Commentators unanimously point out the harshness of Bildad's words. By saying, "If you were pure and upright," he is not offering a hypothetical scenario but making a thinly veiled accusation that Job is, in fact, not pure and upright. Scholars like Albert Barnes and Charles Ellicott describe this as a severe and unfaithful wound from a friend, using orthodox beliefs to condemn a person who is suffering.