Job 8:9

_FOR INQUIRE, I PRAY THEE, OF THE FORMER AGE, AND PREPARE THYSELF TO THE SEARCH OF THEIR FATHERS:_ The former age - the age immediately preceding Job. THEIR FATHERS - the fathers pricking that age, and therefore still further back. The sages of the olden time reached an age beyond those of Job's time (see the note at Job 42:16); and therefore could give the testimony of a fuller experience. OF YESTERDAY - i:e., a recent race. We know nothing as compared with them, from the brevity of our lives. So even Jacob - "Few and evil have the days of the years of my life been, and have not attained unto the days of the years of the life of my fathers in the days of their pilgrimage" (Genesis 47:9). Knowledge consisted then in the results of observation embodied in poetical prove

8-19 Bildad discourses well of hypocrites and evil-doers, and the fatal end of all their hopes and joys. He proves this truth of the destruction of the hopes and joys of hypocrites, by an appeal to former times. Bildad refers to the testimony of the ancients. Those teach best that utter words out of their heart, that speak from an experience of spiritual and divine things. A rush growing in fenny ground, looking very green, but withering in dry weather, represents the hypocrite's profession, which is maintained only in times of prosperity. The spider's web, spun with great skill, but easily swept away, represents a man's pretensions to religion when without the grace of God in his heart. A formal professor flatters himself in his own eyes, doubts not of his salvation, is secure, and cheats the world with his vain confidences. The flourishing of the tree, planted in the garden, striking...

Verse Job 8:9. _FOR WE_ ARE BUT OF _YESTERDAY, AND KNOW NOTHING_] It is evident that Bildad refers to those times in which human life was protracted to a much _longer date_ than that in which Job lived; when men, from the long period of _eight_ or _nine hundred years_, had the opportunity of making many observations, and treasuring up a vast fund of knowledge and experience. In comparison with _them_, he considers _that age_ as _nothing_, and that generation as being only of _yesterday_, not having had opportunity of laying up knowledge: nor could they expect it, as their days upon earth would be but a _shadow_, compared with that _substantial_ time in which the fathers had lived. Perhaps there may be an allusion here to the _shadow_ projected by the _gnomon of a dial_, during the time the sun is above the horizon. As is a s...

FOR WE ARE BUT OF YESTERDAY - That is, we are of short life. We have had but few opportunities of observation compared with those who have gone before us. There can be no doubt that Bildad here refers to the longevity of the antecedent ages compared with the age of man at the time when he lived; and the passage, therefore, is of importance in order to fix the date of the poem. It shows that human life had been reduced in the time of Job within comparatively moderate limits, and that an important change had taken place in its duration. This reduction began not long after the flood, and was probably continued gradually until it reached the present limit of seventy years. This passage proves that Job could not have lived in the time of the greatest longevity of man; compare the Introduction, Section 3. AND KNOW NOTHING - Margin, not. So the Hebrew literally, “we do not know.” The sense is,...

EXPOSITION JOB 8:1 THEN ANSWERED BILDAD THE SHUHITE, AND SAID. Bildad the Shuhite has the second place in the passage where Job's friends are first mentioned (Job 2:11), and occupies the same relative position in the dialogue. We may suppose him to have been younger than Eliphaz and older than Zophar. He does little more than repeat the arguments of Eliphaz, stating them, however, more bluntly, and with less of tact and consideration. The chief novelties of his discourse are an appeal to the teaching of past ages (verses 8-10), and the employment of new and forcible metaphors (verses 11-19). JOB 8:2 HOW LONG WILT THOU SPEAK THESE THINGS? An exclamation li

FOR WE [ARE BUT OF] YESTERDAY \S\,.... Which is not to be understood strictly of the day last past, but of a short space of time backward; and especially when compared with the antediluvian fathers, who lived the far greater part of them upwards of nine hundred years; otherwise Bildad and his two friends were men in years; Eliphaz says, that with them were the gray headed and very aged men, much older than the father of Job, and Elihu speaks of himself as a young man, and of them as very old; see Job 15:10; AND KNOW NOTHING; which is not to be taken in an absolute sense, for they knew much of the things of nature, providence, and grace; they were men of great understanding in things natural, civil, and religious, as appears by their discourses; but in a comparative sense, or when compared with the long lived patriarchs, who through the length of their days had much time and opp

CHAPTER 8 BILDAD'S ADDRESS _ 1. How long, Job? (Job 8:1)_ 2. Enquire of the former age (Job 8:8) 3. God's dealing with the wicked and the righteous (Job 8:11) Job 8:1. Bildad the Shuhite now speaks to Job. He is less dogmatic than Eliphaz, and less courteous, but more outspoken. He must have lost his patience listening to Job's reply. Especially does he resent what Job had said about God, the insinuations which had fallen from his lips. But we shall see he too follows the logic of Eliphaz, that God punishes Job for his sins. He starts in at once to rebuke Job for what he had said. “How long, Job, wilt thou speak these things? How long shall t

THE WISDOM OF THE ANCIENTS. Bildad recalls Job to tradition as enshrined in the proverbs of the fathers (Job 8:8). Authority belongs to the voice of the past (Job 8:9). The respect which our age has for books, each of which is collected from a hundred older ones, a non-literary civilisation has for tradition and usage. Bildad is conscious of his limitation, but ascribes the same also to all others, whom, as mediocrity is wont to do, he holds without hesitation as his equals: a common combination of modesty and unconscious shamelessness (Duhm). With Job 8:11 begin the wise sayings of the ancients. These maxims of the ancient world are clothed in rich and gorgeous similes drawn from the luxuriant plant life of the sultry East (Davidson). It is notewor

The moral wisdom of the ancients Bildad, having laid down his moral principle, invites Job to reflect that it is a principle resting on the research and the generalized experience of men of generations long past, whose long lives enabled them to weigh and balance and infer from the multitude of cases the general truth. It is no new theory of his or of the short-lived men of to-day, who are but of yesterday and know nothing. These maxims of the ancient world are clothed in rich and gorgeous similes drawn from the luxuriant plant-life of the sultry East....

DISCOURSE: 457 BILDAD WARNS JOB OF THE DANGER OF HYPOCRISY Job 8:8. _Inquire, I pray thee, of the former age, and prepare thyself to the search of their fathers: (for we are but of yesterday, and know nothing, because our days upon earth are a shadow:) shall not they teach thee, and tell thee, and utter words out of their heart? Can the rush grow up without mire? can the flay grow without water? Whilst it is yet in his greenness, and not cut down, it withereth before any other herb. So are the paths of all that forget God; and the hypocrite’s hope shall perish: whose hope shall be cut off, and whose trust shall be a spider’s web_. RELIGIOUS controversy is rarely carried on with that meekness and candour, which are necessary to render it profitable to the soul. Even in such a sacred subject as religion, the generality seek for victory rather than for truth, and put such a construct