So Bildad the Shuhite reproached Job because he thought that the words that Job had said for the sake of truth and justice were, in fact, spoken out of arrogance and disdain.

Bildad says, be unjust in his judgments, or will he who has created everything overturn what is just? Observe what he means: justice accompanies the Creator. However, even though Bildad’s words are not entirely applicable to Job, let us see what he means. Do you not perceive the profound justice that reigns in the creation and its profound order? And how everything is well regulated and settled? Therefore, could he who maintains justice and order among the senseless creatures overturn the rules in your case? Further, why did God create everything? Is it not because of you, the human being? And so he who has created so many things, did he not give you what was right to share? He who has created you out of love and has created so many things for you, if he has shown his benevolence toward the universe, this is also a proof of his power. We often overturn justice because of our powerlessness, but he has created everything, he says. Will he, who is so wise, so just, so powerful, be unjust?

Even if your person is purified from guilt through your words, do not the sins of your house reflect the guilt of your principles? Therefore, it is not proper that you make your pains into complaints. It is, however, useful that you are purified through confession and the offering of prayers.

Even Bildad is confused in his speech and is pulled in different directions by various doctrines, when he says, If you yourself have not sinned, your sons have. Thereby he does not believe one is punished for someone else. But he may be included (in his reasoning), for he delivered the transgression into their hand due to their own sin. In so doing, he alludes to the collapse [of the house], through which Job’s children died. Son he says, referring to the superior part in his speech, because Job had also daughters. Thus he indicates, since the sons, who had great value for Job, have sinned, obviously the daughters have sinned as well.

Bildad says, I suggest you pray to the Lord with all your devotion and diligence. Everything else should come after your prayers. This is what be early means. And if you are true and empty of any deceit and falseness, God will give you back a condition of life and a status worthy of a righteous person. You will enjoy an abundance of goods as great as you possessed earlier. Notice how Bildad demonstrates in this part of his discourse of praise his belief that the happiness of the righteous is found in the material goods of worldly life.

In order to give authority to his words, Bildad calls the venerable past as a witness, so that he may appear to know through long experience what he has said or is about to say. In a different sense, Bildad wants Job to learn from ancient examples what he had said before, that is, that God is appeased by the prayers of the righteous. Through God’s support not only are calamities dissolved but also prosperity and happiness are returned. Thus God, whom they had invoked, protected Abraham and his descendants in their distress. Observe a third sense in Bildad’s words: I want you to consider the ancient examples, so that you may not despise my advice because of my youth.

Previously Bildad said that the teaching is passed on from the ancestors and fathers to the following generations. Now he supports this with an example. He says, As papyrus does not prosper without water and reeds do not grow if they are not watered. . . likewise someone cannot produce useful fruit whose spirit has not received nourishment from higher authorities. But one can also say that human affairs are watered by providence as with water; if water is not added, they easily decrease and vanish. If, therefore, someone is hit by hardships but recovers from them, this happens with thanks to Providence. Even if what humans do seems to have a human root, it still does not last if Providence does not preside over it. Similarly the psalmist says beautifully, Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labor in vain.^[1] [Bildad then comments], They wither before any other plant. This means the same as Bildad’s earlier comment but is said about every plant. He seems to mean that, big or small, everything in life is subjected to Providence and withers if it does not pay attention to it.

Bildad means that as the papyrus and the reed cannot live without water, so you could not remain in your former happiness without the nourishment and liquid of justice. While yet in flower and not cut down, they wither before any other plant. Bildad says that blessed Job flourished like a herb, but before reaching the maturity of stable glory, he was thrown into so many afflictions that he was not taken away by God’s hand, on which all kingdoms are founded, in the fullness of his days or in a perfected and completed reign. Therefore, since you did not act so that you might reach your grave in peace and after fulfilling your time, you are dried up by the ardor of the sun before all herbs, that is, before all sinners, who are often indicated with the word herbs. You ceased from the tribulations of your heart together with the impious.

