Job 8:10
Will they not teach you and tell you, and speak from their understanding?
Sermons
Shall not the Judge of All... Do Right?E. Johnson Job 8:1-22
The Hypocrite's HopeR. Green Job 8:8-19














Back to the testimony of the ages (vers. 8-10) Bildad refers his suffering friend, to find there evidences of the security of the perfect man and the worthlessness of the expectation of the hypocrite. With beautiful figurativeness he illustrates these truths, and only errs in the covert implication that in hypocrisy is to be found the cause of Job's present sufferings. The hypocrite's hope vain and deceitful.

I. IT IS TEMPORARY. Passing away as the "rush without mire, or the reed without water." Quickly it grows up, but as quickly withers. The promise of it is vain. "While it is yet in its greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb."

II. IT IS UNSUBSTANTIAL AND UNTRUSTWORTHY. AS "the spider's web." It is weak, unworthy of any confidence. As the gossamer thread is broken by a touch or even a breath of wind, so his expectation is cut off by the most trivial incident. It has no firmness, no endurance, no permanence.

III. IT IS IMMATURE AND NEVER COMES TO PERFECTION. "It is green before the sun" With rapid haste it strides forth, but only with equal haste to fail. In its own judgment it is firm and enduring as a stone structure. With proud self-confidence so he prides himself. But it is that all may fall to ruin. The destroyer is at hand, even he who casts away.

IV. IT IS FORGOTTEN AND DISAPPOINTING, AND PASSES OUT OF MIND. Its very place denies it. "I have not seen thee." No greater joy or reward can the hypocrite's hope afford him. Disappointment is his lot. He sows the seeds of vanity; vanity he reaps. He leans upon a thread which a breath may break. Deceitful himself, his hopes are as the heart which gave them birth. They return to their own. He created them; they are as their maker. From this rude disappointment men may guard

(1) by sincerity of spirit,

(2) by basing their hopes upon a true foundation, for which nothing prepares them but

(3) a thorough honesty and cherished truthfulness. - R.G.

Then answered Bildad the Shuhite.
Bildad grasps at once, as we say, the nettle. He is quite sure that he has the key to the secret of the distribution among mankind of misery and happiness. It is a very simple solution. It is the doctrine that untimely death, sickness, adversity in every form, are alike signs of God's anger; that they visit mankind with unerring discrimination; are all what we call "judgments"; are penalties, i.e., or chastisements, meant either simply to vindicate the broken law, or else to warn and reclaim the sinner. And so, in what we feel to be harsh and unfeeling terms, he applies at once this principle, like unsparing cautery, to the wounds of his friend. Bildad tries to overwhelm the restless and presumptuous audacity of Job with a hoard of maxims and metaphors drawn from the storehouse of the "wisdom of the ancients." He puts them forward in a form that may remind us for a moment of the Book of Proverbs. "As the tall bulrush or the soaring reed grass dies down faster than it shot up, when water is withdrawn, so falls and withers the short-lived prosperity of the forgetters of God. The spider's web, frailest of tenements, is the world-old type of the hopes which the ungodly builds." The second friend is emphasising what the first had hinted. "There are no mysteries at all, no puzzles in human life," the friends say. "Suffering is, in each and every case, the consequence of ill-doing. God's righteousness is absolute. It is to be seen at every turn in the experience of life. All this impatient, fretful, writhing under, or at the sight of pain and loss, is a sign of something morally wrong, of want of faith in Divine justice. Believe this, Job; act on it, and all thy troubles will be over; God will be once more thy friend — till then He cannot be."

(Dean Bradley.)

Homilist.
I. A REPROOF THAT IS SEVERE. "How long wilt thou speak these things?" Job had poured forth language that seemed as wild and tempestuous as the language of a man in a passion. But such language ought to have been considered in relation to his physical anguish and mental distress. Great suffering destroys the mental equilibrium.

II. A DOCTRINE WHAT IS UNQUESTIONABLE. "Doth God pervert judgment?" The interrogatory is a strong way of putting the affirmative; namely, that God is absolutely just, and that He never deviates from the right.

III. AN IMPLICATION THAT IS UNKIND. "If thy children have sinned against Him, and He have cast them away for their transgression." Surely it was excessively heartless even to hint such things to the broken-hearted father.

