Job 8: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Bildad the Shuhite, the second of Job's three friends, gives his first speech. He argues that God never twists justice, so Job's children must have died for their own sin, and he urges Job to plead with God, promising that a pure and upright Job would be restored and would end up with far more than he began with. He appeals to the wisdom of earlier generations and uses plants as pictures: reeds die without water, and the security of those who forget God is as flimsy as a spider's web. He closes by saying God does not reject the blameless and does not strengthen those who do evil, and that Job's enemies will be covered with shame.

Claim by Claim

1. 8:1
   • Bildad the Shuhite answered.
   • Bildad spoke.
2. 8:2
   • Bildad asked Job how long he would go on speaking these things.
   • Bildad said the words of Job's mouth are a mighty wind.
3. 8:3
   • Bildad asked whether God perverts judgment.
   • Bildad asked whether the Almighty perverts righteousness.
4. 8:4
   • Bildad raised the case that Job's children sinned against God.
   • Bildad said God handed them over to the power of their own transgression.
5. 8:5
   • Bildad set the condition that Job earnestly seek God.
   • Bildad set the condition that Job make supplication to the Almighty.
6. 8:6
   • Bildad set the condition that Job be pure and upright.
   • Bildad said that in that case God would now rouse himself for Job.
   • Bildad said God would restore Job's righteous dwelling to its proper state.
7. 8:7
   • Bildad said Job's beginning was small.
   • Bildad said Job's latter end would greatly increase.
8. 8:8
   • Bildad told Job to inquire of the former generation.
   • Bildad told Job to give attention to what their fathers found out.
9. 8:9
   • Bildad said we are of yesterday.
   • Bildad said we know nothing.
   • Bildad said our days on earth are a shadow.
10. 8:10
    • Bildad asked whether the former generations would not teach Job.
    • Bildad asked whether they would not tell Job.
    • Bildad said they bring forth words out of their heart.
11. 8:11
    • Bildad asked whether papyrus can grow tall without a marsh.
    • Bildad asked whether reed grass can flourish without water.
12. 8:12
    • Bildad said that while such a plant is still in its freshness and not cut down, it withers.
    • Bildad said it withers before any grass does.
13. 8:13
    • Bildad said such are the paths of all who forget God.
    • Bildad said the hope of the godless perishes.
14. 8:14
    • Bildad said the godless man's confidence is cut off.
    • Bildad said the godless man's trust is a spider's house.
15. 8:15
    • Bildad said he leans on his house and it does not stand.
    • Bildad said he holds it fast and it does not endure.
16. 8:16
    • Bildad said he is moist and green in the sunlight.
    • Bildad said his shoot spreads out over his garden.
17. 8:17
    • Bildad said his roots are wrapped around a heap of stones.
    • Bildad said he looks upon a house of stones, whether seeking it or seeing it is not made clear.
18. 8:18
    • Bildad said that if he is swallowed up and removed from his place, it happens.
    • Bildad said his place then denies him.
    • Bildad said his place says it never saw him.
19. 8:19
    • Bildad said this is the joy of his way.
    • Bildad said others will sprout out of the dust.
20. 8:20
    • Bildad said God will not reject a blameless man.
    • Bildad said God will not take hold of the hand of evildoers.
21. 8:21
    • Bildad said God will yet fill Job's mouth with laughter.
    • Bildad said God will fill Job's lips with a shout of joy.
22. 8:22
    • Bildad said those who hate Job will be clothed with shame.
    • Bildad said the tent of the wicked will cease to exist.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

8:1

Bildad is the second of Job's three friends to speak, after Eliphaz in chapters 4–5. "The Shuhite" means he came from Shuah, a people or district somewhere east or southeast of Canaan; Shuah is named elsewhere as a son of Abraham by Keturah. The chapter is the opening of Bildad's first speech.

8:2

"A strong wind" translates a Hebrew phrase for a mighty or blustering wind. The insult is that Job's words are loud, forceful and empty, noise moving air, not argument.

8:3

"Pervert judgment" is courtroom language: to bend a legal verdict, the way a corrupt judge does. "The Almighty" renders the Hebrew name Shaddai, an old title for God used far more often in Job than anywhere else in the Bible.

8:4

This points back to Job 1, where all ten of Job's children were killed when the house they were feasting in collapsed. Bildad's sentence is conditional in form, but its logic assumes that if they died that way, they must have earned it.

8:5

The KJV's "betimes" does not mean "sometimes." In 1611 English it meant early, or promptly, the Hebrew here has the sense of seeking God urgently or at first light.

8:6

"The habitation of thy righteousness" means the household you are rightly entitled to, house, land, livestock and family together, all of which Job has lost. "Awake for thee" pictures God as asleep and needing to stir; it is a stock image for God finally acting, not a claim about God's habits.

8:7

"Beginning" and "latter end" are the two ends of a life's fortunes. The picture is a man's wealth and standing measured early against late, a common way of summing up a whole life in this literature.

8:8

Bildad is appealing to inherited wisdom. In the ancient Near East, knowledge worth having was what generations had accumulated and tested and passed down; an individual's own reasoning carried much less weight than the verdict of the ancestors. "The search of their fathers" means the findings their forefathers arrived at.

8:9

The shadow image works two ways: a shadow has no substance, and it shifts and disappears as the sun moves. Human life, next to the generations Bildad has just invoked, is that brief.

8:11

The KJV's "rush" is papyrus and "flag" is marsh reed, tall water plants that grow in swamp mud, familiar from the Nile delta. Both die fast the moment the water goes, which is the whole point of the comparison.

8:12

"Herb" in the King James means any green plant, not a cooking herb. The strange detail is that these reeds die faster than ordinary grass even while still green and uncut, because everything they have depends on water they cannot survive without.

8:13

"Hypocrite" in 1611 English was broader than it is now. The Hebrew word means godless, irreligious or profane, someone with no regard for God at all, not specifically someone faking piety.

8:14

The Hebrew calls the spider's web literally a "spider's house," which sets up the next verse: the man leans on his house and the house is only cobweb.

8:15

"His house" continues the spider image from verse 14 and also means his household and estate, the two senses are deliberately held together.

8:16

Bildad is still talking about the person who forgets God. He describes that person as a plant.

8:17

A plant rooting itself in a heap of stones has no soil to hold it. The Hebrew of the second half is difficult; it can be read as the plant seeing, or looking out for, a place among the stones, or as it gripping a house of stone.

8:18

"Deny" here means disown. The ground speaks like a witness in court refusing to acknowledge someone it once knew, the same legal register as verse 3.

8:19

"This is the joy of his way" is generally read as bitter irony: this withering is all the joy the man's course amounts to. Some read it straight instead, as the joy passing on to the others who spring up in his place. The Hebrew allows both.

8:20

"A perfect man" does not mean a flawless or sinless one. The Hebrew word means whole, sound, of undivided integrity, a man with nothing hidden in his dealings.

8:22

Clothing stands for what a person visibly is in the eyes of others; to be clothed with shame is to have one's disgrace on public display. "Dwelling place" is literally a tent, the ordinary word for a household in a herding society, standing for the family and everything it owns.