Job 8:2

Bildad now takes up what is fast becoming a controversy. There is perhaps less of the courtesy and dignity that marked the speech of Eliphaz. There is also some harshness toward Job. It seems to come from the bitter charge Job had made against God. With all his ignorance of divine principles, Bildad is jealous for the honour of God, and cannot allow Him to be accused. In this he is surely right. But he fails to convince Job, because of the root error in the thinking of all of them: God must punish sin, and Job must be a sinner because God is punishing him.

By the latter expression he suggests that Job's speech was stormy like the wind, and as empty as the wind. He declares what is certainly true: God cannot be unrighteous. In this way Bildad called a decisive halt to the dangerous things Job had said, forced out of him by Eliphaz's cold and dogmatic claims. Job rejected the accusation that he was a sinner being punished for his sins. So he was fast approaching the edge of charging God with being unjust.

Eliphaz had claimed to be giving Job "the consolations of God." This moves Job to reply bitterly, "Miserable comforters are you all!" Instead of comfort, they had given heartless accusations, which Job calls "words of wind."

Job's words are like a strong wind, a blast of bitter complaint, and a still more bitter charge against God. Bildad's correction is harsh, but we may well call it just. Job's words were irreverent and extremely rash. Perhaps sympathy might have taken a gentler path, but when a man begins to charge God it is well to rebuke him sharply.

Here then this man breaks out into this rebuke of Job for his extreme feeling. How could a man do anything but feel? And what were they about that they did not deeply feel for him? There they were, quite comfortable. And there they were, judging that there must be something very bad. I need not tell you that this deeply wounded the poor injured man. It was pouring acid into his wounds. It was not binding them with wine and oil to clean the wound. Instead it was deepening and poisoning it.

Bildad follows the line of Eliphaz, and says, "How long will you say these things?" He could not understand it in the least. That was because Job could not understand why. He was quite sure of the perfection of God, quite sure of the faithfulness of God, quite sure that God loved him, quite sure that he loved God. So he cried, "How has all this come upon me? What is the key to all this terrible suffering that I am sure God has sent?" He would not blame it on circumstances.

We need not be surprised that Bildad could not anticipate the lessons God meant this very book to teach. But a believer should not rush ahead. He should wait where he has no assurance of God's mind. Least of all should he put the worst possible reading on what he does not understand. This is what Bildad did. He made Job's trial worse and provoked his spirit, which in turn gave an appearance of evil to those who suspected evil. So the confusion grew worse, and deeper darkness hid the true solution from their eyes. Does it ever seem to have occurred to the three friends that their wisdom would have been to pray rather than to talk, judge, and censure?