Third Discourse of Bildad.
This brief chapter contains the final discourse of Bildad. It is plain that the three friends are all but silenced. We shall see ere long that Zophar has not a word more to add. Job has much in proof that they, none of them, saw aright even the surface of his trial, not to speak of God’s ways underneath. Yet Bildad speaks grandly of God’s dominion as suited to overwhelm all thought of human righteousness, and sets out the sun and stars as pale and impure in presence of His light: how much more a mortal, son of Adam!
And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,
With Him [are] dominion and fear;
He maketh peace in His high places.
Is their number to His armies?
And on whom ariseth not His light?
And how is mortal man righteous with God (El)?
And how is he pure, born of a woman?
Behold, to the moon, and it shineth not,
And the stars are not pure in His eyes:
How much less mortal man, a maggot;
And the son of man, a worm!
Such is the closing effort of Bildad, evidently wishing to say something, rather than having something to say. So far as it is a reply, it seems directed against the opening of Job’s answer to Eliphaz (chap. 23.), as has been noticed by others. The main point is the awful majesty of God, who must resent the unhallowed thought of man’s drawing near to His throne, above all, to debate with Him as if He could mistake, or the creature vindicate itself against His dealings. What gross forgetfulness of His countless hosts, as if His power could be measured by man; and what ignorance of His all-reaching light, which penetrates and manifests the remotest and otherwise bidden objects in the universe!
But he does injustice to Job’s asseverations of integrity, if he alludes to them in the latter part (for Job in no way denied man’s natural impurity), but had, on the contrary, already heard, in reply to himself, a full demolition of every pretension to righteousness in chap. 9. Job simply repudiated the imputation of deep evil, cloaked by high professions of piety, on his part, as the cause of his exceeding trial. But he was as far as Bildad from putting the creature on a false level with the Creator, least of all man, morally corrupt as he is. The lights of heaven lack luster in his eyes: what is a sinner accounted? Abstractly, what he urges is unquestionable truth; as a reply and application to Job, it is perverse and futile.