Job 18:3 – VILE IN YOUR SIGHT
Job 18:3 Wherefore are we counted as beasts, and reputed vile in your sight?
Bildad has heard enough of the words of Job. He and two of Job’s friends have accused Job of committing some sort of sin and Job has responded by calling them miserable comforters and calling them unwise. Bildad has considered himself wise in his own eyes because he was able to look at the trials of Job and assume that Job must have sinned in order for such a huge trial to come upon a righteous man like Job.
The fact that Job is denying the fact does not change Bildad’s opinion, instead, Bildad is becoming more entrenched in that opinion and he assumes that Job has really gone off the deep end that he can no longer see his iniquity. Why else would Job be acting the way he is unless Job really was guilty?
Bildad is not going to put up with Job starting to point the figure at him. He is not the one who is in the midst of the trial so why should he have to examine the words that he is saying to determine if they are really of the Lord? Why should Bildad be accountable for what is coming out of his mouth, he is not the one suffering at this time?
Have you ever seen a person who is guilty of something start finding other people who are guilty of the same thing? Maybe they drink too much so they find other people who drink and they make sure those people know that they should be changing their life. Maybe they are too angry so anytime they see someone get angry, rather than have compassion on that person, they get angry at the person that is angry.
Maybe that is what is going on here. Bildad has a guilty conscience for committing some secret sin. As such, he is readily aware of the consequences of such secret sin. Bildad assumes that Job must be committing a secret sin so he is going to accuse Job of doing something that he himself is guilty of. When Job does not admit to being like Bildad, Bildad reacts to the words of Job.
Bildad chose not to hear what Job was saying. He was so sure that Job was wrong that he just attacked Job and refused to change from his false believes. The fact that Bildad was unwilling to hear what Job was saying was just one of the reasons why he was a miserable counselor.
When David had been attacked by his own son Absalom, David started to flee. About that time, Shimei came down and started to curse David. David’s men desired to kill Shimei, but David told them to let him live to see if his words came to past. David was patient as he was willing to see if what Shimei said were from God or if it were from Satan. David did not like what he heard, but he knew time would prove the validity of the words.
We need to follow the example of David and not of Bildad. We need to not be so quick to react to every word that we hear. If we are reading the Bible and we think we hear God speaking to us, we should be careful because Satan was capable of deceiving Eve, he surely can deceive us. As such, we must be patient and learn to hear the voice of God.
Words are important but they needed to be vetted out to see what is truth. When you speak, are you speaking the truth, or are you speaking out of anger or fear? There will be times where the best thing to do is to keep your mouth shut and allow God to take care of the problem that you face. Pointing fingers or getting into an argument will rarely solve the problem.