Job 25:4

The context

Job 25 is the shortest speech in the book, six verses, and it is Bildad's third and final contribution. He has nothing new to say. He restates the majesty of God's rule and the lowliness of a human being, and then he stops; the next words in the text are Job's, and the friends never speak again after chapter 25.

What it establishes

The verse establishes the friends' closing position: God is exalted, a person is a maggot, and therefore no one can be righteous before him. It is the same argument as Eliphaz's, compressed. Rhetorically it is a retreat from argument into assertion, and the book notices.

What it does not establish

It is an argument the book rejects. God later says the friends did not speak rightly, and Bildad's premise confuses creaturely smallness with guilt. The verse describes human frailty accurately enough; it draws an inference about standing before God that Job's case is designed to test.

Short note, first pass, October 2026. Corrections welcome.

Cited in these answers

• Job is described as “righteous” and “blameless.” Can these descriptions be taken seriously if the Bible is said to teach the universal sinfulness of mankind?

Part of Scripture, Opened — the exegetical layer behind every citation on this site. Scripture quotations are from the ESV.