Behold, God will not cast away a perfect man, neither will he help the evil doers:
Behold, the saying stands in Bildad's first speech urging humility toward God, spoken within the extended debate between Job and his three friends concerning the meaning of Job's afflictions. It lays down the general truth that God will not ultimately cast away or reject the perfect, blameless and upright man, and that He will not help, uphold or support evildoers. A perfect man is one who walks with God and walks in His ways, as the patriarchs and prophets did, and that same perfection and holiness like God's own is still required of sinners now.
Because the saying belongs to the declarations of Job's friends, who did not speak truthfully about God or about Job, it must be read with care, and its claims about God and about Job cannot be taken as reliable unless they are supported by other inspired Scripture. Though true in principle, it was misapplied by those friends, who charged Job with sin and declared that his sufferings were because of sin and proof that he lay under God's displeasure. In fact God was disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction, which shows that affliction does not prove that a person has sinned and that it may be God's loving correction.
Humanity remains prone to misjudge its fellows in this same way, inferring guilt from suffering. The promise not to cast away the upright and not to help evildoers is joined to the further assurance that those who hate God shall be cut off and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nothing.
Behold, the saying stands in Bildad's first speech urging humility toward God, spoken within the extended debate between Job and his three friends concerning the meaning of Job's afflictions. It lays down the general truth that God will not ultimately cast away or reject the perfect, blameless and upright man, and that He will not help, uphold or support evildoers. A perfect man is one who walks with God and walks in His ways, as the patriarchs and prophets did, and that same perfection and holiness like God's own is still required of sinners now.
Because the saying belongs to the declarations of Job's friends, who did not speak truthfully about God or about Job, it must be read with care, and its claims about God and about Job cannot be taken as reliable unless they are supported by other inspired Scripture. Though true in principle, it was misapplied by those friends, who charged Job with sin and declared that his sufferings were because of sin and proof that he lay under God's displeasure. In fact God was disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction, which shows that affliction does not prove that a person has sinned and that it may be God's loving correction.
Humanity remains prone to misjudge its fellows in this same way, inferring guilt from suffering. The promise not to cast away the upright and not to help evildoers is joined to the further assurance that those who hate God shall be cut off and the dwelling place of the wicked shall come to nothing.