The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 298

HOMILETICS. Vera. I-21.-Bildad to Job: an .Arabian o,·ator's d6SOOurse.. I. TaE FAULTY IJ;."TnonuCTION. Bildad possessed at least three qualifications indispensable tp suc- cessf'ul speaking-fen-id imagination, glowing eloquence, and vehement passion. Ho was characterized also by three fatal defects-want of calmness, or self-containment, want of prudence, and want or sympathetic tenderness. Beincr destitute of these h·e blundered like an inexperienced amateur, starting out on his ~ration in a hurri~l\ne or passion and ill humour, planting daggers in the breast he hoped to win by his eloquence, and forfeiting, by the very keenness of his invective, all possibility of effecting good impressions by his words. He impenched Job of: 1. Senseless verbositiJ. Of speaking at an undue length; of talking for talking's sake; of huntincr after words in order to overwhelm his opponents; of speaking without consideration, talking wlien he ought to have been thinking, making words do duty for ideas; of speaking instead of listening to his betters (ver. 2). The first is the error of the facile-tongued; the second, of the shallow-pated; the third, of the conceited egotist. If Job sinned fn either of these respects, he was not undeserving of reproof, much more if he erred in all. But Bildad, whoso genius was not original, was probably moved to use the lan- guage of censure as much by a desire to imitate Eliphaz (eh. iv. 2), or to retort upon Job (eh. xvi. 8), as by strong repugnance to the patriarch's offence. 2. Unjustifiable contempt. Job had accused the friends of Jacking spiritual discernment (eh. vii. 4). Bildad interpreted the charge to mean that Joh regarded them as brute beasts, devoid of sense and reason (ver. 3). If Job did so, he was guilty of altogether unwarranted depreciation of his fellows. That nature, which God made only a little short of Divinity (Ps. viii. 5; Heb. ii. 6), must for ever be parted by a wide gulf from the irrational creation. Only when men voluntarily extinguish all spiritual susceptibility by continuance in sin can they be legitimately compared to the beasts that perish (Ps. xli:i.:. 12, 20). This the friends had not done; and it is certain Job had not called them beasts. But, being men of a high spirit, they were quick to take offence. 3. Self-dev01J,ri,ng rage. An old insinuation of Eliphaz's reproduced (eh. v. 2), with a specific allusion to Job's language charging God with tearing him in his anger (eh. xvi. 9), in contradistinction to which Bildad averred that Job tore himself, literally, "his soul," in his anger (ver. 4), meaning tbat the patriarch's misery was the fruit of his own frantic and excited behaviour, which again was the immediate result of his soul's fretful and wrathful resentment against God's providential inflictions. That Jo\)'s behaviour under his unparalleled calamities was. not perfect, is obvious; that .his impatience was such as to call for censure from men, may be doubted (Jas. v. 11). Yet Bildad's reproach suggests that while all "anger is a short madness," it is supreme insanity to fume and fret at the Divine dispensations, and that the most miserable man on earth must surely be he whose soul swells with rage against God because of his paternal chastisemen1s. 4. Egotistical presumption. In the judgment of Bildad, Job appeared to imagine that the Divine Law, which connected suffering with sin, should in his case he suspended ; but that, Bildad assured the patriarch, would be as likely to occur as that, in order to oblige him, the earth which God had appointed for man's habitation should become tenantless, or the rock which Heaven's ordinance has rendered fixed and immovable should be suddenly transported froJD its place (ver. 4). The reign of law in the material universe, and the fore-ordination of events in human hi..-;tory, have been frequently employed exactly as they are here used by Bildad, viz. to demonstrate the non-credibility of miracles, the inefficacy of prayer, the impossi- bility of such a thing JUI a special providence, and the intolerable arrogance of a being so mean and insignificant as man imagining that ip any of the ways implied in theire doctrines God would, in his behalf, interfere with the established order of things. But it is no presumption to believe in what Scripture teaches-the possibility of miracles (.Matt. m. 26), the efficacy of prayer (Ps. lxv. 2 ; Matt. vii. 7; Jas. i. 5), the reality on. Xmt, 1-21.J THE lmOK OF Jon.