Job 25 — Peace in the Heights, Worms in the Dust
The shortest speech in Job is also the sharpest knife. Bildad ascends to the stars and descends to the grave in six verses. He begins with dominion and awe, hosts beyond number, and “He makes peace in his high heaven” (English Standard Version). He ends with humanity as maggots and worms. His theology grows taller as his compassion grows smaller.
Text and tension Our last entry (Job 24) listened to the city’s groans—boundaries moved, wages stolen, the poor thirsty. Bildad answers that the heavens are calm. He isn’t wrong about God’s order. He is wrong about what it proves for a sufferer on an ash heap. He uses transcendence to end the conversation, not to enlarge mercy.
Words worth pausing over - “He makes peace in the heights” (Hebrew: oseh shalom bimromav). This line passed into the Jewish Kaddish, whispered by mourners for centuries: “May He who makes peace in His heights make peace upon us.” In Israel’s liturgy, Bildad’s line became solace, not a scold. A Western reader might miss that this is funeral language—a plea that the serene order above would visit the torn fabric below. - “How can a mortal be right with God?” The verb is from tsadaq—courtroom language. In Job, “righteous” means “in the right” before God, not sinless perfection. God will later say Job has spoken what is right about Him (42:7). The friends use universal sin to silence a particular innocent; Scripture uses it to open the door to grace. - “Man … a maggot; son of man … a worm.” Two Hebrew words here: rimmah (maggot of decay) and tola’at (worm). Strikingly, tola’at also names the crimson dye used in tabernacle fabrics and royal garments (Exod 26; Isa 1:18). The despised creature yields a color of holiness and kingship. Bildad’s insult hides a hint: God can draw beauty from the lowly. - The rhetoric is qal va-homer—“how much more/less.” Bildad argues: if the moon and stars are not pure, how much less man. Jesus often flips this pattern for mercy: if God feeds the birds, how much more will He care for you.
The gospel turn The line between “peace in the heights” and “worms in the dust” is crossed in Christ. The angels sang of peace “in the highest” and on earth (Luke 2:14). Paul dares to name how: God reconciled all things, in heaven and on earth, “making peace by the blood of his cross” (Col 1:20, English Standard Version). The Psalm that Jesus took to His lips includes: “I am a worm and not a man” (Psalm 22:6, English Standard Version). The Son embraced wormhood to lift the children of dust. Bildad’s “how much less” becomes God’s “how much more” (Rom 5:9–10).
Practice - Do not answer grief with altitude only. Let transcendence become tenderness. - Hold together dust and dignity: Psalm 8 crowns humanity with glory; Job 25 reminds us we return to soil. In Christ we carry this treasure in jars of clay (2 Cor 4:7). - Pray the ancient line as intercession: Oseh shalom in the heights—make shalom here: in the ward, the workshop, the church meeting, the contested street.
Cross-references to ponder - Job 4:18; 9:2; 42:7 - Psalm 8; 22 - Isaiah 41:14 - Luke 2:14 - Romans 3:21–26; 5:1–11 - Colossians 1:15–20
Historical note and a hymn Gregory the Great read Job as a mirror of Christ’s humility; Luther heard here the ache that drives us to justification by faith. Sing “Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence.” Its vision of ranks of angels and the Word made flesh answers Bildad with awe that bends low.
Prayer High and Holy One, who makes peace in the heavens, make peace among us. You who counted the stars, number our tears. You who became a worm for our sake, lift us from the dust and call us righteous in Your Son. Teach us to speak truth with mercy, awe with tenderness, and to bear Your peace into wounded places. Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.