Job 8

¹ Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: ² “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? ³ Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? ⁴ If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. ⁵ If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, ⁶ if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. ⁷ And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great. ⁸ “For inquire, please, of bygone ages, and consider what the fathers have searched out. ⁹ For we are but of yesterday and know nothing, for our days on earth are a shadow. ¹⁰ Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words out of their understanding? ¹¹ “Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water? ¹² While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. ¹³ Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish. ¹⁴ His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider’s web. ¹⁵ He leans against his house, but it does not stand; he lays hold of it, but it does not endure. ¹⁶ He is a lush plant before the sun, and his shoots spread over his garden. ¹⁷ His roots entwine the stone heap; he looks upon a house of stones. ¹⁸ If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’ ¹⁹ Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the soil others will spring. ²⁰ “Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers. ²¹ He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. ²² Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

Job 9

¹ Then Job answered and said: ² “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? ³ If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times. ⁴ He is wise in heart and mighty in strength—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—⁵ he who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger, ⁶ who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; ⁷ who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; ⁸ who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea; ⁹ who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south; ¹⁰ who does great things beyond searching out, and marvelous things beyond number. ¹¹ Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him. ¹² Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’ ¹³ “God will not turn back his anger; beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab. ¹⁴ How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? ¹⁵ Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. ¹⁶ If I summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice. ¹⁷ For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause; ¹⁸ he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness. ¹⁹ If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? ²⁰ Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. ²¹ I am blameless; I regard not myself; I loathe my life. ²² It is all one; therefore I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’ ²³ When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. ²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges—if it is not he, who then is it? ²⁵ “My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away; they see no good. ²⁶ They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey. ²⁷ If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’ ²⁸ I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent. ²⁹ I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain? ³⁰ If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, ³¹ yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me. ³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together. ³³ There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both. ³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me. ³⁵ Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

The 3^rd century Greek philosopher, Epicurus, once posed four questions about God and the reality of evil in the world.

Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is not omnipotent.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

Is he both able and willing? Then whence cometh evil?

Is he neither able nor willing? Then why call him God?

What is interesting about these four questions is that they have become something of a meme, a popular idea that is frequently repeated within our culture. In fact, were you to Google the words “Epicurus,” “God,” and “evil,” you would find numerous images depicting these famous four questions and Epicurus’ response.

The point of the questions seem to be that it is impossible to hold to the idea of a good and powerful God in a world where evil things happen. There is a kind of tight logic, seemingly, to Epicurus’ arguments, and it is an apparent logic to which many are drawn.

The first point he makes seems unassailable. If God is unable to prevent evil, then he is not omnipotent. The fourth point likewise seems true enough. If God cannot stop evil and does not evil want to stop, then he is not God at all. The third point is true if by “willing” Epicurus means “always determines to never allow evil to happen.” If God were always determined to never allow evil to happen and was able to stop it, then we would have a real conundrum in explaining evil. Hold that thought.

The second point seems to present us with a non sequitur and a mistaken premise. There is, in fact, no inherent conflict between the idea that God is able to prevent evil but not always willing to do so. There is, admittedly, a great question at this point, but not really a contradiction, for God might have higher reasons that reside in the mystery of His will for allowing certain evils to happen. What is more, back to the third point, the witness of scripture would appear to be that God abhors evil but sometimes allows it to happen in a fallen world for these same mysterious reasons.

Epicurus’ arguments are therefore not unassailable. They are not airtight. It would seem that his second point is the primary point with which Job struggled.

Is he able, but not willing? Then he is malevolent.

At least in the case of Job, God was able to prevent evil but not willing to do so. He allowed Satan to strike Job. This presented Job, and us, with very real questions, but in and of itself it does not make God evil. The challenge of Job is therefore the challenge of being at peace with the mystery of God even when that mystery allows pain to befall us. It is into the midst of these kinds of questions that Job now converses with his friend Bildad the Shuhite.

Bildad simply doubles down and reasserts the old formula of retributive justice with renewed vigor.

Bildad is a fundamentalist. By that I mean that his is a posture of defensiveness, simplistic thinking, and an inability to allow his blunt and unyielding theology on difficult issues to be changed. For the record, this is not what fundamentalism originally was. It is simply what it has become. Furthermore, there are theological issues to be unwavering about: the gospel, for instance, or the person and work of Christ. But I am speaking here of Bildad’s refusal to think that he might be mistaken on what he thinks about a difficult and highly controverted issue like the issue of how a good God can allow evil. Clearly our good God does allow it at times, but how we understand that where honest disagreements can come into the picture.

