Job Chapter Twenty-Five
Bildad gives a very short answer to Job’s last discourse. It almost appears that he is getting weary of the whole process as he drops the argument regarding God punishing physically on this earth those that are wicked and in a few words emphasizes the distance between God and man.
Read Job 25:1-6
v1-2. “THEN ANSWERED BILDAD THE SHUHITE, AND SAID, DOMINION AND FEAR are WITH HIM, HE MAKETH PEACE IN HIS HIGH PLACES.”
Bildad is speaking of God. He recognizes that God is the sovereign Lord over all things and with him is a terrible majesty. He that gave us being has a right to give us laws that no one can dispute and he also has the right to enforce the laws he gives. He made all so he has the right to dispose of all according to his own will.
God makes peace in the high places, the angels who rebelled were removed and heaven is completely under his control and keeping. Even more so that earth is as well even though we have the freedom to choose whom we will serve, God or Satan.
v3. “IS THERE ANY NUMBER OF HIS ARMIES? AND UPON WHOM DOTH NOT HIS LIGHT ARISE?”
Our God is a God of irresistible power. In the time of Job the power and greatness of princes were judged by the size of their armies. God’s armies, should he choose to do physical battle, would be numberless.
His providence extends to all. His light, here probably referring to the sun, shines upon all the world, year round, day in and day out, to all equally. Or as David pictures for us so eloquently:
Psalms 19:6 “HIS GOING FORTH is FROM THE END OF THE HEAVEN, AND HIS CIRCUIT UNTO THE ENDS OF IT: AND THERE IS NOTHING HID FROM THE HEAT THEREOF.”
v4. “HOW THEN CAN MAN BE JUSTIFIED WITH GOD? OR HOW CAN HE BE CLEAN that is BORN OF A WOMAN?”
Bildad meaning is that man is not only mean, but vile, not only earthly but filthy; he cannot be justified, he cannot be clean. Since he is born of woman in comparison with God, man’s righteousness and holiness at best fall far short of God. As the psalmist Maschil asks:
Psalms 89:6 “FOR WHO IN THE HEAVEN CAN BE COMPARED UNTO THE LORD? who AMONG THE SONS OF THE MIGHTY CAN BE LIKENED UNTO THE LORD?”
v5. “BEHOLD EVEN TO THE MOON, AND IT SHINETH NOT; YEA, THE STARS ARE NOT PURE IN HIS SIGHT.”
The lights of the heavens though beautiful and majestic in their own right do not begin to approach the glory of God. The glory of God, shining in his providence, eclipses the glory of the brightest creatures.
Isaiah 24:23 “THEN THE MOON SHALL BE
CONFOUNDED, AND THE SUN ASHAMED, WHEN THE LORD
OF HOSTS SHALL REIGN IN
Since even these heavenly bodies have spots and blemishes that we can see and even more that God can see, how can mankind be any different? How then can Job so confidently appeal to God; a God who would discover that which is wrong in his life; perhaps even that that he was not even aware of himself.
v6. “HOW MUCH LESS MAN, that is A WORM? AND THE SON OF MAN, which is A WORM?”
Bildad here compares man in God’s sight as no better, or not greater than the worms found in the earth. Of course, we know this is not true as man was made in God’s image but our speaker has gotten himself carried away with the sound of his own words. But at the same time what little reason has man to be proud, and what great reason man has to be humble.