Job 8 · a question people ask

Did Job's children die because they sinned?

In the text

Bildad says, "If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience" (8:4). He says if. Set beside it two things the book has already told you. Job offered burnt offerings for them, for he said, "It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts" (1:5): Job's may be, not a statement that they had. And a messenger told Job how they died: "there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead" (1:19). That came after the LORD said to Satan, "Behold, all that he has is in your power" (1:12). The book doesn't say that the children sinned, and it doesn't give their death as a punishment for sin. It says the LORD told Satan, of Job, "you incited me against him, to ruin him without cause" (2:3), and at the end that the friends had "not spoken of me the thing that is right" (42:7). These notes add no reason for the children's death that the book doesn't give.

The verses

“If your children have sinned against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their disobedience.”
Job 8:4 · World English Bible
“It was so, when the days of their feasting had run their course, that Job sent and sanctified them, and rose up early in the morning, and offered burnt offerings according to the number of them all. For Job said, “It may be that my sons have sinned, and renounced God in their hearts.” Job did so continually.”
Job 1:5 · World English Bible
“The LORD said to Satan, “Behold, all that he has is in your power. Only on himself don’t stretch out your hand.” So Satan went out from the presence of the LORD.”
Job 1:12 · World English Bible
“While he was still speaking, there came also another, and said, “Your sons and your daughters were eating and drinking wine in their oldest brother’s house, and behold, there came a great wind from the wilderness, and struck the four corners of the house, and it fell on the young men, and they are dead. I alone have escaped to tell you.””
Job 1:18-19 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 8

Job 8: Does God pervert justice?

Bildad's first speech runs on if: if your children sinned, if you were pure and upright. The book had already called Job "blameless and upright" (1:1), with the very words Bildad uses, and the LORD said Job was ruined "without cause" (2:3). And the "latter end" Bildad speaks of is the word of the book's last chapter: "the LORD blessed the latter end of Job" (42:12).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions