Job 25
Introduction
Job 25 is the shortest speech in the entire book of Job — Bildad's third and final address, spanning only five verses of poetry (vv. 2–6). Its brevity is itself significant. After two lengthy speeches cataloging the fate of the wicked (Job 8, Job 18), Bildad here says almost nothing. He makes no new accusations, cites no proverbs, tells no parables. He retreats to the one ground still available to him: the sheer transcendence of God and the consequent worthlessness of all humanity. The implicit argument is: "Given who God is and what humans are, it is absurd for Job to demand an accounting."
The speech has two tightly connected parts. The first (vv. 2–3) is a doxology of divine sovereignty — God's dominion, dread, and order extend even to the heavenly host. The second (vv. 4–6) draws the logical conclusion for humanity: if even the moon and stars are impure before God, how much less man, who is a maggot and a worm? The speech echoes language from Eliphaz's first speech (Job 4:17-19) but strips away even that speech's pastoral warmth, leaving only cold cosmology. Most scholars read it as evidence that the friends have exhausted their arguments — Bildad cannot press Job's specific guilt (as Eliphaz fabricated in chapter 22), so he falls back on a generalized doctrine of human unworthiness. Job's response in chapter 26 will begin with devastating sarcasm.
God's Sovereign Majesty (vv. 2–3)
2 "Dominion and awe belong to God; He establishes harmony in the heights of heaven. 3 Can His troops be numbered? On whom does His light not rise?
2 "Dominion and dread are with him; he makes peace in his heights. 3 Is there a number to his armies? On whom does his light not rise?
Notes
The opening word הַמְשֵׁל is an articular infinitive — "the ruling" — a concentrated way of saying "sovereignty, dominion." It is paired with פַּחַד, a word that can mean "dread, terror, awe" — the visceral fear that divine presence provokes. Together they frame God as one in whom absolute authority and terrifying holiness are inseparable.
The second line, עֹשֶׂה שָׁלוֹם בִּמְרוֹמָיו, "he makes peace in his heights," is striking. שָׁלוֹם here does not mean emotional peace but cosmic order — the harmonious arrangement of the heavenly realm. This phrase became the basis of a famous Jewish liturgical formula, still spoken today at the end of the Kaddish prayer: oseh shalom bi-meromav, hu ya'aseh shalom aleinu — "May he who makes peace in his heights make peace upon us." The irony, of course, is that Bildad uses this language to silence Job, while the prayer uses it as a petition for human wellbeing.
גְּדוּדָיו — "his troops/armies" — the word גְּדוּד usually refers to a raiding band or military company. Here it likely means the heavenly host — the vast armies of celestial beings in God's service. Their number is beyond counting. The rhetorical question "on whom does his light not rise?" implies universal divine illumination: no corner of creation lies outside God's radiance or reach.
Human Unworthiness Before God (vv. 4–6)
4 How then can a man be just before God? How can one born of woman be pure? 5 If even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in His sight, 6 how much less man, who is but a maggot, and the son of man, who is but a worm!
4 How then can a mortal be righteous before God? How can one born of woman be clean? 5 Indeed, even the moon does not shine, and the stars are not pure in his eyes — 6 how much less man, who is a maggot, and the son of man, who is a worm!
Notes
The rhetorical question of v. 4 — מַה יִּצְדַּק אֱנוֹשׁ עִם אֵל — echoes the question that runs through the entire book. The verb יִצְדַּק is from the root צָדַק, "to be righteous, to be in the right, to be vindicated." This is the same legal vocabulary Job himself has been using when demanding a hearing. Bildad uses it to foreclose the very possibility of what Job is seeking: no mortal can be in the right before God, so the whole lawsuit is moot.
The word אֱנוֹשׁ is significant. Hebrew has several words for "human being": אָדָם (adam) is the general term; אִישׁ (ish) is often translated "man" with connotations of strength; but אֱנוֹשׁ carries connotations of frailty and mortality. It is the same word in Psalm 8:4 ("What is enosh that you are mindful of him?") and Job 7:17. Bildad's choice of this word is deliberate: the question is not merely about a strong man standing before God, but about frail, mortal humanity.
יִזְכֶּה — "be pure, be clean" — from זָכָה, related to ritual and moral purity. The person described as יְלוּד אִשָּׁה, "born of woman," became a stock phrase for human transience in later Hebrew literature — used also in Job 14:1 where Job himself acknowledges it, and in the Dead Sea Scrolls (1QH).
The argument from analogy in vv. 5–6 moves from the greater (moon and stars) to the lesser (humanity). The verb יַאֲהִיל in v. 5 is rare — from a root meaning "to shine" or "to give light" — and the moon being said not to "shine" in God's sight implies not literal darkness but moral inadequacy by comparison. If the magnificent celestial bodies, which serve as God's lights and harbingers of his order, are not pure before him, how much more deficient is humanity?
The concluding image is the most crushing: אֱנוֹשׁ רִמָּה, "man is a maggot." רִמָּה is the maggot or corpse-worm — the creature of death and decay. It appeared just one verse earlier in Job 24:20, where Job described the wicked being consumed by it. Now Bildad turns the image universally: not just the wicked, but all of humanity, is a rimmah. The second term, תּוֹלֵעָה, is a different word for worm, associated with the crimson-dye worm but used as a symbol of lowliness. This exact phrase — "I am a worm [תּוֹלֵעָה] and not a man" — appears in the great messianic lament of Psalm 22:6, where it becomes the language of the suffering servant.
Bildad intends this as an argument to silence Job. But the irony of the book is that the God who answers from the whirlwind will speak to Job directly — and never once call him a maggot.