Bildad and Job, Round 2

Job 18-19

            Bildad’s second speech is more inflammatory than his first, but it’s really more of the same: the wicked get what’s coming to them. That’s a common thought and we’ll encounter it a lot in the wisdom literature, but if we’re honest we should add a word: eventually. Eventually, like maybe not until the last day. The Psalms are a counterpoint to this. Some of them reflect that the wicked will get what they deserve; others lament that the wicked always seem to get away with it. Either way, we trust the Lord to sort it out.

            For his part, Job is starting to lose perspective. In 19:7-20 he complains that the Lord has harmed him and that the Lord is not listening to him. “Though I cry out, ‘Violence!’ I get no response.” By the end of the chapter, however, he recovers: 19:25-27 expresses a beyond-this-life confidence, a confidence that though Job die yet he will see the Lord and have his day in court. There still remains in Job a longing for the Lord. Sometimes it’s that he wants to present his case and get God’s answer; sometimes, as here, it seems Job simply longs to be in the presence of God.