Job 25:1

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,

EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)

Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers

XXV.

(1) Then answered Bildad.—Bildad attempts no formal reply to Job’s statements, he merely falls back upon the position twice assumed by Eliphaz before (Job 4:17-21; Job 15:14-16), and twice allowed also by Job (Job 14:4)—the impossibility of man being just with God—and therefore implies the impiety of Job in maintaining his righteousness before God. God, he says, is almighty, infinite, and absolute. How can any man contend with Him, or claim to be pure in His sight? This is the final speech of the friends. Bildad no longer accuses Job; he practically owns himself and his companions worsted in argument, seeing that he attempts no reply, but reiterates truisms that are independent of the special matter in hand. Job, in Job 23:3-12, had spoken of his longing for the Divine judgment; so Bildad labours to deprive him of that confidence, as though he would say, “I have nothing to do with your facts, nor can I explain them; but be that as it may, I am certain that you, or any mortal man, cannot be pure in the sight of God.”

Benson Commentary

Job 25:1. Then answered Bildad — Who makes the last weak effort against Job; and being unable to deny the truth of his assertions, but at the same time unwilling to give up the argument, shelters himself behind the acknowledged attributes of God, power, justice, and purity, and the infirmities of human nature. Probably he and the rest of Job’s friends now perceived that Job and they did not differ so much as they had thought. They owned that the wicked might prosper for a while; and Job owned they would be destroyed at the last. As to the point of bringing Job to confess himself guilty of some enormous crimes, which they at first rashly supposed had drawn this heavy judgment upon him, that is completely given up, and Bildad satisfies himself with an evasive answer to what Job had observed on that head, to this purpose, namely, that no man, strictly speaking, can be justified before God; man being at best a frail and fallible creature, and God a being of infinite purity and perfection; an argument which concerned Job no more than themselves, but equally involved them all in the same class of sinners. This answer has no reference to what Job spake last, but to that which seemed most reproveable in all his discourses, his censure of God’s proceedings with him, and his desire of disputing the matter with him. Bildad’s sentiments are extremely good and pious, but they are but little to the purpose, since he is now reduced to advance what Job had never disputed. “As we here take our leave,” says Dr. Dodd, “of the arguments urged by Job’s friends, we may just observe, in conclusion, that nothing could be more untoward than this conduct of theirs, to bring a charge against him which they could not prove, and from which his well- known virtue and integrity of life ought to have screened him. But, though Job very plainly shows them the injustice and inhumanity of this procedure; nay, though he confutes them so far that they had nothing to reply, yet, like modern disputants, they stood out to the last, and had not the grace to own their mistake, till God himself was pleased to thunder it in their ears. Here, then, we have a lively instance of the force of prejudice and prepossession.”

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

25:1-6 Bildad shows that man cannot be justified before God. - Bildad drops the question concerning the prosperity of wicked men; but shows the infinite distance there is between God and man. He represents to Job some truths he had too much overlooked. Man's righteousness and holiness, at the best, are nothing in comparison with God's, Ps 89:6. As God is so great and glorious, how can man, who is guilty and impure, appear before him? We need to be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, and to be bathed again and again in the blood of Christ, that Fountain opened, Zec 13:1. We should be humbled as mean, guilty, polluted creatures, and renounce self-dependence. But our vileness will commend Christ's condescension and love; the riches of his mercy and the power of his grace will be magnified to all eternity by every sinner he redeems.

Barnes' Notes on the Bible

And if it be not so now, who will make me a liar? - A challenge to anyone to prove the contrary to what he had said. Job had now attacked their main position, and had appealed to facts in defense of what he held. He maintained that, as a matter of fact, the wicked were prospered, that they often lived to old age, and that they then died a peaceful death, without any direct demonstration of the divine displeasure. He boldly appeals, now, to anyone to deny this, or to prove the contrary. The appeal was decisive. The fact was undeniable, and the controversy was closed. Bildad Job 25:1-6 attempts a brief reply, but he does not touch the question about the facts to which Job had appealed, but utters a few vague and irrelevant proverbial maxims, about the greatness of God, and is silent. His proverbs appear to be exhausted, and the theory which he and his friends had so carefully built up, and in which they had been so confident, was now overthrown. Perhaps this was one design of the Holy Spirit, in recording the argument thus far conducted, to show that the theory of the divine administration, which had been built up with so much care, and which was sustained by so many proverbial maxims, was false. The overthrow of this theory was of sufficient importance to justify this protracted argument, because:

(1) it was and is of the highest importance that correct views should prevail of the nature of the divine administration; and

(2) it is of special importance in comforting the afflicted people of God.

Job had experienced great aggravation, in his sufferings, from the position which his friends had maintained, and from the arguments which they had been able to adduce, to prove that his sufferings were proof that he was a hypocrite. But it is worth all which it has cost; all the experience of the afflicted friends of God, and all the pains taken to reveal it, to show that affliction is no certain proof of the divine displeasure, and that important ends may be accomplished by means of trial.

Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

CHAPTER 25

THIRD SERIES.

Job 25:1-6. Bildad's Reply.

