person
Bildad
בִּלְדַּד
Bildad the Shuhite was one of Job's three friends who came to comfort him during his affliction.
- verses
- 5
- first named
- Job 2:11
- last named
- Job 42:9
- period
- the Patriarchs
- role
- Man
Description
Who was Bildad?
Bildad the Shuhite was one of the three friends who came to comfort Job during his time of intense suffering (Job.2.11). Along with Eliphaz the Temanite and Zophar the Naamathite, Bildad engaged in a series of dialogues with Job, attempting to explain the cause of his afflictions and offering advice. Bildad's speeches emphasize the justice and righteousness of God, suggesting that Job's suffering must be a result of his sin (Job.8.1-22; 18.1-21; 25.1-6). He argues that God does not pervert justice and that if Job were to seek God and plead for mercy, he would be restored if he were truly pure and upright (Job.8.5-7). However, like the other friends, Bildad fails to grasp the true reason behind Job's suffering and mistakenly accuses him of wrongdoing. In the end, God rebukes Bildad and the other friends for not speaking what is right about Him, unlike Job (Job.42.7-9). Despite his misguided attempts to explain Job's situation, Bildad's presence and dialogue with Job highlight the complexities of human suffering and the importance of faith in the face of adversity.
Relations
Direct connections
Every entity the graph places in a stated relation with this one, grouped by the kind of link. Each relation is authored once and its inverse derived, so both ends always agree. Rows marked “registry” come from the identity spine rather than from a verse, and a row marked “which bearer is the source’s decision” is one where the name could have meant more than one person. The last group is not a relation at all — it counts the events two entities stand in together.
Places
Where this happens
A person is placed by the events they take part in, and an event has to clear three things to place them: it must say where it happened, that place must be one the gazetteer can put a coordinate on, and the verse must report it rather than foretell, command or ask it. Nothing anchored here clears all three. Where the text names a setting no gazetteer surveys — a vineyard, a palace, a plot of ground — it is left off rather than guessed at; where a place is named only in a prophecy, the map does not draw what was said to be coming as though it had happened; and a place reached only through a relation is not inherited, because standing beside somebody is not being somewhere.
No verse Atlas has read as a report puts this person anywhere.
Not read yet
The pattern
Where Bildad is named
Every book of the corpus in the order it is read, each as wide as the chapters it holds. A bar is the verses of that book which write the name, and the flat stretches are as much of the answer as the bars.
5 verses across 1 of 66 books; 65 write the name nowhere. Named in Job (5).
Read it
Where to read it
Every verse of the text carried here that names this entity — 5, across 1 book.
Onward
Where this page goes
Nothing in the graph stands one hop from this entity yet. These are the best-connected entities of the same type, so the page still ends somewhere. Descriptions by STEPBible TIPNR.
Where they appear
Chapter by chapter
Atlas's reading of each chapter this person appears in, in canonical order. One line per chapter, and each leads to the whole of it.
- Job 2Bildad comes with Eliphaz and Zophar to sympathize with Job and comfort him, then sits silent beside him.
- Job 8Bildad challenged Job, appealed to the wisdom of past generations, and pictured fragile hope, uprooted plants, and a promised restoration.
- Job 18Bildad rebuked Job, objected to being treated as cattle, and described the wicked man's ruin from extinguished lamp to the king of terrors.
- Job 25Bildad the Shuhite replied by setting God's dominion and heavenly order against the purity of the moon, stars, and human beings.
- Job 42Bildad went with Eliphaz and Zophar to Job and did as the LORD had told them.
Sources