Page 90 - Reading Job to Know God

different. He does not treat everybody the same way. He punishes the
wicked. He rewards the righteous.
The harsh way in which Bildad drives this home is a lot stronger than
Eliphaz. Eliphaz was kind. But Job really blew his cork in chapter seven
and Bildad is responding to that, notice verse 4,

“If your sons sinned against Him, then He delivered them into the
power of their transgression.”

There he gives an illusion about Job’s children. I am certain that when Job
heard this he was enraged by the insinuation of this comment. What he is
saying is this. Evil carries with it the seeds of its own distrust. Evil bears
its own retribution. In other words, he is saying God is righteous; He only
punishes the wicked. Your children are dead, Job; they deserved it; they
were wicked. That is what he said in verse 4. Your children died because
they deserved to die. Then he thinks he is encouraging Job by trying to
illustrate the positive side in verses 5-7,

“If you would seek God and implore the compassion of the Almighty, if
you are pure and upright, surely now He would rouse Himself for you
and restore your righteous estate. Though your beginning was
insignificant, yet your end will increase greatly.”
Evidently, says Bildad, you are not the kind of sinner your sons were,
because God is discriminately righteous. They sinned, and they died.
You are still alive. That means there is some hope for you if you would
only repent. You are still alive, because God sees the potential, the
possibility, that you are going to repent. Turn back to God! That is
Bildad’s mantra. The second part of Bildad’s speech is the illustration of
that principle by three illustrations in verses 8-10,
“Please inquire of past generations, and consider the things searched out
by their fathers. For we are only of yesterday and know nothing, because
our days on earth are as a shadow. Will they not teach you and tell you,
and bring forth words from their minds?”
Bildad is saying, this principle that I am holding, that God is
discriminately righteous, did not come off the top of my head. This is not
my own bright idea. Why, this is the talk of the ancestors. This principle
has stood the test of time. This is what people have believed for
generations. It rests on research. It rests on the general experience of all
mankind. I did not make this up. Then he gives three illustrations. Verse
11 and 12, the illustration of the papyrus leave, the Nile reed.
Commentators tell us that those reeds grow twice the size of an average
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