Job 25:1-6·~1 min
Bildad: Man Cannot Be Righteous
Bildad begins by affirming that dominion and dread belong to God, the one who establishes peace in his high places and commands hosts beyond numbering. The opening does not yet name Job directly but sets a scale of divine greatness meant to make all human dispute feel small.
T1hen Bildad the Shuhite replied: 2“Dominion and awe belong to God; 3Can His troops be numbered?
From that height Bildad asks how any man could be just before God or anyone born of woman be pure. If even the moon lacks brightness and the stars are not pure before him, then humanity is lower still, frail and unclean like a maggot and a worm.
4How then can a man be just before God? 5If even the moon does not shine, 6how much less man, who is but a maggot,
Section summaryBildad replies by speaking first of God's rule, majesty, and ordering power, then moves quickly to the conclusion he wants to draw from that greatness: no human being can be just or pure before him. The speech closes by saying that if even the moon and stars are not pure in God's sight, humanity is far less so, reduced to the language of worms and mortality.
Role in the chapterThis single section serves as Bildad's final theological compression of the friends' position. It keeps the focus on divine transcendence and human impurity, but precisely by being so general it shows how far the friends are from actually engaging Job's case.