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Job 25

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Bildad speaks: how can a man be righteous before El?

1 Then Bildad the Shuhite answered and said:

2 Dominion and dread are with Him; He makes peace in His high places. 3 Is there any number to His troops? And upon whom does His light not rise? 4 How then can a man be righteous before El? And how can he who is born of a woman be pure? 5 See, even the moon is not bright, and the stars are not pure in His sight; 6 how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!

Notes

  • 25:1 Bildad's third speech is the shortest in the book, and after it Zophar does not speak a third time (see the note at 27:13); the friends seem to be running out of answers. Bildad adds little that is new: he repeats what the voice in Eliphaz's vision said (4:17-19) and what Eliphaz said again (15:14-16), and the first half of his question in verse 4 is word for word the one Job himself asked (9:2). Like the others, his words must be weighed against the end of the book (see the note at 4:1).
  • 25:6 "Son of man" (ben adam) is here simply a poetic parallel for "man," a mortal human being, as in Psalm 8:4. Scripture can call a man a worm in humility before Elohim who helps him (Psalm 22:6; Isaiah 41:14), but Bildad uses the picture to say that a creature so low has no standing to argue his case with El, as Job wants to do.

Job 24 · Job 26

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