Job25chapter 25

Job 25:1-3

Bildad's third speech is six verses, the shortest in the whole debate, and after it Zophar never rises for a third round at all: the structure itself carries the point, the friends have run out of argument. What remains is majesty stated without application, dominion and fear are with him, he maketh peace among his heights above, and is there any number of his armies, the heavenly hosts under his command. Gill reads upon whom doth not his light arise as a plain claim of universal providence, the sun's light shared by every man regardless of his standing before God.

Job 25:4-6

Bildad closes the friends' case with a question Eliphaz asked twice before him, at 4:17 and again at 15:14, how can man be justified with God, or how can he be clean that is born of a woman, the phrase's third and final occurrence in the Old Testament. Even the moon does not shine in comparison and the stars are not pure in his sight, how much less man, a worm, and the son of man, a worm: Delitzsch reads the descent from moon to stars to worm as the friends' whole argument reduced to its bluntest form, human uncleanness measured against unapproachable light. Watson notes the debate ends where it began three speeches into Eliphaz's opening question, the friends having advanced no further, while Job in the same chapters has climbed from the daysman of 9:33 to the redeemer of 19:25.