The Book of Job

Word Study

"pervert," Hebrew ye'avvet (יְעַוֵּת) from avat, to bend, twist, make crooked. Bildad opens by asking a question whose answer is plainly no: "Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?" The verb is a picture word, to bend something out of true, to make it crooked. In this he speaks a great truth. God never twists what is right; He never bends justice crooked.

"judgment," mishpat (מִשְׁפָּט), justice, right ruling. This is the great word for justice, for the right ruling a judge hands down, and Bildad is right that it never comes crooked out of God's hand. "Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right?" (Genesis 18:25); "he is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he" (Deuteronomy 32:4).

"the Almighty," Shaddai (שַׁדַּי). The second half of Bildad's question sets the title alongside the name of God: "or doth the Almighty pervert justice?" The One whose dealings are in question is the Almighty Himself, and that is exactly why the answer must be no; there is no power above Him to bend His hand, and no advantage He could gain by bending it. Bildad's premise is sound. But his hidden conclusion is cruel and false. He reasons: since God is just, and Job's children have died and Job is afflicted, then Job and his children must be getting what their sin deserved, "if thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression" (v4). This is the same rigid formula Eliphaz used, now stated more bluntly, and applied to fresh graves. Here is the danger of a true doctrine wielded without wisdom or love: Bildad rightly upholds God's perfect justice, but wrongly assumes that all suffering is direct payment for personal sin, and so he crushes a grieving, blameless man with a doctrine that, in this case, does not fit. The truth that God does not pervert justice is precious; the error is in thinking we can always read a man's sin off his suffering.

Explanation

Bildad's opening question, "Doth God pervert judgment?", states a true premise: God never twists what is right; He is perfectly just. But Bildad draws a cruel conclusion from it, hinting in the next verse that Job's children died for their own sin. His logic is the rigid formula, suffering must be payment for sin, now stated bluntly and aimed at fresh graves. This is the danger of true doctrine used without love: God's justice is real, but we cannot always read a man's sin off his suffering, and Bildad crushes a blameless, grieving man with a rule that does not fit his case.

Gospel Focus

"Doth God pervert judgment? or doth the Almighty pervert justice?", the answer is a resounding no, and that unbending justice of God is the very thing that makes the Gospel so glorious. For if God will never bend what is right, how can He forgive sinners without becoming unjust? Bildad could not answer that; the cross does. At Calvary, "God set forth" His Son "to be a propitiation... to declare his righteousness... that he might be just, and the justifier of him which believeth in Jesus" (Romans 3:25-26). God did not pervert justice to save us; He satisfied it. Christ bore the full penalty our sin deserved, so that the Judge who cannot wink at wrong can pardon the guilty and remain perfectly righteous. "The LORD hath laid on him the iniquity of us all" (Isaiah 53:6). Bildad used God's justice as a hammer against a suffering man; the Gospel shows that same justice as the ground of our hope, for the just LORD who will not clear the guilty has, in Christ, become the LORD our righteousness (Jeremiah 23:6). The One who cannot pervert judgment took the judgment Himself, that we might go free. This is the answer Bildad lacked: the just God is also, in Jesus, the justifier.

Word Study

"latter end," Hebrew acharith (אַחֲרִית), the end, the outcome, what comes after. Bildad's promise is conditional and self-righteous: if Job will seek God and be pure, then "though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase." In Bildad's mouth it is a bargain, clean up your life and God will restore your fortunes, the mechanical religion of reward for good behaviour. Yet, unknown to Bildad, his words about Job's acharith, his "latter end," would come true, though not for the reason Bildad supposed. The book closes with these very words fulfilled: "the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12). Bildad spoke better than he knew.

"greatly increase," yisgeh me'od (יִשְׂגֶּה מְאֹד), grow exceedingly great. The second half of the promise is that the small beginning would grow exceedingly great, and that too came to pass. But Job's restoration would come not because he earned it by a cleaner life, for God had already called him perfect and upright before the trial began, but as the free gift of a gracious God after the testing was accomplished. His formula was wrong, Job did not need to repent his way back into blessing, but God, in His sovereign kindness, would indeed make Job's end greater than his beginning. It is a reminder that God's ways are higher than our formulas: the truth Bildad twisted into a bargain, God fulfilled as pure grace.

