Job 25:1
INTRODUCTION TO JOB 25
This chapter contains Bildad's reply to Job, such an one as it is; in which, declining the controversy between them, he endeavours to dissuade him from attempting to lay his cause before God, and think to justify himself before him, from the consideration of the majesty of God, described by the dominion he is possessed of; the fear creatures stand in of him; the peace he makes in his high places; the number of his armies, and the vast extent of his light, Job 25:1; and from the impossibility of man's being justified with him, or clean before him, argued from thence, Job 25:4; and which is further illustrated by a comparison of the celestial bodies with men, and by an argument from the greater to the less, that if they lose their lustre and purity in his sight, much more man, a mean despicable worm, Job 25:5.
Ver. 1. Then answered Bildad the Shuhite,.... Not to what Job had just now delivered, in order to disprove that, that men, guilty of the grossest crimes, often go unpunished in this life, and prosper and succeed, and die in peace and quietness, as other men; either because he was convinced of the truth of what he had said, or else because he thought he was an obstinate man, and that it was best to let him alone, and say no more to him, since there was no likelihood of working any conviction on him; wherefore he only tries to possess his mind of the greatness and majesty of God, in order to deter him from applying to God in a judicial way, and expecting redress and relief from him;
and said; as follows.