (צדק) is in no need of restoration.

The reason why Job has caused his wife and friends so much grief is precisely because he has *maintained* his righteousness (צדק: cp. 27.6, 29.14 w. 2.9).

🔹 In 8.7, Bildad makes his most remarkable statement of all.

‘Though your initial state was small’, he says, ‘your latter days will be very great’.

Job? A man of a small initial state?

Not as far as God is concerned, who refers to Job as ‘the greatest man of the east’, and not only in moral terms (1.3).

Why would Bildad make such a ridiculous statement in 8.7?

My guess is as follows: because Bildad’s statement is not really a ‘statement’ at all;

it is merely a platitude which Bildad has trotted out without any consideration of Job’s actual situation (like the man who visits a friend who is terminally ill and says, ‘Don’t worry; it’s not a matter of life or death!’).

As such, 8.7 is in miniature what Bildad’s theology is in large.

Bildad’s theology is not an attempt to grapple with the real world. It is a grab-bag for people who want quick and easy answers to difficult questions.

And, sadly, it only multiplies Job’s sorrows in the end.

Meanwhile, our author subtly brings out the futility of Bildad’s appeal to tradition in 8.8.

Bildad claims to know what God has done to Job on the basis of what the fathers have ‘searched out’ (חקר) in times past (8.8).

Yet Eliphaz has just described the ways of God as אין חקר, i.e., ‘unsearchable’ or ‘beyond scrutiny’ (5.9), and Zophar and Elihu will shortly do likewise (11.7, 34.24),

all of which highlights the bankruptcy of Bildad’s tradition.

If God is beyond scrutiny, then the fathers would have been no more able than Job to scrutinise God’s ways.

And if the fathers were not able to scrutinise God’s ways, then a tradition handed down from them would be at best an oft-repeated item of speculation (and at worst an unusually persistent error).

Next up in our walk through the book of Job is Job’s third speech.

First, however, a brief reflection to close.

Words have power.

They can harm people or they can heal people.

Consequently, as Christians, our speech must be marked out by love,

which Bildad’s words certainly aren’t.

On 1 Corinthians 13’s definition of the term, Bildad’s behaviour is marked out by a complete *absence* of love.

Whereas love is patient, Bildad is impatient.

Whereas love is kind, Bildad is cruel.

Whereas love seeks to honour people, Bildad dishonours people.

Whereas love is not easily angered, Bildad is easily angered.

Whereas love rejoices in the truth, Bildad makes false accusations.

Whereas love seeks to protect people’s reputations, Bildad destroys people’s reputations.

And whereas love sees the best in people, Bildad sees the worst in people.

And why? Because Job’s life has called Bildad’s theology into question, which he clearly feels threatened by (cp. 18.4).

Sadly, however, Bildad is not the first person to have reacted badly in such situations, and he will not be the last either.

To put the point another way, Job is not the first person to have been slandered because his life cast doubt on the orthodoxy of the day, and he is not the last either.

A man far greater than Job walked the earth 2,000 years ago.

He too was abandoned by his friends.

He too made claims which were out of kilter with the orthodoxy of the day.

He too was accused of sin.

And he too was pointed towards the doctrine of ‘the fathers’ and told to heed the voice of tradition.

And yet, like Job, he was ultimately vindicated, while his opponents were put to shame (42.7).

And one day he will one day stand on the earth again (19.25),

at which point his status as ‘the one in whom God is well-pleased’ will be plain for all to see.

Let us, therefore, remember to maintain a sense of perspective in life.

Insofar as he claims to know why Job has been beset by disaster, Bildad claims to ‘understand great mysteries and possess great knowledge’.

And yet, insofar as he lacks love, Bildad will not only achieve nothing; he will amount to nothing (1 Cor. 13.2),

which is a strong point for Paul to make, but is one we still very much need to hear.

THE END.