Podcast 22, Stories of the Bible, “The Book of Job, Ch 8”

Bildad continues the argument of Eliphaz against Job. Both perpetuate the idea that if you are good, you will prosper. If you are bad, you will not prosper. They assume that because Job has lost everything, it is because of some secret sin. This is a dangerous philosophy and perpetuates itself even today. 

In a fallen world, life is far more complex. In our world often bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. Drug Lords, tyrants, and many other extremely wicked people may become billionaires at the cost of millions of lives. How many good people have suffered horribly at the hands of evil men? It is common in our world that the wicked prosper through bribes and power and cunning while the good suffer and pay dearly for the corruption of others. 

In Malachi, the Lord addresses that issue.

Malachi 3:13-18

“Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say, What have we spoken so much against thee? Ye have said, It is vain to serve God: and what profit is it that we have kept his ordinance, and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of hosts? And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered. Then they that feared the Lord spake often one to another: and the Lord hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name. And they shall be mine, saith the Lord of hosts, in that day when I make up my jewels; and I will spare them, as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

God does not judge us by our earthly success. It was Christ who said, “For what shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” Only those whose names are preserved in the Book of Life shall be saved. 

Revelation 3:5

 5 He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels.

Bildad chastises Job.

Job 8:1-3

“Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a strong wind? Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?”

4 RON

To Bildad, judgment and justice are the same thing. If evil happens to you it is because you are evil. If good happens to you it is because you are righteous. It is a very simplistic formula that does not always fit the facts. 

Bildad accuses Job’s children of sinning. In other words, according to Bildad, they got what they deserved. He appears to suggest to Job that the calamities came because of the sins of his children. Therefore, if Job prays to the Almighty, he will make Job prosper again because of his righteousness. How is that for stabbing ones’ friend in the back?

Job 8:4-6

“If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression; If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty; If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.”

Notice that Bildad adds the caveat, “If thou wert pure and upright; surely now he would awake for thee, and make the habitation of thy righteousness prosperous.” That suggests, of course, that if God does not make him prosperous, it is because Job is lying and he has committed some terrible sin.” It says something of Job’s character that he does not throw his friends out of his house.