If thou wouldest seek unto God betimes, and make thy supplication to the Almighty;
The verse belongs to Bildad's first speech to Job, in which he exhorts Job to humility and urges him to seek God early and make supplication to the Almighty. It stands near the beginning of the long stretch from chapter 8 to chapter 27 in which Job's friends trouble him with constant accusations, open and implied, until they fall silent and leave Job in the middle of his final reply. The counsel of those friends contains statements that are generally true but were misapplied to Job, for his suffering did not prove that he had failed to seek God and pray or that he was under God's displeasure.
The declarations of Job's friends about God and Job cannot be treated as reliable merely because they contain some good statements, but must be tested by other inspired teaching, especially when they imply that God's favor brings wealth and plenty of gold and silver. The verse reflects Bildad's mistaken reasoning that suffering proves guilt, and its call to seek God does not make the poor or afflicted guilty, for God declared Bildad and his companions to be wrong.
The verse belongs to Bildad's first speech to Job, in which he exhorts Job to humility and urges him to seek God early and make supplication to the Almighty. It stands near the beginning of the long stretch from chapter 8 to chapter 27 in which Job's friends trouble him with constant accusations, open and implied, until they fall silent and leave Job in the middle of his final reply. The counsel of those friends contains statements that are generally true but were misapplied to Job, for his suffering did not prove that he had failed to seek God and pray or that he was under God's displeasure.
The declarations of Job's friends about God and Job cannot be treated as reliable merely because they contain some good statements, but must be tested by other inspired teaching, especially when they imply that God's favor brings wealth and plenty of gold and silver. The verse reflects Bildad's mistaken reasoning that suffering proves guilt, and its call to seek God does not make the poor or afflicted guilty, for God declared Bildad and his companions to be wrong.