Job 8:8 Commentary and Bible Study

If the first authority of the liberal is experience, the second is tradition. What is Bildad’s source of knowledge? It is what the forefathers said. Says Bildad, ‘Throw away your absurd ideas and prepare for a careful study of the fathers [sages of this world] of past times, for you know nothing’ – ‘Shall not they teach thee?’ Eliphaz went by experience and visions, and Bildad appeals to traditions of wise men. Both believe in the capacity of man to arrive at the truth. Zophar will complete this man-centred trio with his contribution shortly.Bildad in a fit of false humility gives undue praise and flattery to his ancestors for their wisdom. He does this in an attempt to make Job feel that he would be proud if he rejected the counsel of those from the past who are greater than him. Actually Bildad is giving his opinion, but, like many, he attributes it to others to lend weight to it. But in leaning so heavily on the past and denying all wisdom that might be given by God to the present generation – not to mention the wisdom of God’s revelation – Bildad shows that his appeal to the past is only another effort to prove himself right. Besides, Bildad’s argument is not sensible – ‘We cannot know the truth because our days are so short and therefore we need the wisdom of the past.’ Wasn’t exactly the same true of them also?‘Antiquity is everything’, says Bildad. ‘The ancients knew far more than we do.’ But where did they get their knowledge from? Man is cut off from God, and there is nothing special about those who lived long ago that means they have a superior claim to wisdom. What is human tradition worth, and what makes one age any wiser than another? Without the instruction of the Lord, the whole human race is in darkness. The sum total of human knowledge amount to nothing without God’s revelation. Bildad is not appealing to those who have had the truth revealed to them by God, but he is appealing to the consensus of man’s wisdom from the past. Some of those who lived before may well have been taught by God, and they would have agreed that God cannot pervert judgment, nor the Almighty pervert justice, but they would certainly not have meant what Bildad meant by that. An evangelical understanding of this truth, would assert that ultimately there must be a day of judgment when every case is assessed with perfect justice by the Lord, but in this life God does not explain to us all the trials that he causes his people to go through.