Job 25

1 Then Bildad (the) Shuhite answered, and said,

2 Power and dread is with him, that is, God, which maketh according in his high things. (Power and reverence is with God/Power and fear is with God, who maketh peace in all his high places.)

3 Whether there is (a) number of his knights? (Can his host be counted?) and upon whom shineth not his light?

4 Whether a man comparisoned to God may be justified, either a man born of a woman may appear clean? (Can a man be justified when compared to God, or can a man born of a woman ever be pure, or innocent?)

5 Lo! also the moon shineth not, and [the] stars be not clean in his sight; (Lo! to his eyes, the moon shineth not, and the stars be not pure;)

6 how much more man, that is rot, and the son of a man, that is a worm, is unclean, (and vile,) in comparison to God. (and so how much more a man, who is but rot, and the son of a man, who is but a worm, be unclean, and vile, when compared to God.)

Job 25 Commentary

Chapter 25

Bildad shows that man cannot be justified before God.

- Bildad drops the question concerning the prosperity of wicked men; but shows the infinite distance there is between God and man. He represents to Job some truths he had too much overlooked. Man's righteousness and holiness, at the best, are nothing in comparison with God's, ( Psalms 89:6 ) . As God is so great and glorious, how can man, who is guilty and impure, appear before him? We need to be born again of water and of the Holy Ghost, and to be bathed again and again in the blood of Christ, that Fountain opened, ( Zechariah 13:1 ) . We should be humbled as mean, guilty, polluted creatures, and renounce self-dependence. But our vileness will commend Christ's condescension and love; the riches of his mercy and the power of his grace will be magnified to all eternity by every sinner he redeems.

Chapter Summary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 25

This chapter contains Bildad's reply to Job, such an one as it is; in which, declining the controversy between them, he endeavours to dissuade him from attempting to lay his cause before God, and think to justify himself before him, from the consideration of the majesty of God, described by the dominion he is possessed of; the fear creatures stand in of him; the peace he makes in his high places; the number of his armies, and the vast extent of his light, Job 25:1-3; and from the impossibility of man's being justified with him, or clean before him, argued from thence, Job 25:4; and which is further illustrated by a comparison of the celestial bodies with men, and by an argument from the greater to the less, that if they lose their lustre and purity in his sight, much more man, a mean despicable worm, Job 25:5,6.