Jobchapter 8
22 verses · KJVJob book hub →
Key verse
Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?
It stands in scene A of the chapter, verses 1 to 7.
The chapter
Chapter summary
Bildad the Shuhite speaks first time, blunter than Eliphaz: how long shall the words of thy mouth be like a mighty wind? 'Doth God pervert justice? or doth the Almighty pervert righteousness?' (8:3). Then the cruelest sentence yet spoken to a bereaved father: if thy children sinned, he delivered them into the hand of their transgression. Bildad appeals to the former age: can the rush grow up without mire? So perish the paths of all that forget God, 'whose confidence shall break in sunder, and whose trust is a spider's web' (8:14). Yet God will not cast away a perfect man: 'he will yet fill thy mouth with laughter.'
Context
Poetry · Unknown · Job overview
Where the chapter sits
Job 8 falls in Dialogue: three cycles (chapters 3–27). Job's opening complaint (3); three rounds with Eliphaz, Bildad, Zophar; the friends' rigid retribution theology; the third cycle breaks: Zophar does not speak again. The dialogue exhausts itself as argument.
Before it: Prose prologue: heavenly court, chapters 1–2. After it: Hymn to wisdom, chapters 28.
The whole shape of Job→The world behind this chapter
Job 8The history
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.
The rest of the history, and what it meant to them
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.
What it meant to them
Bildad says the hardest sentence in the book: your children sinned, and God has handed them over to their transgression. He says it to a man who buried ten children in a single day, and he says it as a matter of doctrine.
First hearers were meant to flinch. The book is showing what happens when a true principle, that God is just, is used as a tool to explain other people's graves.
Sources cited
- John H. Walton, Victor H. Matthews & Mark W. Chavalas, The IVP Bible Background Commentary: Old Testament
- John E. Hartley, The Book of Job
A. Bildad: Doth God Pervert Justice?
1. (vv. 1-3)
a.Then answered Bildad the Shuhite: Bildad the Shuhite opens the book's second speech by comparing Job's words to a strong wind, noise without substance. His question doth God pervert judgment, or doth the Almighty pervert justice, is true doctrine, and Henry notes that the speech-attribution problem starts here, since God will affirm this very sentence at 42:7 and the fault is not in what Bildad says but in the case he is about to build on it. Gill reads the question as rhetorical, assuming the answer no as a fixed premise from which Job's guilt must follow.
Job 8:1, 2 voicesWhat preachers and commentators have said about this verse, in their own words.
Job 8:1
“Then answered Bildad, the Shuhite, and said, How long wilt thou speak these things? and how long shall the breath of the words of thy mouth be multiplied? To the unrighteous the words of the righteous are ever grievous, and such as they hear spoken for edification, they bear as a burthen put upon them. As Bildad, the Shuhite, plainly indicates in his own case, when he says, How long wilt thou speak these things? For he that says how long, shews that he cannot any longer bear words of edification.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:1
“Bildad the Shuhite - Supposed to be a descendant of Shuah, one of the sons of Abraham, by Keturah, who dwelt in Arabia Deserta, called in Scripture the east country. See Gen 25:1, Gen 25:2, Gen 25:6.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:2, 2 voices
Job 8:2
“How long wilt thou speak these things? - Wilt thou still go on to charge God foolishly? Thy heavy affliction proves that thou art under his wrath; and his wrath, thus manifested, proves that it is for thy sins that he punisheth thee. Be like a strong wind? - The Arabic, with which the Syriac agrees, is (Syriac) rucholazomati, the spirit of pride. Wilt thou continue to breathe forth a tempest of words? This is more literal.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:2
“Thus (as Caryl observes) reproofs are often grounded upon mistakes. Men's meaning is not taken aright, and then they are gravely rebuked as if they were evil-doers.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 8:3, 3 voices
Job 8:3
“Doth God pervert judgment? - That is, Does God afflict people unjustly? Does he show favor to the evil, and punish the good? Bildad here undoubtedly refers to Job, and supposes that he had brought this charge against God. But he had not done it in so many words. He had complained of the severity of his sufferings, and had indulged in irreverent language toward God. But he had not advanced the charge openly that God had perverted right. Bildad strenuously maintains that God would do right.”