IV. A POLICY THAT IS DIVINE. "If thou wouldst seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication unto the Almighty." Bildad recommends that this policy should be attended to at once, and in a proper spirit. He affirms that if this policy be thus attended to, the Almighty would mercifully interpose.

V. AN AUTHORITY NOT TO BE TRUSTED. "Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers." He appeals to antiquity to confirm what he has advanced. Two things should be considered.

1. There is nothing in past times infallible but the Divinely-inspired.

2. There is always more of the inspired in the present than in the past.

VI. A CONSIDERATION THAT IS SOLEMN. "We are but of yesterday, and know nothing." This fact, which is introduced parenthetically, is of solemn moment to us all.

(Homilist.)

People
Bildad, Job
Places
Uz
Topics
Bring, Forth, Heart, Minds, Psalms, Shew, Speak, Teach, Teaching, Understanding, Utter, Wisdom
Outline
1. Bildad shows God's justice in dealing with men according to their works.
8. He alleges antiquity to prove the certain destruction of the hypocrite.
20. He applies God's just dealing to Job.

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Job 8:8-10

     8355   understanding

Library
Two Kinds of Hope
'Whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider's web.'--JOB viii. 14. 'And hope maketh not ashamed.'--ROMANS v. 5. These two texts take opposite sides. Bildad was not the wisest of Job's friends, and he gives utterance to solemn commonplaces with partial truth in them. In the rough it is true that the hope of the ungodly perishes, and the limits of the truth are concealed by the splendour of the imagery and the perfection of artistic form in which the well-worn platitude is draped.
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The Beginning, Increase, and End of the Divine Life
Now, the utterances of Bildad, and of the other two men who came to comfort Job, but who made his wounds tingle, are not to be accepted as being inspired. They spake as men--as mere men. They reasoned no doubt in their own esteem logically enough; but the Spirit of God was not with hem in their speech, therefore with regard to any sentiment which we find uttered by these men, we must use our own judgment; and if it be not in consonance with the rest of Holy Scriptures, it will be our bounden duty
Charles Haddon Spurgeon—Spurgeon's Sermons Volume 6: 1860

Whether all Merits and Demerits, One's Own as Well as those of Others, Will be Seen by Anyone at a Single Glance?
Objection 1: It would seem that not all merits and demerits, one's own as well as those of others, will be seen by anyone at a single glance. For things considered singly are not seen at one glance. Now the damned will consider their sins singly and will bewail them, wherefore they say (Wis. 5:8): "What hath pride profited us?" Therefore they will not see them all at a glance. Objection 2: Further, the Philosopher says (Topic. ii) that "we do not arrive at understanding several things at the same
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

The Hebrew Sages and their Proverbs
[Sidenote: Role of the sages in Israel's life] In the days of Jeremiah and Ezekiel (Jer. xviii. 18; Ezek. vii. 26) three distinct classes of religious teachers were recognized by the people: the prophets, the priests, and the wise men or sages. From their lips and pens have come practically all the writings of the Old Testament. Of these three classes the wise men or sages are far less prominent or well known. They wrote no history of Israel, they preached no public sermons, nor do they appear
Charles Foster Kent—The Origin & Permanent Value of the Old Testament

The Eternity and Unchangeableness of God.
Exod. iii. 14.--"I AM THAT I AM."--Psal. xc. 2.--"Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting thou art God."--Job xi. 7-9.--"Canst thou by searching find out God? canst thou find out the Almighty unto perfection? It is as high as heaven; what canst thou do? deeper than hell; what canst thou know? The measure thereof is longer than the earth, and broader than the sea." This is the chief point of saving knowledge,
Hugh Binning—The Works of the Rev. Hugh Binning

Instruction for the Ignorant:
BEING A SALVE TO CURE THAT GREAT WANT OF KNOWLEDGE, WHICH SO MUCH REIGNS BOTH IN YOUNG AND OLD. PREPARED AND PRESENTED TO THEM IN A PLAIN AND EASY DIALOGUE, FITTED TO THE CAPACITY OF THE WEAKEST. 'My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge.'--Hosea 4:6 ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This little catechism is upon a plan perfectly new and unique. It was first published as a pocket volume in 1675, and has been republished in every collection of the author's works; and recently in a separate tract.
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

Job
The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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