Explanation

Bildad turns his rule into a bargain: clean up your life and God will restore you, so "thy latter end should greatly increase." His theology of reward-for-behaviour is wrong, Job did not need to earn his way back into blessing. Yet his words about Job's "latter end" would come strikingly true: "the LORD blessed the latter end of Job more than his beginning" (Job 42:12). Not because Job repented his way to it, but as the free gift of a gracious God after the testing was done. Bildad spoke better than he knew; God fulfilled as grace the truth Bildad twisted into a bargain.

Gospel Focus

"Though thy beginning was small, yet thy latter end should greatly increase", Bildad meant it as a reward for self-reform, but as a picture of God's grace it is gloriously true for every child of God. The Christian's "latter end" is greater than the beginning, not because we earn it, but because God has secured it in Christ. "The path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day" (Proverbs 4:18). "Our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory" (2 Corinthians 4:17). Whatever small or sorrowful beginnings mark our lives now, the God who "hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ" (Philippians 1:6). The believer's story does not end in the ash-heap; it ends in glory, for "it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him" (1 John 3:2). Job's restored "latter end" was a shadow; the substance is the resurrection and eternal inheritance won for us by Christ, whose own path led through the cross to the throne. In Him, the last chapter of every faithful life is not loss but glory, an end that greatly increases beyond all we could ask or think.

Word Study

"cast away," Hebrew yim'as (יִמְאַס), reject, despise, refuse. Bildad closes with a true principle: "God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers." The verb is a strong one, to reject and refuse outright, to throw off as worthless. Bildad assumes Job's suffering proves he has been thrown off in just this way, but the reader, who has seen behind the curtain, knows Job's suffering is not rejection at all. The trial is not God casting Job away; it is God trusting Job with a test that will end in vindication.

"a perfect man," tam (תָּם), blameless, upright, whole, the same word God used of Job in Job 1:1, 8. Bildad's own words, rightly understood, cut the other way. The word he uses, tam, "perfect," is precisely the word God Himself spoke over Job at the very start: "a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil" (Job 1:8). So by Bildad's own principle, since God does not cast away a tam, and God has called Job a tam, God will not cast Job away. Bildad's theology is true; his diagnosis is false. His principle stands, and it stands in Job's favour: the God who does not cast away the blameless will, in the end, be shown to have held Job fast through the whole ordeal.

"evil doers," mere'im (מְרֵעִים), those who do evil. The other half of the principle is the warning Bildad really intends: God "will not help the evil doers." He assumes Job's suffering proves Job is not perfect, and so places him quietly in this second class, among those who do evil, if Job were truly upright he would not be suffering so. That is the whole of Bildad's argument, and it is exactly where his reasoning fails; he can read the categories rightly but cannot tell which one Job belongs to.

Explanation

Bildad's closing principle is true, "God will not cast away a perfect man", but he aims it as an accusation, assuming Job's suffering proves he is not perfect. Yet the very word Bildad uses, tam ("perfect"), is the word God spoke over Job at the start (Job 1:8). By Bildad's own rule, then, God will not cast Job away, because God has already declared Job blameless. Bildad's theology is sound; his diagnosis is wrong. Job's suffering is not rejection but a test that will end in vindication. The principle stands, and it stands in Job's favour.

Gospel Focus

"God will not cast away a perfect man", but where is such a man to be found? Job was blameless in his generation, yet even he was not sinless; "there is none righteous, no, not one" (Romans 3:10). The principle Bildad states finds its full and final rest in only one Man: Jesus Christ, the truly perfect One, "holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners" (Hebrews 7:26), who "did no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth" (1 Peter 2:22). And here is the marvel of grace: the perfect Man was cast away, forsaken on the cross, "my God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46), not for His own sin, for He had none, but for ours. The One who deserved never to be cast away bore our rejection, so that we, the true "evil doers," might be received. Because Christ the perfect Man was forsaken in our place, God can say of everyone hidden in Him, "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee" (Hebrews 13:5); "him that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out" (John 6:37). Bildad's principle, that God will not cast away the blameless, is gloriously true, and it becomes our security not because we are perfect, but because we are clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ, who was cast away that we might be kept for ever.