Job 8:3
“The repetition of "pervert" gives an emphasis galling to Job (Job 34:12). "Wouldst thou have God," as thy words imply, "pervert judgment," by letting thy sins go unpunished?”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 8:3
“Yet he is not fair and candid in the application. He takes it for granted that Job's children (the death of whom was one of the greatest of his afflictions) had been guilty of some notorious wickedness, and that the unhappy circumstances of their death were sufficient evidence that they were sinners above all the children of the east,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
2. (vv. 4-7)
a.If thy children have sinned: True doctrine drives a false inference: if thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression treats the death of Job's ten children as evidence rather than as the tragedy the reader has already watched unfold in chapter 1. Barnes notes the conditional structure Bildad offers Job, if thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, as a bargain that assumes present guilt is the reason help has not yet come. Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase promises restoration on the condition of repentance for a sin Job has not committed, which the friends never allow as a possibility.
Job 8:4, 1 voice
Job 8:4
“If thy children have sinned - I know thy children have been cut off by a terrible judgment; but was it not because by transgression they had filled up the measure of their iniquity? And he have cast them away - Has sent them off, says the Targum, to the place of their transgression - to that punishment due to their sins.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:5, 2 voices
Job 8:5
“If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes - If thou wouldest do it now. If even on the supposition that your sons have thus perished, and that God has come out in judgment against your family, you would look to God, you might be restored to favor. The word rendered “seek betimes” (שׁחר shâchar) means literally to seek in the morning, to seek early; and then, to make it the first business. It is derived from the word meaning aurora (שׁחר shachar) and has reference to the early light of the morning, and hence, to an early seeking.”
Job 8:5
“That it was a usual thing for Providence to extinguish the joys and hopes of wicked men as his were extinguished; and therefore that they had reason to suspect him for a hypocrite,”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 8:6, 2 voices
Job 8:6
“If thou wert pure and upright,.... By which he tacitly intimates that he was neither; though the character given of him is, that he was perfect and upright, feared God and eschewed evil, and which is confirmed by God himself, and even after he had been tried by sore afflictions. Bildad's meaning is, if he was pure in heart, and upright in his life and conversation, then things would be well with him.”
Job 8:6
“If thou wert pure and upright - Concerning thy guilt there can be no doubt; for if thou hadst been a holy man, and these calamities had occurred through accident, or merely by the malice of thy enemies, would not God, long ere this, have manifested his power and justice in thy behalf, punished thy enemies, and restored thee to affluence? The habitation of thy righteousness - Strongly ironical.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:7, 2 voices
Job 8:7
“Though thy beginning was small - On the supposition that the children of Job had been cut off, his family now was small. Yet Bildad says, that if he were to begin life again, even with so small a family, and in such depressed and trying circumstances, if he were a righteous man he might hope for returning prosperity. Yet thy latter end - From this, it is evident that Job was not now regarded as an old man. He would still have the prospect of living many years.”
Job 8:7
“THIS WAS the reasoning of Bildad the Shuhite. He wished to prove that Job could not possibly be an upright man, for if he were so, he here affirms that his prosperity would increase continually, or that if he fell into any trouble, God would awake for him, and make the habitation of his righteousness prosperous; and though his family were now all destroyed, and his wealth scattered to the winds, yet if he were an upright man, God would surely appear for him, and his latter end would greatly increase.”
B. Bildad: Ask the Former Age: the Rush Withers Without Water
1. (vv. 8-10)
a.enquire, I pray thee, of the former age: Bildad appeals to tradition as the court of final appeal: enquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers. Delitzsch reads the humility clause, for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, as Bildad's own admission that his generation has no independent standing and must borrow its wisdom entire from the fathers. Shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart makes accumulated proverb into unquestionable authority, the same move the friends make throughout the debate.