Bildad simply hunkers down. We see this happening in Job 8.

¹ Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said: ² “How long will you say these things, and the words of your mouth be a great wind? ³ Does God pervert justice? Or does the Almighty pervert the right? ⁴ If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their transgression. ⁵ If you will seek God and plead with the Almighty for mercy, ⁶ if you are pure and upright, surely then he will rouse himself for you and restore your rightful habitation. ⁷ And though your beginning was small, your latter days will be very great.

This is exasperating. You will notice that Bildad simply doubles down on the principle of retributive justice and insists that since Job and his children have suffered they simply must have sinned. The key statement is the first point of verse 3: “Does God pervert justice?” Well, of course God does not, but then that depends on what Bildad means my justice. What he clearly means is the old formula of retributive justice: the upright are blessed and the sinful are cursed.

You will perhaps notice the tendency in certain religious people to shout louder when questioned or challenged. It has been my experience that when people double down on their pet doctrines it is usually because those are the doctrines about which they are most uncertain. Their protests reveal their insecurities. Perhaps this is happening in Bildad.

In verse 8, Bildad goes historical and plays the tradition card.

⁸ “For inquire, please, of bygone ages, and consider what the fathers have searched out. ⁹ For we are but of yesterday and know nothing, for our days on earth are a shadow. ¹⁰ Will they not teach you and tell you and utter words out of their understanding?

Translation: “Trust what we have always been told.” And what had they always been told? They had always been told that the righteous are blessed and the unrighteous are cursed.

Tradition is a powerful thing, of course. Jaroslav Pelikan once wrote that “tradition is the living faith of the dead” whereas “traditionalism is the dead faith of the living.”[1] Pelikan went on to say that it is traditionalism that gives tradition a bad name. That seems reasonable enough. There is a healthy sense of tradition and then there is an unhealthy sense of traditionalism. Put in those terms, what we find in Bildad is traditionalism, the dead faith of the living.

I have marveled as a pastor at how often otherwise bright adult Christians will simply accept utterly unbiblical ideas as true simply because it is what they have always been taught. One such example would be the eternal fate of those who commit suicide. It has always puzzled me how many bright Christians simply take it for granted that if a person commits suicide they will go to hell. When pressed on the numerous theological challenges to such a blanket assertion, those who hold to this will usually end up saying that it is what they have always been taught. But always having been taught something is not, in and of itself, a sufficient reason for actually believing something.

Bildad had always been taught the theory of retributive justice. So had Job. And so have most people today. Today it manifests itself in the prosperity preachers who tell you that if you believe enough and give enough money then God will give you great blessings, but if you experience hardship or tragedy it is because you did not believe enough.

Beware the lure of Bildad!

Bildad next gives a metaphor which appears intended to buttress his central idea. J. Gerald Janzen notes that verses 11-19 present a parable “which has puzzled many commentators” and then recommends Robert Gordis’ interpretation which “identifies a parable in two parts, describing the wicked (vv. 12-15) and the blameless (vv. 16-19) in terms of two kinds of plant.”[2] Perhaps that is a good approach, though it is hard to tell whether or not the parable can be divided in that way at all.

¹¹ “Can papyrus grow where there is no marsh? Can reeds flourish where there is no water? ¹² While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. ¹³ Such are the paths of all who forget God; the hope of the godless shall perish. ¹⁴ His confidence is severed, and his trust is a spider’s web. ¹⁵ He leans against his house, but it does not stand; he lays hold of it, but it does not endure. ¹⁶ He is a lush plant before the sun, and his shoots spread over his garden. ¹⁷ His roots entwine the stone heap; he looks upon a house of stones. ¹⁸ If he is destroyed from his place, then it will deny him, saying, ‘I have never seen you.’ ¹⁹ Behold, this is the joy of his way, and out of the soil others will spring.

Francis Andersen bemoans the fact that “the climax of this strophe in verse 19 is clouded by textual obscurities that nobody has been able to penetrate. Nearly every word involved has more than one meaning or connotations.”[3] Even so, the central point seems clear enough for the central point is simply another expression of Bildad’s main argument: if papyrus and reeds and flowers die it is because they do not have what they need to live. Job is the dying papyrus, the unflourishing reed, and the withering flower.

