Bildad’s Second Appeal, and Job’s Prophetic Vision

“I saw Him... and He [ said), Fear not: Iam... the Living One.”’ — Rev. i. 17, 18. “Then answered Bildad. .. Wherefore ‘are we counted as beasts? ’ — Chap. xviii. 1, 3.

( anetelane once more attempts to reason with the obstinate Job, and is evidently a little hurt at Job’s vigorous language in reply to Zophar.

Bildad thinks it is unkind of Job to compare his friends with the beasts and count them unclean, calling them his enemies and ungodly, when he himself was torn with anger (v. 4)! A rock could not be moved out of its place, and the fact of judgment upon the wicked could not be gainsaid. ‘‘ The light of the wicked shall be put out’’ (v. 5), repeats the gentle Bildad, hardly realizing in his own heart what he is talking about.

Once more will Bildad describe for the afflicted Job the fate of the ungodly, and once more are his illustrations drawn from a very limited sphere. The light shall be put out in the tent of the wicked man (v. 6); a net shall ensnare him (v. 8); a gin, and a snare shall lay hold of him; a noose and a trap are hidden for him (v. 9, 10). He shall walk in terror and be hungerbitten (v. 11, 12); his family shall suffer with him (v. 13); his tent shall cover others not his own, and brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation (v. 14, 15). He shall be forgotten, and have no ‘‘name”’ or influential position among his fellows (v. 17); shall be chased out of the world and leave no posterity (v. 18, 19).

In short all who hear of him shall be shocked at his life, just as those who lived with him were horror-stricken at his fate (v. 20, A.V. m.).

The narrow scope of Bildad’s mind and his smallness of heart, are strikingly seen in all this. His one idea of blessing from God is prosperity in his ‘‘ tent’’, his family, his own personal circle, and in having a ‘‘name”’ in the “street” in which he lived!

It was inevitable that Job should be misunderstood by such a man. How could he comprehend the depth of surrender to God shewn by Job? Even more, how could he understand God’s deepest purposes for His devoted servant in placing him in the crucible?

Fob’s reply to Bildad “Then Job answered... How long?” — Chap., xix. 1.

‘* How long, how long, Bildad, will ye vex my soul,”’ cries the suffering Job, for he perceives that all these descriptions of the fate of the ‘‘ wicked’ are directed against himself. He wonders that his friends are not ashamed to deal thus hardly with him (v. 2,3). ‘“* Be it indeed that I have erred,’ he exclaims, I alone am responsible, ‘‘ mine error remaineth with myself” (v. 4)! His friends had no right to “‘ magnify”” themselves against him, and to take a position of authority and reproach him (v. 5), but in deference to Bildad’s evident hurt at being counted unable to help him, he would once more describe his case, and let his would-be comforters see whether they were dealing kindly with him.

Bildad had talked about the wicked being cast into a net by his own doings, but ‘‘ Know now”’, Job solemnly says, God hath overthrown me, and hath compassed me with His net’? (v.6,m.). God had brought him into a position where he could not move one way or another, he was cast into a net thrown around him by God Himself.

Job’s friends had bidden him set his heart aright, and stretch out his hands to God, but he had cried out and was not heard (v. 7); he knew, however, that it was God Who was dealing with him; it was He Who had fenced up his way, and set darkness in his paths (v. 8) so that he could not see one step before him; it was God Who had stripped him, taken the crown from his head and broken him down on every side so that even hope seemed gone, “‘ plucked up like a tree”? (v. 9, 10). It was God who had severed him from his brethren and his eee and left him to suffer his sorrows alone (Vin ES)),

‘“My kinsfolk have failed,’ cries the lonely man, ‘“‘ my familiar friends have forgotten me’’ — they who were glad to know me in the day of prosperity, they who have eaten my bread and sojourned with me, now ‘‘ count me for a stranger” (v. 14, 15, m.).

My servants also treat me as a stranger; when I call they do not answer; I have to entreat where once I commanded (v. 16). I am repulsive to my wife and loathsome to my relatives, “‘ even young children despise me; if I arise, they speak against me’’ (v. 17, 18).

Keenest pain of all, the ‘‘ men of my council’? (v. 19, m.), “* My inward friends’, the ones who knew me intimately, and those whom I thought would cling to me, and believe in me whatever came, even they whom I tenderly loved “‘ are turned against me (v. 19, m.)!’’ Could any man be in a more desolate state?

