A final speech, by Bildad, of the three friends. All three friends have faced a conundrum. Their arguments posit that either God or Job must be in the wrong. In this closing speech, an important question is asked several times: “How then can man be in the right before God? How can he who is born of woman be pure?” (25:4). Job responds, a response I think that largely answers all the questions posed. Chapter 26 – The mystery of God’s ways. Job speaks of God’s mighty acts and concluded that there are some things that we simply cannot understand. Chapter 27 – Job cannot agree that his suffering has come to him because of some great wickedness: “I hold fast my righteousness and will not let it go; my heart does not reproach me for any of my days” (27:6). Chapter 28 – Job acknowledges the value of wisdom and longs for the same that he might rightly understand his predicament. Job’s speech, which is much longer than Bildad’s – I get the sense that Job is weary of his friends’ arguments and has determined to shut them up – and this section ends with “The words of Job are ended” (31:40). But that wrap up will be for tomorrow. But in answer to that first question (25:4), we must respond:
Lord, we are vile, and full of sin,
We're born unholy and unclean;
Spring from the man whose guilty fall
Corrupts his race, and taints us all.
Jesus, thy blood, thy blood alone,
Hath power sufficient to atone;
Thy blood can make us white as snow;
No other tide can cleanse us so. –Isaac Watts (1740)
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