First Discourse of Bildad.
THE second of the three friends takes up Job next. He is inferior to Eliphaz in calm dignity, and less temperate in his insinuations, because more prone to judge by the sight of his eyes and the experience of mankind, and so he rushes in where angels would fear to tread, as they gaze in awe at the wonderful ways of God. It was plain enough to him why Job and his house were punished.
And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said,
How long wilt thou recite these [things],
And the words of thy mouth [be] a strong wind?
Doth God pervert right,
And the Almighty pervert justice?
If thy children have sinned against Him,
And He hath cast them into the hand of their transgression;
If thou seekest earnestly unto God,
And makest supplication to the Almighty,
If thou [wert] pure and upright,
He would surely now wake up for thee,
And restore the habitation of thy righteousness;
And though thy beginning were small,
Yet thy latter end would flourish greatly.
Inquire now of the former generation,
And give heed to the research of their fathers
(For we [are of] yesterday, and know not,
For our days on earth are a shadow);
Shall not they teach thee, say to thee,
And bring forth words out of their heart?
Doth the reed shoot up without mire?
Doth the flag spread out without water?
While yet in its greenness, it is not cut down,
Before all grass doth it dry up.
So [are] the ways of all that forget God,
And the hope of the polluted perisheth,
Whose confidence is cut off,
And his truth a spider’s house;
He leaneth on his house, but it standeth not,
He fasteneth on it, but it abideth not.
Green [is] he before the sun,
And his suckers run over his garden;
His roots are entwined over the stone-heap,
He looketh on a house of stone,
When he is swallowed out of its place,
Then will it deny him: I saw thee not.
Lo, this [is] the joy of his way,
And out of the dust sprout others;
Lo, God will not forsake a perfect [man],
Nor graspeth evil-doers by the hand,
Till He fill thy mouth with laughter,
And thy lips with shouting:
They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame,
And the tent of the wicked shall be no more.
Thus does Bildad more than hint, as his explanation of Job’s sufferings, that his children had sinned and so brought down the divine displeasure. It must be so, he thought, for God would surely defend the right Or, and punish iniquity. Instead therefore of bluster and complaint, let Job only turn with earnest supplication to God the Almighty, and he will soon find, provided he himself be pure, that prosperity from Him will crown his homestead, and his latter end flourish beyond the beginning. So it came to pass indeed, but by no means as Bildad conceived, who resorts to the wise saws of the ancients in support of strict retribution now at the hand of God. It is from no strength in itself that the papyrus lifts its head so high, but from the abundant mire in which it thrives its little day; and so with the flag or bulrush of the East, from mere and exceeding moisture, not solid ground; and this is so true, that they do not decay slowly, like other plants, but are the first to wither without being cut down.
So it is with the wicked, both in their elevation and their ruin: the paths of all that forget God end thus surely and miserably, the hope of the impure is alike fleeting. The object of their confidence is no firmer than a spider’s web, though he may cling to it ever so tenaciously. It has no more permanence than the rank weed which extends over a garden, and entwines its suckers in a stone-heap. But in vain. He may look on a house of stone, but is quickly destroyed, as a mere and mischievous cumberer of the ground, which denies him then as if it never saw him: yet though this is the joy of his way and the bitter end of godless prosperity, there is a succession of such men just as of such weeds; one springs up after another out of the dust, to pass away still more rapidly. If Job be really a perfect man, God will not cast him away (but neither does He grasp the hand of evil-doers) till He give him the amplest grounds for thankful praise, confound his enemies, and destroy the wicked forever. But, as applied to the present case, there was no fellowship with God in Bildad’s thoughts, no gracious consideration for the sufferer; and hence his judgment, being according to appearances, was unrighteous.
We need not be surprised that he could not anticipate the lessons which it was the object of God by this very book to teach; but a believer should not make haste, he should wait where he had not the assurance of His mind, least of all should he have put the worst construction possible on what he did not comprehend. This he did to the aggravation of Job’s trial and to the provocation of his spirit, which again furnished, an appearance of evil to those who suspected evil; and thus the confusion was worse confounded and the true solution of all veiled in deeper darkness from their eyes. Does it seem ever to have occurred to the three friends that their wisdom would have been to pray rather than to talk, judge, and censure? Desiring to be law-teachers before the law, they like others since it understood neither what they said nor whereof they affirmed.