Finally Bildad some decent things about God instead of just accusing Job…but yet in his own self-righteousness he hasn’t applied these things to himself.
Then Bildad the Shuhite replied:
Dominion and dread belong to Him,
the One who establishes harmony in the heavens.
Can His troops be numbered?
Does His light not shine on everyone?
How can a person be justified before God?
How can one born of woman be pure?
If even the moon does not shine
and the stars are not pure in His sight,
how much less man, who is a maggot,
and the son of man, who is a worm!
He is saying that God’s righteousness is so far above all else that man, even at his very best, is nothing compared to God. And yet in saying that, he is accusing Job of being wicked but is self-righteous himself.
It’s an irony that one can be saying truthful things but denying that truth but how one lives. It happens all the time and we all do it. It’s easier for us to be upset at others than to see it ourselves.
I had this recently during lockdown and all the grocery stores had directional arrows for each aisle. I needed a spice and technically I was supposed to walk all the way around the long aisle to get to the spice a mere 5 feet away. No way! I wasn’t obeying those guidelines. And then in the same aisle someone else came down the wrong way and were blocking the aisle. I was irritated and up rose in my spirit a not so nice thought, “Hey, you’re not obeying the rules!” We want liberty for ourselves and law when others annoy us.
If we took just what he said here, we might agree. But it’s about the context of his other words, the context of the situation, and the context of who is saying these things.
Context matters.
Yes, world.