Bildad concludes thus:

²⁰ “Behold, God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of evildoers. ²¹ He will yet fill your mouth with laughter, and your lips with shouting. ²² Those who hate you will be clothed with shame, and the tent of the wicked will be no more.”

There it is yet again: “God will not reject a blameless man.” There is a note of hope and encouragement here, but also the same old indictment. For if “God will not reject a blameless man” that means that the man who has been rejected is not blameless. Thus, Job is to blame.

Stephen Chase sums up Bildad’s approach nicely.

Bildad wastes little time making clear his only doctrinal position in this chapter…God’s ways are just…and without exception the righteous are blessed and the wicked are punished. For Bildad, any apparent exceptions are momentary or illusory…Bildad’s is a premodern position, what we might call an old-time religion in a which he puts forth his own evidence based on tradition and the teaching of the ancestors…Bildad gives the clearest and most forthright depiction of divine, retributive justice in the book of Job. There is no ambiguity in Bildad’s universe: some people are righteous, others are wicked, the righteous are blessed, and the wicked are punished. End of story.[4]

Job rejects the old formula on the basis of his own innocence, depicts God as a transcendent power who does what He wants and cannot be questioned by suffering humanity, and yearns again for a mediator.

In a sense, the theory of retributive justice is easily destroyed. All that needs to be produced is a single person who is (a) righteous and (b) suffering. If a single example of this can be shown to exist, then Eliphaz and Bildad are mistaken and the theory implodes. Job knows this, of course, and it is the central argument he makes: he is innocent yet he suffers.

This is not to say that Job’s theology is not without its own problems, for in the midst of protests of innocence he increasingly questions the goodness of God. Job may no longer subscribe to the theory of retributive justice, but he still cannot imagine how God can be good and let a righteous man suffer. Job responds to Bildad beginning in Job 9.

¹ Then Job answered and said: ² “Truly I know that it is so: But how can a man be in the right before God? ³ If one wished to contend with him, one could not answer him once in a thousand times. ⁴ He is wise in heart and mighty in strength—who has hardened himself against him, and succeeded?—⁵ he who removes mountains, and they know it not, when he overturns them in his anger, ⁶ who shakes the earth out of its place, and its pillars tremble; ⁷ who commands the sun, and it does not rise; who seals up the stars; ⁸ who alone stretched out the heavens and trampled the waves of the sea; ⁹ who made the Bear and Orion, the Pleiades and the chambers of the south; ¹⁰ who does great things beyond searching out, and marvelous things beyond number. ¹¹ Behold, he passes by me, and I see him not; he moves on, but I do not perceive him. ¹² Behold, he snatches away; who can turn him back? Who will say to him, ‘What are you doing?’

I agree with Francis Andersen who sees in the preceding verses words of praise and not sarcasm. Andersen argues that these verses mean Job’s “faith is still intact, even though he has been plunged into darkness, or, as he says more dramatically, into ‘muck’ (verse 31).”[5] That is a good way of putting it: Job’s faith is in tact but has been plunged into darkness. It is reminiscent of C.S. Lewis’ observation during a time of struggle in his life that he did not fear that there was no God, but he did fear that there was a God and this is what He is like.

It is also interesting to note how Job’s words of praise in those first twelve verses sound a great deal like God’s rebuke of Job at the end of the book. There is the same recognition of God’s power. The difference is that, at this point in the book, Job is beginning to see God’s power as perhaps detached from God’s goodness whereas at the end of the book God’s power is attached to His own wisdom and glory and goodness leading Job to trust. But what we find here is that Job is beginning to see God as pure unassailable might. And, interestingly, Job moves on to complain that one cannot confront God about injustice because God’s might and power keep him beyond the reach of suffering humanity.

