Job 25 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study
Job 25 Short Summary:
Job 25 contains Bildad’s final speech, in which he repeats a few sentiments that had already been discussed. He spoke of God’s greatness and purity. He said that men were as worms to God, and implied that Job, in all his unworthiness, had no right to question God.
Job 24 Bible Study
SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB
Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan
Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution
Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.
Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost
WHEN:
The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).
I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.
KEY CHARACTERS:
Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.
Bildad – Bildad was one of Job’s 3 friends. He spoke previously in chapters 8 and 18.
WHERE:
Job lived in the land of Uz. Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.
OUTLINE:
BILDAD REPEATS HIS BELIEFS ON THE GREATNESS OF GOD (25:1-3):
This is the final speech by one of Job’s friends, its brevity many indicate that the conversation was running out of steam, or that Job’s friends had given up on convincing him.
Job will dominate the conversation until the introduction of a new figure, Elihu, into the discussion in Job 32.
Chapter 25 contains just a few words from Bildad as he repeated a sentiment that had been expressed previously.
He talked about the greatness of God, which Job and his other friends already agreed on.
God’s rule and dominion were without question. His armies were without number.
God’s light, either referring to the light of the sun or figuratively to the light of God’s influence, shines on all men and over all the earth.
BILDAD REPEATS HIS BELIEFS ON THE UNWORTHINESS OF MAN (25:4-6):
Bildad went back to a point made previously, that men are unworthy to stand before God and ask anything of Him because they are like dirty maggots in comparison to God’s purity.
“How then can man be in the right before God? How can He who is born of woman be pure?” (25:4).
In a sense, Bildad was right about this, men aren’t worthy to stand before God, but the use for which he employed this truth was wrong.
Bildad appears to have brought this up to silence Job, to tell Job that he was in no position to claim righteousness or to question God’s clear judgement against him.
APPLICATION
It’s true that God is infinitely great.
It’s true that God is infinitely pure.
It’s true that humans are worms rolling around in the dirt in comparison to His cleanness.
Romans 3:10 – “as it is written: “None is righteous, no, not one.”
So, why doesn’t God treat us like worms? Why does He treat us like His children? How did we go from the dirt to being adopted sons of God (Rom 8:15)?
It’s because we crawled up out of the dirt and became better people and worthy of that title… wrong!
It’s because Jesus’ righteousness has been given to us and we are now associated with His holiness.
Romans 5:19 - For as by the one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's [Jesus’] obedience the many will be made righteous.”
Paul wrote in Philippians 3:9, “not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.”