Job 8:8, 2 voices
Job 8:8
“Inquire - of the former age - לדור רישון ledor rishon, of the first age; of the patriarchs; the first generation of men that dwelt upon the earth: not of the age that was just past, as Mr. Peters and several others have imagined, in order to keep up the presumption of Job’s high antiquity. Bildad most evidently refers to an antiquity exceedingly remote.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:8
“It is only the prayer of the upright that is the acceptable and prevailing prayer, Prov. xv. (2.) He gives him good hopes that he shall yet again see good days, secretly suspecting, however, that he was not qualified to see them.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 8:9, 1 voice
Job 8:9
“For we are but of yesterday - That is, we are of short life. We have had but few opportunities of observation compared with those who have gone before us. There can be no doubt that Bildad here refers to the longevity of the antecedent ages compared with the age of man at the time when he lived; and the passage, therefore, is of importance in order to fix the date of the poem.”
2. (vv. 11-15)
a.Can the rush grow up without mire?: The wicked-man poem opens with the rush and the flag, plants that flourish only where water stands and wither before any other herb once it is withdrawn. Gill reads the figure as the hypocrite's hope, rooted in circumstance rather than in God, so that whose trust shall be a spider's web names a structure built to look secure and unable to bear weight. He shall lean upon his house, but it shall not stand extends the same collapse from plant to building, the poem's first picture of a confidence with nothing under it.
Job 8:11, 2 voices
Job 8:11
“Can the rush - This passage has all the appearance of being a fragment of a poem handed down from ancient times. It is adduced by Bildad as an example of the views of the ancients, and, as the connection would seem to imply, as a specimen of the sentiments of those who lived before the life of man had been abridged. It was customary in the early ages of the world to communicate knowledge of all kinds by maxims, moral sayings, and proverbs; by apothegms and by poetry handed down from generation to generation.”
Job 8:11
“It and the flag, or bulrush, grow only in marshy places (such as are along the Nile). So the godless thrives only in external prosperity; there is in the hypocrite no inward stability; his prosperity is like the rapid growth of water plants.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 8:12, 2 voices
Job 8:12
“Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. Now it is well added, Whilst it is yet in his flower, nor plucked with the hand, it withereth before any other herb. 'The rush in his flower' is the hypocrite in esteem. Now the rush springing up with sharp edges is not plucked with the hand, in that the hypocrite, having his feelings sharpened by presumption, disdains to be rebuked for his wickedness.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:12
“Whilst it is yet in his greenness - We do not know enough of the natural history of this plant to be able to discern the strength of this allusion; but we learn from it that, although this plant be very succulent, and grow to a great size, yet it is short-lived, and speedily withers; and this we may suppose to be in the dry season, or on the retreat of the waters of the Nile. However, Soon Ripe, soon Rotten, is a maxim in horticulture.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:13, 2 voices
Job 8:13
“So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. But as we have before said, who he is to whom Bildad likens 'a rush' or 'a flag,' he makes plain at the moment, where he adds, So are the paths of all that forget God, and the hypocrite's hope shall perish. For what does the hypocrite hope for from all his deeds, saving the observance of honour, the reputation of applause, to be feared by his betters, to be called a Saint by all men?”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:13
“So are the paths of all that forget God - This is clearly a part of the quotation from the sayings of the ancients. The word “paths” here means ways, acts, doings. They who forget God are like the paper-reed. They seem to flourish, but they have nothing that is firm and substantial. As the paper-reed soon dies, as the flag withers away before any other herb, so it will be with the wicked, though apparently prosperous.”
