Job chapter 25, only 6 verses long!

Plus, it’s Bildad’s final oration, speech. (This is the third time he has “attacked” Job. Each “ambush” being shorter in length than the previous one. Specifically 35 verses then 21 verses then now 6 verses!)

He’s losing the argument! And exhausting his vocabulary as well!

His most unusual comment in the chapter is not a statement at all, rather a question!

Job has been trying (for 34 chapters now) to convince his “friends” that he has done no major wrong! That he is NOT being punished by God in Heaven for any mass of sin in his life. Job has diligently maintained his integrity! He absolutely will not admit to anything he HAS NOT done! (Yet he still does not understand WHY God has allowed such tragedy into his life.)

Well, Job’s protestations of innocence have irritated Bildad no end!

So Job, take this, you proud hypocrite (in Bildad’s opinion) …

“How then can man (like YOU, Job) be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? Behold even to the moon, and it shineth not; yea, the stars are not pure in his sight. How much less man, that is a worm? and the son of man, which is a worm?” Job 25:4-6, the last recorded words of Bildad.

These words (especially the first clause), being torn from their context (where really they are sharp barbs hurled against a holy servant of the Lord) … have been quoted untold thousands of times through the years. In Gospel Messages, no less!

But in God’s Eyes, Job was already “right” with the Almighty! (Our God speaking directly to Satan, Job 1:8. “Hast thou considered my servant Job, that there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil?” Wow!)

But Bildad reasons: “Job, God is so pure even His creation is tainted in His Sight! And you claim integrity for yourself?” Bildad thinks Job a fool!

Job, you’re a “worm!”

You are NOT justified, in God’s View!

Yet read with me Job’s “testimony.” From chapter 27, verse 5, Job speaking truthfully! “Till I die I will not remove mine integrity from me.” Then later in Job 31:6. “Let me be weighed in an even balance, that God may know mine integrity.”

And even his Wife (who knows Job better than any of his friends) says: “Dost thou still retain thine integrity?” Job 2:9, she knew!

And near the end of the Book, the Lord Himself says that Job has spoken of Him “the thing which is right.” Job 42:8, in Hebrew Job’s words have been “faithful, steady, fixed,” then “right!” The Hebrew verb here translated “to speak right” is “kun,” well “prepared!”

Bildad fades away now.

Embarrassed for eternity, I suspect.

By the way, here’s the answer to his questions. “How then can man be justified with God? or how can he be clean that is born of a woman?”

By knowing God through his Son Jesus Christ!

And His shed blood on the Cross of Calvary!

And Job DID know Him!

Our little “hero” one more time: “For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.” Job 19:25

Jesus is the Answer!

He himself claimed: “I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by Me.” And this I believe, John 14:6.

— Dr. Mike Bagwell