Job 25 Commentary: The God who created the universe has revealed himself in a book. The book that we hold in our hands. The Holy Scripture.

And there are numerous facts that we can gain about God from creation. But without this book we are left in the dark about much of what God is like and what he requires of his creatures.

And whenever we assume things to be true about God – without consulting his book – we are in danger of getting things really wrong.

This is the fate of the biblical character whose name is Bildad. We find him in the 25th chapter of the Old Testament book of Job.

And he’s continuing to assume certain things about God – apparently without much or even any biblical guidance and data – at least, not enough to come to right conclusions about the situation that his friend Job has been facing.

And at first, Bildad and his two friends came to Job – they had heard of his trials – and they intended to comfort him.

But we’ve seen through these last 24 chapters that whatever these men were doing – it was not comforting to Job.

And so, Job has just finished chapter 24 where he was arguing that evil people oftentimes go unpunished in this life – which would have been a rather scandalous thought to a man like Bildad whose assumptions about God and the world were very dearly-held – and yet apparently not informed by biblical data.

And Bildad didn’t like Job’s last speech in which he attempted to defend himself against the friends’ accusation that he was secretly wicked.

And so, Bildad is going to speak out against Job for the third and last time in this book.

And so, Bildad is going to start this extremely brief rebuttal to Job’s last speech – you can see that it’s six verses – by declaring that God is awesome and totally powerful.

KJV Job 25:1 Then answered Bildad the Shuhite, and said,

2 Dominion and [fear/awe/awesome might] [are with/belong to] [him/God],

So, the first line of Bildad’s comment makes pretty straightforward sense. He’s declaring that God is powerful. He rules everything. He has dominion. That belongs to him.

Also fear belongs to God. That is, he deserves to be feared by his human creation. And in the book of Job, this is a fear that is not necessarily the reverential awe that we often identify as a wholesome healthy fear.

In the book of Job, the word translated as fear here is spoken by Job in chapter 3 as his response to certain things that God had now brought into his life. He never wanted to have to deal with them ever – but now God has thrust them upon him.

Eliphaz says that this fear is his reaction to that crazy night vision that he reportedly saw back in chapter 4.

Job threatened the friends back in chapter 13 that if they keep showing partiality against him that this fear will end up being their response to when God comes and reproves them – which is just what happens at the end of this book.

Eliphaz in chapter 15 says that evil people experience sounds that elicit this fear as they’re resting and at ease.

Job then says – on the contrary in