Text -- Job 8:1-2 (NET)

Bildad’s First Speech to Job

8:1 Then Bildad the Shuhite spoke up and said: 8:2 “How long will you speak these things, seeing that the words of your mouth are like a great wind?

Commentary -- Verse Notes / Footnotes

NET Notes: Job 8:1

¹ sn This speech of Bildad ignores Job’s attack on his friends and focuses rather on Job’s comments about God’s justice. Bildad cannot even imagine saying that God is unjust. The only conclusion open to him is that Job’s family brought this on themselves, and so the only recourse is for Job to humble himself and make supplication to God. To make his point, Bildad will appeal to the wisdom of the ancients, for his theology is traditional. The speech has three parts: vv. 2-7 form his affirmation of the justice of God; vv. 8-19 are his appeal to the wisdom of the ancients, and vv. 20-22 are his summation. See N. C. Habel, “Appeal to Ancient Tradition as a Literary Form,” ZAW 88 (1976): 253-72; W. A. Irwin, “The First Speech of Bildad,” ZAW 51 (1953): 205-16.

NET Notes: Job 8:2

¹ sn “These things” refers to all of Job’s speech, the general drift of which seems to Bildad to question the justice of God.

² tn The second colon of the verse simply says “and a strong wind the words of your mouth.” The simplest way to treat this is to make it an independent nominal sentence: “the words of your mouth are a strong wind.” Some have made it parallel to the first by apposition, understanding “how long” to do double duty. The line beginning with the ו (vav) can also be subordinated as a circumstantial clause, as here.

³ tn The word כַּבִּיר (kabbir, “great”) implies both abundance and greatness. Here the word modifies “wind”; the point of the analogy is that Job’s words are full of sound but without solid content.

⁴ tn See, however, G. R. Driver’s translation, “the breath of one who is mighty are the words of your mouth” (“Hebrew Studies,” JRAS 1948: 170).