Chapter Eight

The speech of Bildad. 1–2. Preface. 3–22. Bildad’s main idea: God is an absolutely righteous being, and the considerations confirming it.

Job 8:1. And Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: Job 8:2. How long will you speak thus? – the words of your mouth are like a rushing wind! Bildad’s impatience (“How long?”) is caused by Job’s vehemence and the emptiness of his words: “the words of your mouth are like a rushing wind.” Without touching on the first quality noted and condemned by Eliphaz (Job 5:2 and following), he dwells only on the second.

Job 8:3. Does God pervert judgment, and does the Almighty pervert righteousness? The emptiness of Job’s words shows itself in his denial of Divine Justice (Job 7:12). One cannot allow that God the Almighty has perverted righteousness. As the Almighty, that is, the providential ruler conducting all existence to its destiny and maintaining order, God cannot be unjust (Job 34:10-17).

Job 8:4. If your sons have sinned against Him, then He has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. God’s justice shows itself in facts of punishment. Not without cause and not by God’s arbitrary will did Job’s children perish. If they sinned, were in the hands of – in the power of – transgression, then the dominion of the latter brought them to their ruin (Job 18:7 and following Job 20:12 and following, Job 20:18-21; Prov 11:5-6).

Job 8:5. If only you would seek God and make supplication to the Almighty, Job 8:6. and if you are pure and upright, surely He will even now rouse Himself for you and restore the habitation of your righteousness. Job 8:7. And though your beginning was small, yet your latter end will be very great. God is righteous also in facts of reward. If Job turns to Him with all his heart, then He will guard him (“rouse Himself for you”), deliver his house, in which righteousness dwells, from every misfortune and reward him with blessings innumerable compared with his former ones.

Job 8:8. For ask now the former generations and consider the findings of their fathers; Job 8:9. for we are of yesterday and know nothing, because our days on the earth are a shadow. Job 8:10. Behold, they will teach you, tell you, and speak from their heart: To give his thoughts greater persuasiveness, Bildad attributes them not to his personal view: to him, having lived little (“we are of yesterday,” “our days are a shadow on the earth,” v. 9; cf. Job 14:2; 1 Chr 29:15) and therefore knowing little, one need not believe, but to a deep, sincere (“from the heart” – v. 10) conviction of ancestors made wise by long life and experience (cf. Job 12:12).

Job 8:11. Does the papyrus grow up without moisture? Does the reed grow without water? Job 8:12. While yet fresh and not cut down, yet before all other grass it withers. Job 8:13. Such are the ways of all who forget God, and the hope of the godless will perish; Job 8:14. his trust is broken, and his confidence is a house of a spider. Job 8:15. He leans upon his house and it does not stand; he grasps it and it does not hold. On behalf of the ancestors Bildad brings two proverbial sayings. In the first of them the life and fate of the wicked is compared with the fate of two Egyptian plants: – “gome” – papyrus, and “ahu.” This name appears only elsewhere in Gen 41:2 and means, according to blessed Jerome, any greenery growing in the marsh. As “gome” and “ahu” cannot grow without moisture and water and perish before their time in the absence of it, so exactly the similar fate awaits those who forget the Lord, who constitute the hope of man (Prov 3:26). Their endeavor to ensure their existence by personal forces is in vain; confidence in this is unstable (“house of a spider” cf. Isa 59:5-6).

Job 8:16. It grows green before the sun, its branches spread over the garden; Job 8:17. its roots are wrapped around a heap of stones; it grasps rocks between them. Job 8:18. But when it is torn from its place, that place denies it, saying: “I have never seen you! Job 8:19. Behold, such is the joy of his way! and out of the earth others grow. The second proverbial saying of the ancestors, comparing fate with the fate of a creeping vine plant, aims to note the fact of its destruction despite its strength and firmness. The vine is an undemanding plant and at the same time possesses such force that if it meets a heap of stones, it weaves them with its numerous roots: “its roots are wrapped around a heap of stones, between them it grasps rocks” (v. 17). But when it is torn up, not a trace of it remains (v. 18, cf. Job 7:10). Such exactly is the result of the flourishing at first life of the wicked (v. 19).

Job 8:20. See, God does not reject the blameless, nor does He strengthen the hand of evildoers. Job 8:21. He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with a shout of joy. Job 8:22. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will cease to be. Conclusion from the experience of ancestors and its application to Job. God does not reject the blameless man and does not support the evildoer – “does not strengthen his hand” (Isa 41:13; Jer 23:14). On the condition of Job’s turning to God his further life will be full of joy (v. 21; cf. Ps 125:2-3), and his enemies will prove shamed (“clothed with shame”; cf. v. 13–15; Ps 34:26) and even disappear from the face of the earth (“their tent will cease to be,” cf. v. 18–19; Ps 51:7).