Job 25, Man Cannot Stand Before God

Job has complained about the success of the wicked. After Job's speech, Bildad speaks for the third time. He appears to give a short reply.

Job 25:1-3, Awe of God

Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:

"Dominion and awe belong to God; 

he establishes order in the heights of heaven.

Can his forces be numbered? 

Upon whom does his light not rise?

God's dominion reigns from the heights of heaven downard.

Job 25:4-6, Impure stars

How then can a man be righteous before God? 

How can one born of woman be pure?

If even the moon is not bright

 and the stars are not pure in his eyes,

how much less man, who is but a maggot--

a son of man, who is only a worm!"

Bildad associates God's power with righteousness and the lesser parts of creation as impure.

Bildad's speech is a chiasm:

    A: God is high above all things

        B: Can one number His celestial creations?

            C: Man cannot stand before God!

        B: Even God's celestial creations are weak before Him

    A': Man is the lowest of all

After a difficult ending to chapter 24, we have an aborted speech by Bildad, a speech lasting only six verses. Chapters 25 through 27 have a variety of difficulties (say commentators) and so there are a number of recommended corrections.  Hartley, who has been reluctant to suggest corrections, does believe that Job 27: 13-23 continues Bildad's argument and should be included here. He argues that those verses are consistent with Bildad's line of reasoning and not Job's. It is possible that certain passages were understood as being a rebuttal by a companion and either did not have a statement as to the identity of the speaker or that identification was lost. (Old Testament Hebrew does not have grammatical markers and so it can be difficult to know when one speech ends and another begins.)

It is strange that Bildad's third speech is so abrupt and that there is no third speech by Zophar. Hartley's suggestion, to move part of chapter 27 to the end of this passage, is milder than the suggestions of other Job scholars. Elmer B. Smick, writing the Job commentary in The Expositor's Bible Commentary, Volume 4, notes the problems about chapters 25 thought 27 but does not suggest a reordering of the text.

Regardless of the issues for these three chapters, Job's debates with his friends is coming to an end. We will soon be interrupted by other characters.