Bildad and Job, Round 1

Job 8-10

Bildad doesn’t start out as gently as Eliphaz did. 

8 1-2:  Bildad from Shuhah was next to speak:  “How can you keep on talking like this? You’re talking nonsense, and noisy nonsense at that.” (The Message)

8 1-2:  Then Bildad the Shuhite answered: “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind?: (NRSV)

Is Bildad already tired of listening to Job use so many words?  Is he frustrated because Job’s stream of consciousness is hard to follow and all over the map?  I feel you, Bildad, but you better get comfortable. We are here for a while.

Maybe Bildad is just more direct by nature.  Maybe Bildad hopes that telling Job the obvious truth without sugar coating it will bring Job to his senses.  Bildad thinks he understands Job’s problem, and he is confident that he knows how to fix it:

8: 4-7: It’s plain that your children sinned against him—otherwise, why would God have punished them?  Here’s what you must do—and don’t put it off any longer: Get down on your knees before God Almighty.  If you’re as innocent and upright as you say, it’s not too late—he’ll come running; he’ll set everything right again, reestablish your fortunes.  Even though you’re not much right now, you’ll end up better than ever. (The Message)

8: 4-7:  If your children sinned against him, he delivered them into the power of their transgression.  If you will seek God and make supplication to the Almighty, if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore to you your rightful place. Though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great. (NRSV)

Didn’t Job always worry that his kids had done something wrong?  How can you be certain that you’ve burned enough meat to make up for uncertainty?  Is this a tender spot for Job?  Wouldn’t Job have some sort of niggling in his brain that Bildad might be right?  What if?

And if, if, you can be innocent and upright, God will save the day like a superhero, reestablishing your fortunes and restoring you to your rightful place.  Is that the goal here?  Fortunes and a rightful place?  And is that how this works?  Maybe that was the OT understanding, but it sure doesn’t feel like that’s the way things are in the world today.

Bildad also works in an intergenerational theme, indicating that Job’s pain was caused by his children and going on to say that his answers can be found with his ancestors.  On some level, he’s probably not wrong. 

Bildad compares our little lives to spider webs, gossamers, plants and weeds.  Small things in nature that are object lessons in our human experience.  He reminds Job that Job will laugh again.

Job, of course, isn’t having it. Job spends the next two chapters (9 and 10) telling Bildad about how Job is blameless and treated poorly.  He talks about how God is powerful and doesn’t care and there’s no sense or justice in the world.  Job reiterates that he hates his life and wishes he’d been stillborn.  There’s much talk of bitterness and being mistreated without cause. 

What I find interesting, though, is that where Bildad leaned on small, delicate examples, Job goes big.  Stars and oceans.  Mountains.  Earthquakes.  Ships under full sail, eagles plummeting to snatch their prey.  Job thinks of God as big and powerful; perhaps that is why Job fears the Lord so much.

The juxtaposition between the delicate and the mighty strikes me.  Job seems much more into grand.  He had it good in a grand way, and now he has it bad in a grand way.  And in his grand bad times, he seems to have totally forgotten about the grand good times.  Maybe the point is that God is grand and Job is grandiose.