Bildad spoke – How long will Job say these things and the words of his mouth act as a great wind. He accuses Job of saying that God distorts justice. He moves forward to say that his kids died because of their sin, and that if Job is pure and righteous then God will restore his station in life, and even have more. He exhorts Job to consider wisdom from the past. He accuses Job of forgetting God, so like a flower withers when it is cut, so Job will; remaining godless. He told him that God will not reject a blameless man, nor take the hand of the evildoers. Those who hate you will be clothed with shame. The tent of the wicked will be no more.
Bildad seems to imply that Job’s fortunes will turn around if he is blameless before God. His accusation is that Job has suffered all of this because of his sin. The problem is that this is a completely wrong interpretation of what Job has gone through. In one sense Bildad is correct, if we could be pure and blameless then God would accept us, but we are unable to be pure and blameless. That said, Bildad is missing the point. God allowed Satan to afflict Job, not because of particular sin in Job’s life, but because he is righteous. Bildad’s interpretation of the events is completely off. I pray that in the midst of the suffering of my friends that I wouldn’t make assumptions about why they are going through what they are going through. May God grow me into a person who is compassionate with those who are suffering, and hold out the true hope of the gospel and not the impossible hope of being perfect to somehow earn God’s favor. There is no hope in our own perfection, because we are all sinners. But there is great hope in the perfection of Christ our Savior-King.