Job 8:22

In his concluding words Bildad puts himself and his friends right with Job, and desires to put Job right with himself and God. By referring to Job's haters he intimates that he and his friends are none of them; and by identifying these haters with the wicked (Job 8:22), he lets Job know that he regards him as at heart one who belongs to quite a different class.

The position of Job's friends cannot be understood at all unless we consider that they assumed Job's piety at heart, but concluded from his calamities that he had been guilty of some great sins. And as Eliphaz had already brought to bear on Job's mind the influence of a revelation, the next strongest argument was the consent of mankind. And to some minds, especially in that condition of perplexity and confusion on religious experience in which Job's was, the general accord of mankind speaks with a more persuasive voice than anything called revelation. Bildad clearly enough perceived the drift of Job's words in ch. 7; they were to the effect that the government of the world and the supreme Power in it was un-moral. And his reply, that mankind everywhere, and especially in circumstances that gave their judgment weight, had perceived a moral law ruling the universe, was conclusive as a general principle. His error lay in supposing that this was the only principle on which the universe was ruled, and in imagining that this principle operated always in a manner direct and immediate. Hence the principle lost its effectiveness in his hands by being stretched to uses which it did not cover.