Job 8:14, 2 voices
Job 8:14
“His own folly shall not satisfy him, and whose trust shall be a spider's web. For it is infinite folly to labour painfully, and pant after the breath of applause, to apply one's self to the heavenly precepts with hard toil, but to aim at the reward of an earthly kind of recompense. For that I may so express myself, he that in return for the good that he practises looks for the applause of his fellowcreatures, is carrying an article of great worth to be sold at a mean price.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:14
“Whose hope shall be cut off - Such persons, subdued by the strong habits of sin, hope on fruitlessly, till the last thread of the web of life is cut off from the beam; and then they find no more strength in their hope than is in the threads of the spider’s web. Mr. Good renders, Thus shall their support rot away. The foundation on which they trust is rotten, and by and by the whole superstructure of their confidence shall tumble into ruin.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:15, 1 voice
Job 8:15
“He leaneth upon his house, but it shall not stand; he shall prop it, but it shall not rise up. As the house of our exterior life is the building which the body lives in, so the house of our thought is any thing whatever that the mind is centered in by affection. For every thing that we love, we as it were make our dwelling-place by reposing in it. Whence Paul, because he had fixed his heart in things above, being still upon earth indeed, yet a stranger to earth, said, Our conversation is in heaven.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
3. (vv. 16-19)
a.green before the sun: A second portrait follows the spider's web, a garden plant green before the sun, its roots wrapped about the heap, thriving in full view before it is torn from its place. Delitzsch notes the ground's own indifference in if he destroy him from his place, then it shall deny him, saying, I have not seen thee, the earth giving no memorial to what it once supported. Out of the earth shall others grow closes the portrait with the wicked man's place filled by another, exactly as Bildad implies Job's own place stands ready to be filled or restored depending on his response.
Job 8:16, 2 voices
Job 8:16
“It is seen moist before the sun cometh, and his produce issueth forth in his springing up. Oftentimes in Holy Writ the Lord is represented by the title of the Sun, as it is said by the Prophet, But unto you that fear My Name shall the Sun of righteousness arise.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:16
“Branch - His children, who are here mentioned as additions not only to his comfort, but also to his strength and safety. Garden - A place where it is defended from those injuries to which the trees of the field are subject, and where, besides the advantages common to all trees, it hath peculiar helps from the art and industry of men.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 8:17, 2 voices
Job 8:17
“His roots will be wrapped about the heap of rocks, and he will dwell among the stones. For what do we understand by the name of 'roots' save the hidden thoughts, which issue forth out of sight, but rise up in the display of works in open day? as it is also said by the Prophet concerning the seed of the Word, And the remnant that is escaped of the house of Judah shall again take root downward and bear fruit upward.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:17
“His roots are wrapped about the heap - There has been great diversity of opinion in the interpretation of this passage. Jerome renders it, “over the heap of stones his roots are condensed.” Walton, “super fontem - over a fountain.” The Septuagint, “he lies down (or sleeps, κοιμᾶται koimatai) on a heap of stones; and he lives in the midst of flint-stones.” According to some, the word rendered heap גל gal means a fountain; according to others, it means a heap or pile of stones; according to Dr. Good, it means a rock.”
Job 8:18, 2 voices
Job 8:18
“If He destroy him from his place, then He shall deny him, saying, I have not known thee. The hypocrite is 'destroyed from his place,' when he is parted from the applause of the present life, by death intervening. But the interior Witness 'denieth' him, thus destroyed, and asserts that He knows him not, in that in justly condemning the life of the pretender, 'Truth' knows him not, nor recognises the good works he has done, in that he never put them forth in a right purpose of mind.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:18
“If He (God) tear him away (properly, "to tear away rapidly and violently") from his place, "then it [the place personified] shall deny him" (Ps 103:16). The very soil is ashamed of the weeds lying withered on its surface, as though it never had been connected with them.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 8:19, 2 voices
Job 8:19
“Behold, this is the joy of his way - This is evidently sarcastic. “Lo! such is the joy of his course! He boasts of joy, as all hypocrites do, but his joy endures only for a little time. This is the end of it. He is cut down and removed, and the earth and the heavens disown him!” And out of the earth shall others grow - This image is still derived from the tree or plant.”
Job 8:19
“This then is his "joy" at the last. and out of the earth--others immediately, who take the place of the man thus punished; not godly men (Mt 3:9). For the place of the weeds is among stones, where the gardener wishes no plants. But, ungodly; a fresh crop of weeds always springs up in the place of those torn up: there is no end of hypocrites on earth [UMBREIT].”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
4. (vv. 20-22)
a.God will not cast away a perfect man: Bildad states the friends' creed as cleanly as the book ever states it: behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers. Henry notes the devastating irony a reader carries from chapter 1:1, where the narrator has already called Job perfect and upright in the narrator's own voice, so Bildad's true doctrine collides directly with the case in front of him. Till he fill thy mouth with laughing promises Job the same reversal Bildad has just described for the wicked man's ruin, restoration offered as a reward Bildad assumes is still Job's to earn.
