Doth God pervert judgment, and the Almighty pervert justice?
Bildad opens his reply with a question that has only one answer. He then turns that truth into a weapon against a suffering man. The question is not whether Bildad is right about God. It is whether being right about God is enough.
Bildad's question is rhetorical. Anyone who knows God must answer no. One writer gives that answer, then traces the reasoning behind the question:
Bildad asks Job a plain question: "Does God pervert justice?" Is He unrighteous? For anyone who knows Him there can be but one answer. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" He would not be God, if He were not perfectly righteous. This shows the dreadful cliff edge Job was approaching. He was driven on by this false principle that God always punishes for sin. Job was not a sinner; therefore God was unjust! This reasoning is frightening. Both the starting assumption and the statement of fact are wrong, and the conclusion is blasphemous. Why did Job — and Bildad too — not stop and question the assumption? Does God always punish for sin alone? Why does Job not examine the facts; is he sinless?
The flaw is not in the question about God's justice. It is in the assumption both men share: suffering is always payment for wrongdoing. If that were true, an innocent Job would make God unjust. So Bildad defends God's justice by attacking Job's innocence.
Bildad's argument does not rest on any revelation of who God is. It rests on what he sees of the way the world runs. And it stops where conscience stops:
The reasoning of Bildad rests on precisely the same principle as that of Eliphaz. It is all founded on God's moral government. On that principle, no one can cause God grief, and no truly righteous man can be cast to the ground. And God will certainly bring every wicked man to nothing. It is all founded on what is going on in the world now. There was no faith in it. There was conscience, conscience toward God. Conscience is useful and very important for the soul. But it never does and never can reveal God. It detects our bad state... Everything was more or less confused, and people saw God only as a righteous God. But God is the God of all grace.
There is one clean way to test the idea that great suffering proves great sin. Apply it to the one person it cannot fit:
And what shows the falsity of the principle is the universal test. Bring Christ in. Was it any lack of God's delight in Christ that allowed Christ to be the greatest sufferer, far beyond Job? So the estimate was completely false, and the principle underneath it was false too. It imagined that there must be evil in anyone who came to this depth of suffering.
This is what makes Bildad's speech dangerous, not just mistaken. Anyone can brush off a false statement. A true statement aimed at the wrong person carries God's authority with it:
Abstract truth is altogether useless for the saints of God. Things that are true but misunderstood and misapplied may do more harm than many a thing that is false. Misapplied truth gives the apparent authority of God to an error. And that error carries all the more weight because it comes as the truth. If someone says a foolish thing, or one plainly false, people despise it; but no believer can brush aside the truth of God. So suppose someone uses the truth of God wrongly. Suppose he applies it to crush a person who is the object of God's intense interest at that moment. How foreign and offensive that is to His mind!
Bildad is sure of his conclusion while knowing nothing of the case. He never asks whether God might have a purpose in Job's suffering other than punishment:
He did not begin in the gentle way that Eliphaz did. He did not even try to show any understanding of Job's feelings. Instead, he spoke like a man out of patience. He at once accused Job of letting words come out of his mouth that were only "a strong wind" (v. 2). "Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right?" he asks (v. 3). He did not know how God was dealing with Job. Yet he was sure God was punishing him justly, though he knew of no actual evil on Job's part.
- Premise. The verse states a truth no believer can deny: God never twists what is right. But Bildad ties it to a false assumption — that God punishes only, and always, for sin.
- Ground. Bildad reasons from God's government of the world as he observes it. That is conscience, not revelation. Conscience can expose our bad state, but it never reveals God.
- Test. Apply his principle to Christ, the greatest sufferer of all, and it collapses. Deep suffering never proved deep evil.
- Danger. Misapplied truth is worse than open error. It lends God's authority to a lie, and no believer can shrug it off.
- Result. Certainty without knowledge crushes instead of comforting. Bildad knew nothing against Job, yet was sure of his verdict.
If thy children have sinned against him, he hath also given them over into the hand of their transgression.
Bildad, the second of Job's three friends, answers a grieving father by pointing at the graves of his children and reading them as a verdict. His argument stands or falls on one assumption: that disaster is always the measure of guilt.
Ridout reads the line as a plain statement, not as the "if" of the ESV, and shows what Bildad is charging:
He offers two proofs of God's justice, and the first is, to put it mildly, arbitrary and unkind. We may read verse 4, "When your children sinned against Him, He gave them over to the hand of their wickedness." In other words, Bildad assumes that Job's children got what their wickedness deserved, and so were cut off... This cuts deep into a father who had found no evidence of such wickedness in his children. He had watched over their spiritual state with care.
Bildad's question — does God pervert justice? — has only one answer. The trouble is the rule he slips in underneath it:
Bildad asks Job a plain question, "Does God pervert judgment?" Is He unrighteous? For anyone who knows Him there can be only one answer... This shows the dreadful cliff edge Job was approaching. He was driven on by the false principle that God always punishes for sin. Job was not a sinner; therefore God was unjust! This is terrible reasoning. Both the premise and the statement of fact are wrong, and the conclusion is blasphemous. Why did Job not stop, and Bildad too, and ask whether something was wrong in the premise: does God always punish for sin alone?
