Bildad believes that Job is perverting justice. He says Job’s children sinned against God and were judged for doing so. Can there be a greater criticism than one’s salvation being questioned? And both Eliphaz and Bildad have used a great many words to describe the judgment of God against the wicked. In this most recent attack, Bildad leaves no doubt that Job should question whether he really knows the Lord.
XI. Job’s Response to Bildad Round Two- (Ch. 19)
Job confronts Bildad and his friends by asking “how long will you torment me and crush me with words?” (v. 2) He counts that they have reproached him ten times and that God “has wronged me and drawn his net around me” (v. 6).
He has received no response from the Lord, no help, no justice (v. 7). Job has been stripped of his honor and his hope has been uprooted like a tree (vv. 9-10). It is obvious to Job that God’s anger burns against him and that He “counts me among his enemies” (v. 11).
How has Job suffered? His own family (what is left of it) has been alienated from him, his closest friends have forgotten him, and even his female servants look on him as a stranger (vv. 13-15). His servants no longer obey him and even his breath is offensive to his wife! (v. 17). He is the ridicule of little boys. “Those I love have turned against me” (v. 19). Physically he describes himself as “nothing but skin and bones”, having escaped only “by the skin of my teeth” (v. 20).
He then pleads with his friends to have pity on him, “for the hand of God has struck me” (vv. 21-22). Job wants his words engraved in rock forever (v. 24).
We then get another marvelous passage in the midst of Job’s laments. He says, “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes — I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me!” (vv. 25-27). Is Job prophesying about the Lord Jesus?
At the very least, he is saying that he will exist past physical death and will see God. Perhaps here we have a hint of a physical resurrection and even resurrection bodies.
In characterizing the unhelpful counsel of his friends, Job suggests that they are looking for new ways to “hound” him (v. 28). For they believe, Job says, that “the root of the trouble lies in him.” (v. 28). But this is not the case, based on how the book affirms the godliness of Job’s life in chapter one and the story behind Job’s trials in chapters one and two. Job is not above warning his counselors of the coming judgment (v. 29).
We next examine Round Two from Zophar.