Big Idea: Bildad concludes that humans have no hope before God.

Understanding the Text

Job 25 contains Bildad’s third and final speech, but he has little to say to Job. Clearly running out of steam, Bildad speaks only briefly before he and the friends tail off into silence. For all practical purposes, the dialogue is over, with Job and his friends not a bit closer to each other in their positions. Bildad’s firm commitment to retribution theology leads him to conclude that before the transcendent God humans are worthless and contemptible, a conclusion that is hardly satisfying or comforting to Job. Many scholars have speculated that Bildad also spoke the words attributed to Job in 26:5–14 and that Zophar also had a third speech in 27:13–23,1but there is no textual evidence to support thes…