Bildad's charge landed on the one father who kept offering sacrifice for his children:
He suggested that God must have cast Job's children away as the penalty of their transgression. This must have been a bitter blow to Job, since he had so regularly offered sacrifice on their behalf. Even so, he advised Job that if only he would be upright and seek God, he would be blessed in his latter end.
One case breaks Bildad's rule. Kelly calls it the universal test:
He says, "If your children have sinned against him and he has 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 lack of God's delight in Christ that allowed Christ to be the greatest sufferer, far beyond Job? So the estimate was entirely false, and so was the principle underneath it: that there must be evil in anyone who came to this depth of suffering.
The verse is only the first step. Bildad moves straight on from the children to Job himself:
Then he makes a cruel thrust at Job. He suggests that Job's sons had died because they had sinned against God, and that God coldly cast them away for their transgressions (v.4). This was not true, but what was Job to answer? So Bildad condemned Job's dead sons, then went on to attack Job himself. He told him this: if he would earnestly plead with God, and if he were pure and upright, then God would surely awake for him at once and turn his misery into prosperity.
The book itself settles the question. At the end, God rebukes the men who had defended His justice hardest:
We need not be surprised that God turns to Eliphaz and his friends with stern rebuke for their part in the argument... He addresses Eliphaz, the leader of the three, and declares His anger against them all. They had not spoken of Him what is right, as His servant Job had. And yet their whole contention had apparently been for God's righteousness! Had they not maintained this from the very start, with noble descriptions and fierce attacks on evil? Had they not pinned the charge of wrongdoing on Job with no proof at all, and against well known facts?
- Premise — Bildad starts with a truth: God never perverts justice. Then he adds a false rule: God punishes only for sin.
- Conclusion — The rule forces him to read fresh graves as proof of wickedness in children he never knew.
- Wound — The charge struck the one father who kept offering sacrifice for his children. Bildad then aimed it at Job himself.
- Test — Bring Christ in, and the rule collapses: the greatest sufferer was the one God delighted in most.
- Verdict — God rebuked the men who defended His righteousness most fiercely. They had not spoken of Him what is right.
If thou seek earnestly unto God, and make thy supplication to the Almighty,
Bildad, the second of Job's three friends, turns from argument to advice. His words sound right, but they carry a hidden accusation — and it comes from a man who has misread his friend's case.
One writer sets out what drives him:
Bildad now takes up what is fast becoming an argument. He shows less of the courtesy and dignity that marked the speech of Eliphaz, and more harshness toward Job, apparently caused by Job's bitter charge against God. For all his ignorance of God's principles, Bildad is jealous for the honor of God, and will not let anyone accuse Him. He is right about that. But he fails to convince Job, because of the root error in the thinking of all three friends: God must punish sin, so Job must be a sinner, since he is being punished.
Verse 5 does not stand alone. Just before it, Bildad hinted that Job's children died for their own sin. Verse 6 adds a second condition: "if you are pure and upright."
Bildad condemned Job's dead sons, then went on to attack Job himself. He told Job that if he would seek God earnestly in prayer, and if he were pure and upright, then God would certainly rouse Himself for him at once and turn his misery into prosperity (vv.5-6). Of course, in saying this he implied that Job had not been pure and upright, and had not sought God earnestly before.
Bildad promises restoration on his own terms. God did restore Job in the end, but not in the way Bildad imagined.
So instead of bluster and complaint, let Job simply turn to God the Almighty in earnest prayer. Then, if only he is pure, he will soon find that God crowns his home with prosperity, and that his last days flourish beyond his first. And so it happened — but not at all in the way Bildad imagined. Bildad falls back on the old sayings of earlier generations to support the idea that God repays every man strictly, here and now.
Bildad calls God "the Almighty." One writer traces the name behind that title.
In seven places the word for God [El] is combined with Shaddai, which is usually translated "the Almighty." Some understand the name to mean "Almighty in sustaining resources" (like a mother's breasts for her baby). It occurs 48 times in the Old Testament, and the book of Job accounts for no fewer than 31 of them. In that book one thought stands out above all others: the Lord is Almighty. That suits the book well, since it tells the story of God's controversy with Job, who found no relief or blessing until he came to a right view of himself in God's presence.
Nobody would dispute that a man should seek God. That is what makes this advice dangerous.
Things that are true, but misunderstood and misapplied, can do more harm than many a thing that is false. Misapplied truth lends the apparent authority of God to an error, and that error carries all the more weight because it comes as truth. If someone says a foolish thing, or a plainly false one, people dismiss it. But no believer can brush aside the truth of God. So if the truth of God is used wrongly — if it is used to crush someone God cares about deeply at that moment, how foreign and offensive that is to His mind!
