1 And Bildad the Shuhite answereth and saith: --
2 Till when dost thou speak these things? And a strong wind -- sayings of thy mouth?
3 Doth God pervert judgment? And doth the Mighty One pervert justice?
4 If thy sons have sinned before Him, And He doth send them away, By the hand of their transgression,
5 If thou dost seek early unto God, And unto the Mighty makest supplication,
6 If pure and upright thou `art', Surely now He waketh for thee, And hath completed The habitation of thy righteousness.
7 And thy beginning hath been small, And thy latter end is very great.
8 For, ask I pray thee of a former generation, And prepare to a search of their fathers,
9 (For of yesterday we `are', and we know not, For a shadow `are' our days on earth.)
10 Do they not shew thee -- speak to thee, And from their heart bring forth words?
11 `Doth a rush wise without mire? A reed increase without water?
12 While it `is' in its budding -- uncropt, Even before any herb it withereth.
13 So `are' the paths of all forgetting God, And the hope of the profane doth perish,
14 Whose confidence is loathsome, And the house of a spider his trust.
15 He leaneth on his house -- and it standeth not: He taketh hold on it -- and it abideth not.
16 Green he `is' before the sun, And over his garden his branch goeth out.
17 By a heap his roots are wrapped, A house of stones he looketh for.
18 If `one' doth destroy him from his place, Then it hath feigned concerning him, I have not seen thee!
19 Lo, this `is' the joy of his way, And from the dust others spring up.'
20 Lo, God doth not reject the perfect, Nor taketh hold on the hand of evil doers.
21 While he filleth with laughter thy mouth, And thy lips with shouting,
22 Those hating thee do put on shame, And the tent of the wicked is not!
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 8
Commentary on Job 8 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 8
Job's friends are like Job's messengers: the latter followed one another close with evil tidings, the former followed him with harsh censures: both, unawares, served Satan's design; these to drive him from his integrity, those to drive him from the comfort of it. Eliphaz did not reply to what Job had said in answer to him, but left it to Bildad, whom he knew to be of the same mind with himself in this affair. Those are not the wisest of the company, but the weakest rather, who covet to have all the talk. Let others speak in their turn, and let the first keep silence, 1 Co. 14:30, 31. Eliphaz had undertaken to show that because Job was sorely afflicted he was certainly a wicked man. Bildad is much of the same mind, and will conclude Job a wicked man unless God do speedily appear for his relief. In this chapter he endeavours to convince Job,
Job 8:1-7
Here,
Job 8:8-19
Bildad here discourses very well on the sad catastrophe of hypocrites and evil-doers and the fatal period of all their hopes and joys. He will not be so bold as to say with Eliphaz that none that were righteous were ever cut off thus (ch. 4:7); yet he takes it for granted that God, in the course of his providence, does ordinarily bring wicked men, who seemed pious and were prosperous, to shame and ruin in this world, and that, by making their prosperity short, he discovers their piety to be counterfeit. Whether this will certainly prove that all who are thus ruined must be concluded to have been hypocrites he will not say, but rather suspect, and thinks the application is easy.
Job 8:20-22
Bildad here, in the close of his discourse, sums up what he has to say in a few words, setting before Job life and death, the blessing and the curse, assuring him that as he was so he should fare, and therefore they might conclude that as he fared so he was.