Bildad adds insult to injury by dismissing Job’s children’s lives with the accusation that they deserved their end because they were sinners. They get no more than one sentence. How would you feel about that if you were grieving the loss of your children?
He says that if Job were righteous as he claims to be, surely God would restore his fortunes. However, Job’s current state was obviously not the end of the story; just wait to see Bildad stand corrected.
In God’s story of the redemption of mankind through the son of Eve that would one day crush Satan’s head, the story of Job seems like a diversion. How could it possibly belong? Why include it? For one thing, it offers an answer to vital questions every suffering person asks: If God is good, why is there suffering in this world? How interesting that Job’s life came before God got too far into the story of redemption.
And the story of God’s redemption of mankind is not neglected here. Messiah is important to Job’s story by His very absence. Job longed to be able to confront God with his questions and receive answers. In verses 9:32-35 he expresses his inability to confront God. One of Jesus’ roles today is that of intercessor. Jesus is the way to God, as He says in John 14:6; and Hebrews 7:25 tells us that He lives today to intercede for us. God is not a man (Job 9:32) that Job could confront Him; but He became a man. We see in Job’s desperate dilemma that we are blessed in the great salvation God has provided through Messiah, and in the role of the Holy Spirit who “will teach us all things.” (John 14:26)
There are other places in Job where Messiah is implied by His absence. Keep your eyes open for these ways Jesus shows up in Job.
We see in Job’s response the agony of the crisis of faith that suffering creates. Is God who He says He is? Have I been worshiping someone no greater than a man, with man’s limited knowledge, with man’s unreliability and deception and injustice? Is God truly good, or is He toying with me as a lion toys with its prey? A life without God, the “Big-G” God that God Almighty in fact is, is not worth living.
Plan now when you are going to do your reading this weekend. It may be a sacrifice; are you willing to make that sacrifice for the sake of knowing God better?