¹³ “God will not turn back his anger; beneath him bowed the helpers of Rahab. ¹⁴ How then can I answer him, choosing my words with him? ¹⁵ Though I am in the right, I cannot answer him; I must appeal for mercy to my accuser. ¹⁶ If I summoned him and he answered me, I would not believe that he was listening to my voice. ¹⁷ For he crushes me with a tempest and multiplies my wounds without cause; ¹⁸ he will not let me get my breath, but fills me with bitterness. ¹⁹ If it is a contest of strength, behold, he is mighty! If it is a matter of justice, who can summon him? ²⁰ Though I am in the right, my own mouth would condemn me; though I am blameless, he would prove me perverse. ²¹ I am blameless; I regard not myself; I loathe my life. ²² It is all one; therefore I say, ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’ ²³ When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent. ²⁴ The earth is given into the hand of the wicked; he covers the faces of its judges—if it is not he, who then is it? ²⁵ “My days are swifter than a runner; they flee away; they see no good. ²⁶ They go by like skiffs of reed, like an eagle swooping on the prey. ²⁷ If I say, ‘I will forget my complaint, I will put off my sad face, and be of good cheer,’ ²⁸ I become afraid of all my suffering, for I know you will not hold me innocent. ²⁹ I shall be condemned; why then do I labor in vain? ³⁰ If I wash myself with snow and cleanse my hands with lye, ³¹ yet you will plunge me into a pit, and my own clothes will abhor me. ³² For he is not a man, as I am, that I might answer him, that we should come to trial together.

Two things are happening here. First, Job is essentially yearning for his day in court against the Lord. This text is filled with legal imagery and legal language. Job wonders how one could ever even begin to approach God about matters of justice when God is above all powers and God can neither be summoned nor questioned. God cannot be put on the witness stand and God cannot be questioned. Even if he could, Job suggests that it would end only in his own condemnation though he is innocent.

The second dynamic is related to the first. Job wants his day in court with God because he is innocent. He repeats this three times in verses 15-21.

v.15 “I am in the right”

v.20 “I am in the right”

v.21 “I am blameless”

There is a dogged determination in Job. The only thing he seems very clear of at this point is his own innocence. This is no small thing, for, as we have said, the case of a single innocent man suffering destroys the theory of retributive justice, the theory to which his friends have appealed and out of which they speak. Job’s innocence is what is compelling him to call for his day in court. There is a kind of praise even in this, for Job realizes that God and God alone can explain how such a thing can be.

Tellingly, he concludes by once again wishing aloud that there was a mediator, an arbiter between himself and God.

³³ There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both. ³⁴ Let him take his rod away from me, and let not dread of him terrify me. ³⁵ Then I would speak without fear of him, for I am not so in myself.

How very fascinating: after pointing to God’s power, might, otherness, and transcendence, Job’s expresses his desire that there might be somebody between him and God who could help bridge the impassable chasm. It reminds us of what Abraham said to the rich man in Luke 16 about the impossibility of him being able to bring a drop of water to the rich man in hell.

²⁶ And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been fixed, in order that those who would pass from here to you may not be able, and none may cross from there to us.

Job, though not in hell, felt as if he was, and this chasm was as real to him as it is to the damned. Thus, he called for mediation. Yet, even as he did so, he did so with a note of futility as if such an arbiter were a mere pipedream. How very interesting it is for us, then, to compare Job 9:33 with 1 Timothy 2:5.

Job 9

³³ There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both.

1 Timothy 2

⁵ For there is one God, and there is one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus

One of the many beautiful truths of the gospel is that it presents us with an arbiter. This arbiter is not, however appointed by some outside court or system of justice in order to protect us from the arbitrary and cruel caprices of a malevolent and sadistic deity. No, this arbiter comes from the very heart of the holy and good God who loves us even when we do not and cannot understand. There is no court of justice above the will of God and there does not need to be one, for God is good. His goodness is seen in the mediator, Jesus Christ, who stands between us and God not in order to protect us from an evil God but, as God, to bring us to Himself so that we might begin to understand, to trust, and to have a relationship with Him.

God is good, and the good mediator is God, the God-man Jesus Christ, who has hung between heaven and earth to bridge the impassable chasm and who even now sits at the right hand of the Father making intercession for us, His people.

Job did not know this at the time, but he knows it now. We are privileged to live on this side of the cross. We still see through a glass dimly, but not as dimly as those before the coming of Christ saw, for Christ has come and he who has seen Christ has seen the Father, has seen the very heart of God…and it is good.

 

[1] Jaroslav Pelikan, The Vindication of Tradition. (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1984), p.65.

[2] J. Gerald Janzen, Job. Interpretation. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 1985), p.85.

[3] Francis I. Andersen, Job. Tyndale Old Testament Commentaries. 14 (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press Academic, 2008), p.153.

[4] Steven Chase, Job. Belief. (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), p.58.

[5] Francis I. Andersen, p.156.