Bible Commentary - Job 25

In this chapter, Bildad claims that nobody is righteous before God.

This is the shortest chapter in the book of Job and it’s straightforward to read.  It is also the last time any of the three friends speak in this book.  The remainder of the book is speeches by Job, a fourth and yet unmentioned friend, and the LORD’s response which more or less concludes the book.

Bildad only says two things.  In verses 2-3, he says that God is great and powerful.  In verses 4-6, he says that in comparison to God mankind is like a maggot or worm, and therefore nobody is righteous before God.

This is not a new argument.  I’m not sure I can find an exact parallel to this passage, but a very close analogue is Job 15:14-16, which similarly claims that there is no such thing as a righteous man.  The only thing that I see different about this chapter is that it frames the argument as a contrast between God’s holiness and glory and man’s weakness and… not-glory?  It’s interesting because the contrast Bildad lays out is between mankind and the moon and the stars (which have “no brightness” or “purity” in the sight of God).  Bildad is setting up a contrast between celestial bodies and human bodies, implying that we are much less glorious than they are, and that even the celestial bodies are not glorious or pure in comparison to God.

This is interesting to me because of how Bildad is using glory or brightness as a substitute or replacement for “just” or “clean” (v. 4), so i.e. righteousness.  I’m not sure how much of this is supposed to be causative and how much of this is simply an illustrative metaphor.  In other words, does Bildad think mankind is unrighteous because we are not glorious like the moon and stars, or is it just a colorful metaphor to illustrate the point?  To what extent do a glorious appearance and a pure, clean and righteous heart go together?

In the new testament, this kind of rule is firmly broken with the arrival of Jesus into the world, when the almighty God (who embodies all glory) takes on the form of a man (the “maggot” and “worm” of Bildad’s conception).  However, one could reasonably ask if Bildad’s thought pattern is reflected elsewhere in the OT.

In my opinion, I don’t think we can strongly correlate glorious appearance and a righteous heart even in the OT.  While God is usually described having a glorious appearance, 1 Samuel 16:7 establishes that “man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart”.  To further the point, there are many kings of Babylon, Israel, Judah, etc. that are described as glorious in appearance and possessing great wealth, but without a righteous heart.  David, on the other hand, was a lowly shepherd boy who nonetheless was chosen by God to become the first truly great king of Israel.

From this perspective, it seems like Bildad’s emphasis on outward appearance is exactly what “man looks at”in 1 Sam 16:7, rather than the true reality of the heart that God looks for.  This is not to say that man can be righteous before God in a perfect way, but that it is not our mortal,  physical bodies that render us impure or sinful in God’s eyes; rather it is the sin and destruction that lies within the human heart that makes people unclean.

In the next chapter, Job responds to Bildad for the last time.