The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Age” it comes from the Hebrew Word “dor” which means “generation, age.”
A second friend argues that God’s justice guarantees the wicked will not prosper. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Job 8.
Bildad the Shuhite responds, asking how long Job will speak such things, since the words of his mouth are like a strong wind, questioning whether God perverts judgment, or the Almighty perverts justice, suggesting that if Job’s children sinned against Him, He cast them away for their transgression, but if Job would seek unto God early and be pure and upright, God would surely awake for him and make his righteous habitation prosperous.
Bildad urges Job to inquire of the former “age,” “dor” in Hebrew, and prepare himself to the search of their fathers, since Job and his generation are but of yesterday and know nothing, their days on earth being but a shadow, asking whether the earlier generations would not teach him and utter words from their heart, using vivid imagery of the rush growing without mire and the flag withering without water even faster than other herbs, comparing this to the hope of the hypocrite that perishes, whose confidence is cut off like a spider’s web.
Bildad describes the wicked as a green plant before the sun, whose roots wrap around a heap and see the place of stones, but when destroyed, its place denies knowing it, and this is the joy of his way, while others grow out of the earth in his place. He closes assuring Job that God will not cast away a perfect man, nor help evildoers, promising that God will yet fill his mouth with laughter and his lips with rejoicing, while those who hate him will be clothed with shame, and the dwelling place of the wicked will come to nothing, another confident argument built on the assumption that Job’s suffering must indicate some underlying guilt.
Bildad’s appeal to ancestral wisdom and traditional understanding, however sincerely offered, still rests on the same flawed assumption that suffering reliably indicates guilt while prosperity indicates righteousness. His vivid botanical illustrations, while poetically memorable, ultimately fail to account for genuinely innocent suffering, the very reality this entire book exists to grapple with honestly rather than explain away too simply.
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