Job 25
Butler1. THEN answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said, 2 Dominion and fear are with him; He maketh peace in his high places. 3 Is there any number of his armies? And upon whom doth not his light arise? 4 How then can man be just with God?
BILDAD responds wholly without the rancor and bitterness that have characterized the friends’ answers hitherto, and with general considerations quite apart from the question at issue. Perhaps it is Job’s persistent affirmation of his integrity, that immediately calls them forth; but Bildad no longer makes it a personal matter, and seems to repeat his lesson almost mechanically, the chapter from his well-conned Wisdom which is least to be called in question. J. F. G.—He falls back upon the original position of Eliphaz in his opening speech—viz., the universal sinfulness of men, in which Job is of necessity involved. He thus not only impliedly retracts the charges hitherto insinuated or openly made against Job, but concedes his inability to conduct the argument further. He has nothing to adduce but what had been adduced and answered long before. The same thing is likewise intimated by the brevity of his speech. W. H. G.
This short speech of Bildad shows the complete exhaustion of Job’s opponents. The speaker leaves unnoticed the question raised by Job, and simply repeats two commonplaces, which had been advanced in the beginning of the controversy by Eliphaz; but so far from being disputed by Job, had been repeatedly urged and illustrated by him. God is omnipotent; hence follows the duty of unreserved submission, an inference which Bildad leaves to be drawn by the hearer; man is naturally unclean; how, then, can he be justified by Him who discerns impurity in the very heavens?
Or how can he be clean that is born of a woman? 5 Behold, even the moon hath no brightness, And the stars are not pure in his sight: 6 How much less man, that is a worm! And the son of man, which is a worm!
The tone of Bildad’s speech, though without an attempt to grapple with the real difficulties of the question, is pleasing in tone, free from Zophar’s violence, and from the worldliness of Eliphaz. He does not repeat the old charges and insinuations against Job, but admonishes him to submission on grounds which are not calculated to cause any personal irritation, and which Job himself would be first to admit. He brings the discussion, so far as his party is concerned, to a close. Cook.
2,3. Dominion and fear are with Him. He is an awful God who hath the absolute dominion over all the world; He ordereth the very heavens so that there is a perfect harmony in all the apparently contrary motions thereof; and contriveth all things so that they agree to glorify Him! What innumerable troops of glorious angels hath He there above, and what infinite armies of His creatures to execute His will upon all occasions! And how gracious is He in sending forth His light into all the corners of the earth! and how wise in searching all the secrets of human actions and counsels! Bishop H.
2. He maketh peace in His high places. The high places are His high places; for the heavens, even the heavens, are the Lord’s in a peculiar manner; peace is God’s work; where it is made it is He that makes it. In heaven there is perfect peace; for there is perfect holiness, and there is God, who is love. H.—A great truth lies deep in these words, that peace is a creation; and all creation is an attribute of God. The most beautiful word that ever hung upon the mouth of man is peace, because it is sweetness to his fellow-men and it makes sacrifice to God. Many summers and many winters of life go to ripen that fruit. And of that beautiful fruit of the lips hear what God says: “I create the fruit of the lips; peace, peace, to him that is far off and to him that is near, saith the Lord; I will heal him.” The words are meant to teach us that up in His high places God is ever devising and carrying on processes which are to produce peace for men in this lower state. In mystery, in solitude, and in largeness, before the foundations of the earth were laid God began to make peace in His high places. He willed that great scheme whereby Christ should come in the fulness of time to make redemption for a yet unformed and yet uncreated world. The ruin of Eden was prepared for in the high places of the eternal mind; and at once, at the moment of the fall, the promise came that peace should be restored on earth. The far end of Christ’s work was to give peace to men. J. V.
4. Bildad’s question finds its answer, the grand difficulty of all heathen nations and ages its complete solution, in the Gospel. At the foot of the cross, sprinkled with the blood of Christ, the sinner changes into a saint; the unjust into the just; the condemned into the acquitted; the child of wrath into an heir of heaven. In the eyes of his Sovereign Judge, the believer, happy man! is without spot, or stain, or any such thing. “There is no condemnation for those who are in Jesus Christ, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit.” T. G.
Justification (considered in the Gospel notion) is that gracious sentence of God wherein, with respect to Christ apprehended by faith, He absolveth the believer from sin and death, and doth repute him just and righteous unto eternal life. This doctrine of free justification is the foundation and corner-stone of all our comfort. For whereas there is a double change in the state of the sinner—first, a relative change; secondly, an absolute and real change—the one is made in sanctification, the other in justification. Sanctification is a real change, subduing corruption, destroying the power of sin in us. But justification is not a change in the person; it is only a relative change as to his state. To justify is a law term signifying the pronouncing or declaring of a man righteous; so that justification is an act of God upon us or toward us. Sanctification is an act of God in us. This blessed grace of sanctification always followeth the grace of justification as an effect or fruit of it; and though it may be easily distinguished from it, yet it can no more be separated or divided from it than heat from fire or motion from life. Caryl.
5,6. There is something truly sublime in this representation of the Supreme Ruler. His splendor darkens all; His radiant hosts are numberless; His light and purity surpass all created excellence; the heavenly bodies are eclipsed and retire before Him. Still greater is the disparity of man, whose impurity and meanness will not bear His inspection. Anon.