Telling a man to seek God is not the same as bringing him to God:
They did not know God's character, or His purpose in dealing with His dear servant. They were completely mistaken. They did not know how to present God to Job, and so they did not know how to bring Job's conscience into God's presence. Instead of leading him to judge himself, they only fed his desire to defend himself… They said some true things; but they did not have the truth.
The book's ending reverses the roles. Bildad told Job to plead with the Almighty. In the end, God accepted Job's prayer for Bildad.
He did not understand Job's case at all. He could only conclude that God was punishing Job for wickedness, though God had called Job a righteous man. God's anger burned against Bildad. But Bildad and his two companions brought a sacrifice, and when Job prayed for them, God accepted him.
- Seek — the counsel. Bildad tells Job to seek God and plead with the Almighty. The words are good. The aim behind them was not.
- Seek — the condition. The "if" of verses 5–6 quietly accuses. It implies Job had not sought God and had not lived rightly. That is why the advice wounded instead of healing.
- Seek — the God addressed. "The Almighty" is Shaddai, the name that fills this book. Job found no relief until he saw himself as he really was before God.
- Seek — the danger. Misused truth does more harm than open error. It borrows God's authority to crush someone God cares for.
- Seek — the outcome. Job's later days did flourish, but not on Bildad's terms. In the end, God accepted Job's prayer for his friends.
If thou be pure and upright, surely now he will awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous;
Bildad answers Job with a condition: purity and uprightness, and then God will act. It sounds like a promise. But everything hangs on the word "if" — and on whether suffering proves the sufferer has done wrong.
Bildad does not say outright that Job is guilty. He builds his hope on two conditions, and the conditions themselves carry the charge.
Bildad condemned Job's dead sons, then went on to attack Job himself. He told Job this: if he would seek God with earnest prayer, and if he were pure and upright, then God would surely wake up for him at once and turn his misery into prosperity (vv. 5-6). Of course, in saying this he implied that Job had not been pure and upright and had not earnestly sought God before.
Bildad's condition also carries an offer. "Restore your rightful habitation" means Job's home made prosperous again.
Instead of bluster and complaint, let Job only turn to God the Almighty with earnest prayer. Then he will soon find — provided he himself is pure — that prosperity from Him will crown his home. His latter end will flourish beyond the beginning.
Bildad sends Job looking inside himself for the fault behind his losses. He has misread the trial.
Bildad here sharply rebukes Job, telling him that the words of his mouth are like a strong wind, and that if he were pure and upright God would wake up for him. So he throws Job back on himself even more. He implies that Job's trials are judicial payments for sin. In fact they were the discipline of God, leading him to the full end of himself. Job knew that he had done nothing to deserve it. But he had to learn that he could claim nothing. His friends knew this no more than he did; they stood on righteousness alone.
Bildad states his outcome as certain. Set against what God was doing with Job, that certainty collapses. (The quote below follows an older wording: "If you were pure and upright.")
"If you were pure and upright" — ah, there they were at it again! So it was not only the children who had sinned! "If you were pure and upright" — why, Job was much more so than they were! "If you were pure and upright, surely now He would wake up for you." Certainly not. The Lord was going to bring the trial to its full completion. He allowed all these discussions to bring out everything that was in their hearts. Then He came in with His own word and cast down completely these principles that governed the three friends — and Job could not properly answer them.
In the end Job's home and fortunes did come back. But not for the reason Bildad gave.
Next, he proves the justice of those ways. He tells Job there is restoring mercy for him, if he will only turn to God in prayer. "If you are pure and upright" — there is a strong hint of suspicion here — God will restore everything, and bless Job's latter end. This did come true, but in a very different way from what Bildad expected. Job is not blessed for his purity, and not for confessing the evil they suspected in him.
The friends' words about God were true. That is what made them dangerous.
Things that are true, but misunderstood and misapplied, may do more harm than many a thing that is false. Misapplied truth gives the apparent authority of God to an error, and that error carries all the more weight because it comes as the truth.
Underneath Bildad's "if" sits one assumption: a man can be righteous before God on his own.
This is just where Job's friends were. They saw that God loves righteousness and hates evil, and that Job was suffering. What conclusion did they draw from it all? That if Job had been a righteous person, God would have accepted him. They were on wrong ground altogether. It is quite true, and blessedly true, that God loves righteousness. But the fallacy lies in the idea that a man can be righteous with God. That thought must always produce either self-righteousness, or despair and misery.
- The "if" accuses. Bildad's condition hides a charge. To promise God's help if Job is pure is to say that Job's ruin proves he is not.
- The measure is false. The friends stood on righteousness alone. They read Job's trial as payment owed for sin, not as God's discipline.
- True words, wrong target. Truth aimed at the wrong man does more damage than open error. It lends God's authority to a mistake.
- The condition cannot be met. God does love righteousness. The flaw is the idea that a man can be righteous with God. That road ends in self-righteousness or in despair.
- The outcome outran the formula. Job's latter end did flourish. But not because he was pure, and not because he confessed sins his friends only suspected.