Job 19: 13-22


Not their Line (Bildad Mark 2)

First time round Bildad seemed content to play it cool and with a straight bat. His counselling skills are hardly fit for purpose but as a good friend he might have asked a few questions, tried to suss out the situation and clarify what exactly was bugging Job. But no. Bildad is not that kind of friend. He knows why he is there, what he has to do and how best to do it. This time round, having sat through the other exchanges, Bildad is impatient and easily rattled (18:1-4).  Job is just being unreasonable. (Character assassination). He's not listening to what they keep trying to tell him. Does he not hear or is he stubborn? Or has the penny not dropped for Bildad that it is they who are missing the point and addressing the wrong question? Safer to take a different line  — the fear of God (18:5-21).That's not their line.

Meanwhile, a tormented man, and now the victim of a personal attack, Job holds himself together well and tries to explain. God has put him in the wrong and he needs help to get back on course in his quest for divine fairness and justice. What can be wrong with that, and what has Bildad to offer? On the surface, for Job, it is an intellectual or doctrinal issue, but since Bildad and his colleagues have no answer to that they might at least have asked him why it mattered so much and what difference it made to his life. After all, many others had had similar experiences (if not so extreme) and they had coped. Why couldn't he?

Sensitive to the impasse, Job tries to move on a stage. This is not just a doctrinal issue. There are personal consequences. He has lost the confidence and trust of his family, his colleagues, his staff and his friends (especially the three of them). But why? What has he done wrong to alienate a whole community? He might have expected at least one of them to ask him about this. But no. That's not their line. Do  they really want to comfort Job? Probably not, but they do want to defend the dogma.

© Alec Gilmore 2020