What happensPermalink
Bildad gives the final speech from Job’s three friends, and it is brief. He declares God’s dominion, fearsome majesty, heavenly peace, and limitless armies. Before such a God, even the moon is dim and the stars are not pure. How, then, can a human being be right before God, or one born of woman be pure? Man is lowly, like a maggot or worm.
Why it mattersPermalink
Bildad speaks truth without wisdom. God is holy and majestic, and human beings are frail and impure before him. But this truth does not answer Job’s suffering or refute his innocence against the friends’ accusations. Bildad repeats an old question without new insight, showing the exhaustion of the friends’ theology. They cannot imagine that God is just, Job is innocent, and God’s reasons remain hidden.
Key versePermalink
How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?