Job8chapter 8

Bildad is called a Shuhite. Shuah was a son of Abraham by Keturah, and Assyrian records name a region called Suhu along the middle Euphrates — a real tribal area on the trade road, which fits a friend who could travel to Uz.

His authority is different from Eliphaz's. Where Eliphaz cited a vision, Bildad cites the ancestors: enquire of the former age, and prepare yourself to search what their fathers found out, because we are of yesterday and know nothing, our days on earth a shadow. In a world where almost nobody could read and knowledge passed by memory down family lines, this was the strongest argument available. It is also, in this case, an argument that whatever the elders always said must be right.

His two plant pictures come straight out of the landscape. Papyrus and marsh reed grow tall and green but die faster than any grass the moment the water is cut off — an image drawn from the great reed beds of Egypt and Mesopotamia. And the flourishing garden plant whose roots wrap around a heap of stones looks unshakeable until the ground is cleared, and then the place says, 'I never saw you.'

The spider's web is the same idea at household scale: a man leans on his house and it will not stand. Every one of these images says that what looks solid is not, and every one of them is aimed at Job's estate, Job's children, and Job's reputation.