The Bible Database Project

← People

Bildad
Illustration created for this project.

Bildad

One of Job's three friends, the Shuhite, who came with the others to console him and sat seven days in silence before any of them spoke. His speeches are the shortest and the bluntest: he appeals to the wisdom of former generations, insists that God does not pervert justice, and suggests that Job's children died because they sinned. Like the other two, he is finally told that he has not spoken rightly of God, as Job has, and must bring an offering and ask Job to pray for him.

Role: Friend of Job
Lived: Patriarchal age

What we know — and how we know it

Scholarly — supported scholarly belief · 2
Origin & birthplace
ScholarlyBildad's gentilic 'the Shuhite' has been linked by scholars to the land of Suhu, an Aramean district on the middle Euphrates that is well attested in Assyrian royal and administrative texts, situating Job's friend within a recognizable geographic milieu.
The region Suḫu/Sūhu of the middle Euphrates in Assyrian sources; a proposed geographic identification for the biblical 'Shuhite,' not a direct attestation of Bildad.
Name & titles
ScholarlyThe name Bildad is obscure and its etymology unresolved; it is sometimes analyzed as a West-Semitic/Akkadian-flavored form (e.g. a contraction meaning 'Bel/the lord has loved'), but no derivation is secure.
Onomastic point: the name Bildad has no agreed etymology in the standard commentaries and lexica.

Where in scripture

Job

Now when Job’s three friends heard of all this evil that had come on him, they each came from his own place: Eliphaz the Temanite, Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite; and they made an appointment together to come to sympathize with him and to comfort him.

Job 2:11

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

Job 8:1 — Bildad the Shuhite answers

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

Job 18:1

Then Bildad the Shuhite answered,

Job 25:1

So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went, and did what Yahweh commanded them, and Yahweh accepted Job.

Job 42:9

Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, a public-domain translation.

Job 2:11Job 8:1Job 18:1Job 25:1Job 42:9