“Then answered Bildad... Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? If thy children have sinned against Him, and He have cast them away for their transgression; if thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; if thou wert pure and upright; surely now He would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase” (Job 8:3-73Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice? 4If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression; 5If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; 6If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous. 7Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase. (Job 8:3‑7)).
Eliphaz had spoken of his own personal experience. Bildad differs in the manner in which he defends their theme by bringing in the traditions of other people. Those are the two ways in which men are apt to slip away from the truth confidence in self or confidence in other people no better than oneself—confidence in anyone but God.
So he says, “Inquire, I pray thee, 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.
People talk about the early fathers, but that is a great deal too late; why not talk about the apostles? Because they are as far from them as they can possibly be! There is not the slightest resemblance—except the mere name of things a totally different reality. And so it was here. Had they gone back to the Garden of Eden? That is not a former age; that was the beginning where God manifested Himself.
W. Kelly