What have I left? Look at me, friends, bereft of all, see — “my bone cleaveth to my skin’’ — I am escaped out of all this calamity with but the “‘ skin of my teeth’’ (v. 20) —

“Have pity upon me, have pity upon me, O ye my friends: for the hand of

God hath touched me.”’ — v. 21.

The hand of God! Job little knew of the scene that had taken place in heaven. ‘‘ Put forth Thine hand now, and touch all that he hath... touch his bone and his flesh and he will renounce Thee,”’ Satan had said to Jehovah.

God had done it — or more correctly had permitted His faithful servant to be tried by the Adversary — and there is no sign yet of Job’s renunciation of God. ‘True, he had wept, groaned and writhed under his sufferings, but the loyalty of his soul had never been shaken. To him all had come from the hand of God’’. He could not understand why the Lord should thus deal with him: why He appeared to be judging him; but he knew that his conscience was clear, and that pity and sympathy should have been given him by his friends.

Job’s prophetic vision “But I know that my Redeemer liveth, and that He shall stand at the latter day upon the earth; and after I shall awake, though this body be destroyed, yet out of my flesh shall I see God.’’ — Chap. xix. 25, 26, A.V., m.. On the dung-heap see the once honoured chief, apparently forsaken of God and man, a loathsome wreck of skin and bone. Being persecuted, he endures; being defamed, he entreats; made as the filth of the world, and the off-scouring of all things, in his hour of deepest degradation and shame, he breaks out into a burst of triumphant faith, that, even though his body be destroyed, he has the glorious assurance that he shall yet see God.

Job’s spirit is suddenly set free, and breaks out into the light. His ‘‘ Vindicator” (v. 25, m.) is living! At the latter day He shall stand upon the earth. ‘‘ What matters it if worms do destroy this body, I shall yet see God,” cries Job. “See Him for myself,’ and ‘‘ on my side’’. Mine eyes shall behold Him, and He will not be a stranger. Oh how my inner being is consumed with earnest desire for that day (v. 27, A.V.m.).

Job had said not long before this, ‘‘ Shall a man live again?” and his question has been answered through his own lips. He has not only been given a glimpse into things to come for his own heart’s comfort, but, “‘ moved by the Holy Ghost ’’, he has prophesied of the Resurrection, and coming again in glory of the crucified Redeemer.

The apostle Paul more than once speaks of the Gospel as‘a “purpose of the ages”’,* ‘* kept in silence through times eternal”’ ,t “foreordained before the world’’,t and at last ‘‘ manifested by the appearing of our Saviour Jesus Christ, Who brought life and incorruption to light through the Gospel”’.§

The silence has now and again been broken by some brief word from the lips of a man walking in close fellowship with God; for holy prophets “‘ have been since the world began”’.

It is written that the gospel was preached beforehand unto Abraham. It was also revealed by the Spirit unto Job, not in the full light vouchsafed to the apostle Paul, but clearly enough for Job’s own fellowship with God.

It appears also that these old-time prophets were taught the things of God mainly by experience.

Job might not have been able to explain the full meaning of sacrifice as the ground of access to God, but he knew the effect of it in his life, and now in the furnace of trial as he is brought to extremity, he learns experimentally the faith of the resurrection.

Abraham was given the same knowledge in his supreme trial, for he “offered up Isaac’’, ‘‘ accounting that God is able to raise up, even from the dead’.

It was the same God-given faith that enabled weak women

* Eph. iii. 11, m. t Rom. xvi. 25. {1 Cor. iioy. § 2 Tim. i. 10.

to endure being beaten to death, not accepting deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection’.

Such a faith the Lord sought to awaken in Martha at the tomb of her brother, and Paul the apostle learnt it in fuller measure when stoned and despairing of life in his great “trouble in Asia”’.

Thus all through the ages we may trace the faith of the resurrection given to the soul in its moment of supreme surrender and sacrifice to God, for it appears that the hour of deepest anguish and suffering, is the time when the spirit is freed to break through into a realm of light, and knowledge of God, never possible before.

It was so with Job. Ina crucible of unparalleled suffering, brought down, as he says, to the “skin of his teeth ’’, he cries “* I know that my Redeemer liveth’’. His soul is filled with consuming desire for that glorious day when he will see his Redeemer face to face. He will be his Friend and not a stranger. He will stand upon the earth as Judge — let the friends remember this, “‘there is a judgment’’ — and they will have to give account to God of their hardness to Job, and “wrathful are the punishments of the sword’’ (v. 28, 29, m.).

Job, Chapters xx, xxi.