Bildad, like Eliphaz, still trusts in Job’s innocence. Accordingly, he overlooks most of the disasters that befall Job’s estate and the wretched skin disease that plagues his person; and he deigns to justify the most horrific tragedy in terms of divine retribution: Job’s children were put down by the deity because they (must have) sinned, probably blaspheming the name of God (they sinned against El—verse 4)—as Job had himself imagined they might have done (see 1:5). Otherwise, the deity would be unjust, a claim implied by Job but regarded as impossible by Bildad. Like Eliphaz, Bildad invokes traditional wisdom and, in support of the doctrine of just retribution, invokes images that depict the disintegration of the wicked and the thriving of the righteous. Straying from the particulars of Job’s situation, Bildad cites a cliché to the effect that Job, if he remains righteous, will be happy while his enemies are dismayed.
[8:1] Up spoke Bildad the Shuhite and he said:
[2] How long will you make such declarations?
(How long) will the words of your mouth be a massive wind?1
[3] Would El corrupt what is just?
Would Shaddai corrupt what is right?
[4] If your sons committed a sin against him,
He has dispatched them for their offense.2
[5–7] If you would only seek El,3
Seek compassion from Shaddai,
If you are pure and straight (of ways),
Then will he protect you,4
And make your rightful homestead whole.5
Though your former days were meager,
Your latter days will exceedingly thrive.
[8–9] Just inquire of the former generations,
And consider6 the deep-wisdom7 of our ancestors;8
For we are only yesterday and have no knowledge;
For our days on earth are but a (fleeting) shadow.
[10] They will surely instruct you, they’ll tell you;
Out of their hearts they will utter words:9
[11–12] “Can papyrus grow without marshland?
Can a canebrake thrive without water?10
While yet in the flower, it cannot be plucked;
And it withers even sooner than grass.”
[13] Thus is the fate11 of all who reject El;
The hope of the blasphemer vanishes.
[14–15] His stronghold is gossamer,12
And his trust a spider’s house.
When he leans on his house, it will not stand up;
He will hold onto it, but it will not stand firm.
Bildad now describes the righteous.13
[16–17] He remains moist even in the sun;
And out of his spring his sapling grows.
His roots intertwine round a pile-of-stones,
He can cut through even a house of stones.14
[18–19] If he is transplanted from his place,
So that it denies him: “I don’t recognize you!”
Then he moves his growth-path,15
And sprouts from another (piece of) ground.16
[20] For El will never reject the whole (of heart);
He will never lend support to evildoers.
[21–22] Yet17 will your mouth fill with laughter,
And your lips with jubilation.18
Your adversaries are clad in defeat;
And the abode of the wicked—is no more!
1. Bildad confirms Job’s accusation of his companions in 6:26.
2. For shillaḥ as delivering to death, see 14:20; compare Jeremiah 15:1.
3. The verb “seek” echoes Job’s address of the deity in 7:21.
4. The use of the rare verb “protect” alludes to the deity’s protection of Israel like a bird hovering over its nest (Deuteronomy 32:11).
5. Bildad is nearly parroting Eliphaz in 5:24. The term for “whole” here is the same as that rendered “at peace” there.
6. Reading bonen for konen (“establish”) with the Syriac translation and others.
7. Cognate to the verb “to probe” in 5:27.
8. The traditional text reads “their ancestors”; the final mem is a ligature of what should be nun and waw—a well-known scribal phenomenon (Weiss, “Ligature”). A clearer instance occurs at 15:18.
9. For the heart (mind) as the seat of speech, see for example Psalm 19:15; 49:4; Proverbs 24:2; and especially Ecclesiastes 5:1, where we have a locution similar to the one used here. Bildad’s quotation of apparently proverbial expressions mimics Job in 6:5–6.
10. The terms for “papyrus plant” and “meadow” are Egyptian loanwords.
11. Reading ’aḥarit for ’orḥot (“the paths of”). The parallel to “hope” is “fate,” not “paths”; see Jeremiah 29:11; Proverbs 23:18; 24:14.
12. The meaning “gossamer” was discerned already by Saadia Gaon. The word yaqut is an apparent borrowing from Akkadian qe ettuti “spider’s web.”
13. The righteous is introduced without an antecedent, leading some commentators to assume that a verse has been accidentally omitted. However, the rhetoric is consistent: images of the wicked were presented without introduction as well. The riddle of the image will be solved in verse 20, as the image of the wicked was explained in verse 13.
14. A bed of rocks. The verb ḥaza, ordinarily “to see,” is a pseudo-Aramaism for Hebrew ḥatsa “cleave in two.”
15. For mesos (“joy of”), which does not make sense here, read yamish or possibly (without changing a letter) moshesh “he moves (it),” which would be a unique form.
16. The waw at the end of yitsmaḥu is superfluous.
17. The adverb ‘ad is the Aramaic equivalent of Hebrew ‘od, used already at 1:18.
18. The proper use of the mouth, lectures Bildad, is smiling in satisfaction, not raising questions about divine justice (verses 2–3). Compare Psalm 126:2.