Job 8:10

In verses 8-10, Bildad showed where he stood in the argument that was developing. He valued highly the piled-up treasures of human wisdom. Even in those far-off days, people could search records kept from still earlier times. Eliphaz argued from his own observation — what he had seen himself. Bildad argued from tradition — what could be learned from the records of earlier days. He did not trust a conclusion drawn from one person's experience, since a man's days on earth are only "a shadow."

In this, Bildad contradicted what Eliphaz had said. If Eliphaz was born only "yesterday", what value was his observation? But Bildad's appeal to tradition was just as empty as the appeal of Eliphaz to observation, for Bildad came to the wrong conclusion too.

The authority of many "fathers" carries much more weight and respect than the experience of a single individual. What is more, letting many wise and learned men guide you shows much more modesty than following the light of your own experience. But the fact is that neither experience nor tradition will do... As for tradition, it is a mass of confusion — one father differs from another, and nothing can be more slippery or uncertain than the voice of tradition.

So Bildad goes on with this: "Will they not teach you, and tell you, and utter words out of their heart?" But we want the words out of God's heart. Only His heart can do that... and their thoughts were no better than the marsh plant that grew out of the water, or the reed that grew out of the mud.

Those are the two ways in which men are apt to slip away from the truth — confidence in self; confidence in other people no better than oneself; confidence in anyone but God. So he says, "Enquire, I pray you, of the former age" — for people think that a little further back is where we should go. Why, beloved friends, we want to go back to the beginning; we want to go back to God's beginning.

Eliphaz used his eyes; Bildad used his ears; and Zophar used his brains. Not one of them found the solution to this problem by human wisdom, however they gained that wisdom... Had it depended upon our eyes, or our ears, or our brains, what should we have known of these wonderful things?

While this is true, what does the gathered wisdom of all the past give us when the question is God's truth? We are not to turn to the past, but to God and His word. Those who have the "sure word of prophecy," "the oracles of God," are in a position far beyond compare.