Job 8:1

BILDAD’S FIRST ADDRESS.

1. Answered Bildad The structure of his address and the doctrine he maintains do not differ essentially from those of Eliphaz. He, too, sees in affliction the stern features of retribution. The first speaker had assailed Job from an intrenchment in the universal sinfulness of our race. Bildad now renews the assault from an older and more impregnable position the inexorable justice of God. From his point of view he sees but one side of the divine nature justice. He coolly insinuates that Job’s children must have been wicked because they were killed. In this he was sustained by the convictions of antiquity, since “sudden death, to the ancient mind, bore the aspect of a judgment a work of the divine wrath.” Kitto. In like manner if the parent suffer he must also be a sinner. His discourse, therefore, like that of Eliphaz, closes with an earnest exhortation to repentance. Fortunately for us, Bildad is a stickler for antiquity, since he rescues from oblivion an ancient and most precious relic, combining in symmetrical beauty a threefold simile. Job 8:11-19. This ancient poem sings the fate of all those who forget God. The spirit of this entire discourse sets Bildad before us in an unfavourable light. Like Saul of Tarsus before his conversion, he is zealously affected for God. Bildad also would seemingly have been ready to carry out his convictions, even at the point of the sword.