He tries to show Job's rashness (Job 23:3), by arguments borrowed from Eliphaz (Job 15:15, with which compare Job 11:17.Bildad’s answer: God’s majesty and purity is such as that man cannot be justified before God: before him the heavenly lights lose their lustre and purity.

Bildad answered, not to that which Job spoke last, but to that which stuck most in Bildad’s mind, and which seemed most reprovable in all his discourses, to wit, his bold censure of God’s proceedings with him, and his avowed and oft-repeated desire of disputing the matter with him.

Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite,.... Not to what Job had just now delivered, in order to disprove that, that men, guilty of the grossest crimes, often go unpunished in this life, and prosper and succeed, and die in peace and quietness, as other men; either because he was convinced of the truth of what he had said, or else because he thought he was an obstinate man, and that it was best to let him alone, and say no more to him, since there was no likelihood of working any conviction on him; wherefore he only tries to possess his mind of the greatness and majesty of God, in order to deter him from applying to God in a judicial way, and expecting redress and relief from him;

and said; as follows.

Geneva Study Bible

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,

EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)

Pulpit Commentary

Verses 1-6. - Far from accepting Job's challenge, and grappling with the difficulty involved in the frequent, if not universal, prosperity of the wicked. Bildad, in his weak reply, entirely avoids the subject, and limits himself to briefly touching two old and well-worn topics - the might of God (vers. 2, 3) and the universal sinfulness of men. On neither of these two points does he throw any fresh light. He avoids, however, the reckless charges of Eliphaz (Job 22:5-9) as well as the coarse menaces of Zophar (Job 20:5-29). Verses 1, 2. - Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, Dominion and fear are with him (i.e. with God). God is the absolute Sovereign of the universe, to whom, therefore, all created beings must perforce submit themselves. He is also terrible in his might, so that for their own sakes men should submit to his decrees. Through his active sovereignty, and the fear which he inspires, he maketh peace in his high places. The meaning may be that, through these high attributes, God maintains peace among the dwellers in the supernal regions; but beyond this there is a possible allusion to a time in which peace was disturbed, and the Almighty had to "make" it, or re-establish it, (On the subject of the "war in heaven," and the defeat and subjection of the rebels, see the comment on Job 9:13.) Job 25:1

Keil and Delitzsch Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament

1 Then began Bildad the Shuhite, and said:

2 Dominion and terror are with Him,

He maketh peace in His high places.

3 Is there any number to His armies,

And whom doth not His light surpass?

4 How could a mortal be just with God,

And how could one born of woman be pure?

5 Behold, even the moon, it shineth not brightly,

And the stars are not pure in His eyes.

6 How much less mortal man, a worm,

And the son of man, a worm!

Ultimum hocce classicum, observes Schultens, quod a parte triumvirorum sonuit, magis receptui canentis videtur, quam praelium renovantis. Bildad only repeats the two commonplaces, that man cannot possibly maintain his supposedly perverted right before God, the all-just and all-controlling One, to whom, even in heaven above, all things cheerfully submit, and that man cannot possibly be accounted spotlessly pure, and consequently exalted above all punishment before Him, the most holy One, before whom even the brightest stars do not appear absolutely pure. המשׁל is an inf. abs. made into a substantive, like השׁקט; the Hiph. (to cause to rule), which is otherwise causative, can also, like Kal, signify to rule, or properly, without destroying the Hiphil-signification, to exercise authority (vid., on Job 31:18); המשׁל therefore signifies sovereign rule. עשׂה, with הוּא to be supplied, which is not unfrequently omitted both in participial principal clauses (Job 12:17., Psalm 22:29; Isaiah 26:3; Isaiah 29:8; Isaiah 40:19, comp. Zechariah 9:12, where אני is to be supplied) and in partic. subordinate clauses (Psalm 7:10; Psalm 55:20; Habakkuk 2:10), is an expression of the simple praes., which is represented by the partic. used thus absolutely (including the personal pronoun) as a proper tense-form (Ew. 168, c, 306, d). Schlottman refers עשׂה to המשׁל ופהד; but the analogy of such attributive descriptions of God is against it. Umbreit and Hahn connect בּמרומיו with the subject: He in His heights, i.e., down from His throne in the heavens. But most expositors rightly take it as descriptive of the place and object of the action expressed: He establishes peace in His heights, i.e., among the celestial beings immediately surrounding Him. This, only assuming the abstract possibility of discord, might mean: facit magestate sua ut in summa pace et promptissima obedientia ipsi ministrent angeli ipsius in excelsis (Schmid). But although from Job 4:18; Job 15:15, nothing more than that even the holy ones above are neither removed from the possibility of sin nor the necessity of a judicial authority which is high above them, can be inferred; yet, on the other hand, from Job 3:8; Job 9:13 (comp. Job 26:12.), it is clear that the poet, in whose conception, as in scripture generally, the angels and the stars stand in the closest relation, knows of actual, and not merely past, but possibly recurring, instances of hostile dissension and titanic rebellion among the celestial powers; so that עשׂה שׁלום, therefore, is intended not merely of a harmonizing reconciliation among creatures which have been contending one against another, but of an actual restoration of the equilibrium that had been disturbed through self-will, by an act of mediation and the exercise of judicial authority on the part of God.