If thy children have sinned against him, and he have cast them away for their transgression;
Job 8:4 belongs to Bildad's first speech, in which he exhorts Job to humility over the casting away of children for their transgression. In it Bildad claims that Job's children sinned against God and that God cast them away and rejected them, so that they died, for their transgression and wrongdoing. The charge is one of the constant accusations, stated and implied, by which Job's three friends trouble him, charging Job himself with sin and declaring that his sufferings are because of sin.
It is to be read together with Job's responses in the extended exchange running from Job 8 to Job 27, where the friends at last cease and Job's final reply is still underway. It reflects the friends' mistaken view in the debate over Job's suffering that affliction and suffering prove personal sin, guilt, and divine disfavor and displeasure. The friends generally spoke truths that were misapplied to Job, so the verse states Bildad's words but those words are not necessarily true.
As part of the speeches of the misguided friends, its claims about God and Job are not reliable merely because they appear in Scripture, but must be tested against other inspired declarations. God later declared their reasoning wrong. In reality God was disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction. The verse belongs to the great problems of an overruling providence and of sin and suffering, and humanity is still prone to misjudge its fellows in this same way today.
Job 8:4 belongs to Bildad's first speech, in which he exhorts Job to humility over the casting away of children for their transgression. In it Bildad claims that Job's children sinned against God and that God cast them away and rejected them, so that they died, for their transgression and wrongdoing. The charge is one of the constant accusations, stated and implied, by which Job's three friends trouble him, charging Job himself with sin and declaring that his sufferings are because of sin.
It is to be read together with Job's responses in the extended exchange running from Job 8 to Job 27, where the friends at last cease and Job's final reply is still underway. It reflects the friends' mistaken view in the debate over Job's suffering that affliction and suffering prove personal sin, guilt, and divine disfavor and displeasure. The friends generally spoke truths that were misapplied to Job, so the verse states Bildad's words but those words are not necessarily true.
As part of the speeches of the misguided friends, its claims about God and Job are not reliable merely because they appear in Scripture, but must be tested against other inspired declarations. God later declared their reasoning wrong. In reality God was disciplining Job and bringing him through the fire of affliction. The verse belongs to the great problems of an overruling providence and of sin and suffering, and humanity is still prone to misjudge its fellows in this same way today.