Job has not really forgotten God. Being still subject to the test, Job has offered blessings and praise. That is why the final condition of the righteous is not comparable to the grass dried up by heat. But he is like a tree planted by streams of water which yields its fruit in its season, and its leaves do not wither.^[1] Indeed, by preserving the fruit of virtue, Job has caused the abundant foliage of this world’s goods to bloom.

It is absolute foolishness and madness to act falsely and fraudulently before God, and this will never give them any advantage, because God sees into every heart and bosom.^[1] These persons are so described in the Gospels. They are adorned outside with an appearance of holiness but inside are filled with the corruption of sin and are like the graves of the dead.^[2] If one leans against its house, it will not stand. He who confides in himself and relies on his own strength will not be able to stand, but his arrogance will fall more ruinously.

The papyrus and the reed are dried by the scorching heat of the sun and their shoots rot, even though they are moistened by water. In fact, this is what his branch shall sprout from his dung heap means. The impious will suffer the same destiny, when the wrath of God falls upon them. Bildad appears to allude to the death of Job’s children through his use of branch, which can indicate shoots, branches or flowers.

Therefore, pay attention. Because they are called rocks but are not in any wise called living stones, the lost and the elect may be mixed together by the bare appellation of stones. Therefore this plant, which lives among stones, wraps its roots around the heap of rocks, in that every hypocrite multiplies the thoughts of his heart in seeking out human admiration. For in all that hypocrites do, seeing that in their secret thoughts they look out for the applauses of their fellow-creatures, like rushes, as it were, they send out roots into the heap of the rocks. For when they are about to act, they imagine the praises of others, and when applauded, they dwell upon these praises secretly within themselves in the thoughts of their heart. They rejoice that they have distinguished themselves first and foremost in the esteem of people; while they are puffed up and swollen in themselves by human applause, they often secretly wonder what they are. They long to appear day by day higher than they really are and grow to a height by practicing their extraordinary arts. As habits of virtue weaken everything bad, so presumption strengthens evil. . . . The hypocrite is destroyed from his place when death intervenes and he is separated from the applause of the present life. . . . When justly condemning the life of the pretender, Truth does not know him or recognize the good works he has done, for the pretender never acted with a right purpose in mind. Thus, when Christ comes to judge, he will say to the foolish virgins, Truly, I say to you, I do not know you.^[1] While he perceives a corrupt mind, he condemns even the corruption of the flesh. But would that hypocrites’ own ruin alone were enough for them and that their wicked pains did not vehemently urge others to a life of duplicity. . . . Hence according to the hypocrites’ perspective, every degree of simplicity of character is criminal. For they sit in judgment on people whose character is transparent. Purity of heart they term stupidity. . . and believe they have enlightened those persons whom they have forced to surrender the fortress of wisdom, purity of heart. ^[2] GOD’S JUSTICE AND POWER. ISHO‘DAD OF MERV: Out of the earth still others will spring. In other words, God inflicts these punishments on the impious as their just reward, but with regard to the righteous, regardless of the state of abasement in which he finds them, God will make them spring up again, rendering them glorious. ^[1]

Therefore, when all the elect are replenished with the delight of clear vision, they internally spring forth into the joy of laughter. We call it shouting when we conceive such joy in the heart as we cannot express through the force of words. Yet the heart’s triumph expresses itself with a voice that external words cannot express. Now the mouth is correctly said to be filled with laughter, the lips with shouting, since in that eternal land, when the mind of the righteous is borne away in transport, the tongue is lifted up in the song of praise. And they, because they see so many inexpressible things, shout in laughter, for without understanding it, they resound with all the love that they feel. . . . Confusion clothes the enemies of the good in the final judgment, for when they see in the mind’s eye their past misdeeds flooding their banks, their own guilt covers them on every side, weighing them down. For they then bear the memory of their actions in punishment, who now, as though strangers to the faculty of reason, sin with hearts full of joy. There they see how greatly they should have eschewed all that they loved. There they see how woeful that was which they now embrace in their sin.