Job 8:20, 2 voices
Job 8:20
Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man - This is another of the maxims of the ancients, which Bildad produces: “As sure as he will punish and root out the wicked, so surely will he defend and save the righteous.”
Adam Clarke· Commentary on the Bible (1810-1826)evangelical
Job 8:20
“Yet it may be, he will not be lifted up in this world: and therefore Bildad could not infer, that if Job was not restored to temporal prosperity, he was not a good man. Let us judge nothing before the time, but wait 'till the secrets of all hearts are revealed, and the present difficulties of providence solved, to universal and everlasting satisfaction.”
John Wesley· Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765)evangelical
Job 8:21, 3 voices
Job 8:21
“Till He fill thy mouth with laughing, and thy lips with shouting. For the 'mouth' of the righteous will then be 'filled with laughing' when the tears of their pilgrimage being done, their hearts shall be filled to the full with exulting in eternal joy. Concerning this laughing 'Truth' saith to His disciples, Verily, verily, I say unto you, that ye shall weep and lament, but the world shall rejoice; and ye shall be sorrowful, but your sorrow shall be turned into joy.”
Gregory the Dialogist· written before 604· Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIIIpatristic
Job 8:21
“Till he fill thy mouth with laughing - Until he make thee completely happy. The word rendered “till” (עד ‛ad), is rendered by Dr. Good, “even yet.” Noyes, following Houbigant, DeWette, and Michaelis, proposes to change the pointing, and to read עד ‛ôd, instead of עד ‛ad - meaning, “while.” The verse is connected with that which follows, and the particle used here evidently means “while,” or “even yet” - and the whole passage means, “if you return to God, he will even yet fill you with joy, while those who hate you shall be clothed with shame.”
Job 8:21
“Now it is true that God will not cast away an upright man; he may be cast down for a time, but he shall not be cast away for ever. It is true that, if not in this world, yet in another, the mouth of the righteous shall be filled with rejoicing.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
Job 8:22, 3 voices
Job 8:22
“They that hate thee shall be clothed with shame - When they see your returning prosperity, and the evidences of the divine favor. They will then be ashamed that they regarded you as a hypocrite, and that they reproached you in your trials. And the dwelling-place of the wicked ... - The wicked shall be destroyed, and his family shall pass away. That is, God will favor the righteous, but punish the wicked. This opinion the friends of Job maintain all along, and by this they urge him to forsake his sins, repent, and return to God.”
Job 8:22
“The haters of Job are the wicked. They shall be clothed with shame (Jer 3:25; 109:29), at the failure of their hope that Job would utterly perish, and because they, instead of him, come to naught.”
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown· Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871)reformed
Job 8:22
“Sin brings ruin on persons and families. Yet to argue (as Bildad, I doubt, slyly does) that because Job's family was sunk, and he himself at present seemed helpless, therefore he certainly was an ungodly wicked man, was neither just nor charitable, as long as there appeared no other evidence of his wickedness and ungodliness.”
Matthew Henry· Commentary on the Whole Bible (1707-1721)puritan
The text of this chapter
This page carries no textual note on Job 8. Where this site has examined a place the manuscripts differ, the examination is in the manuscripts room. Every place this site examines →
This page draws on 9 works. Open for the list.
This page draws on Adam Clarke; Albert Barnes; Charles Spurgeon, The New Park Street Pulpit, Sermon No. 311: “The Beginning, Increase, and End of the Divine Life” (lightly modernized text, CCEL edition) (1860); Franz Delitzsch, Biblical Commentary on the Book of Job; Gregory the Dialogist, Morals on the Book of Job, Book VIII; Jamieson, Fausset & Brown, Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871); John Gill; John Wesley, Explanatory Notes upon the Old Testament (1765) and Matthew Henry.
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