Elihu joins the discussion (Job 34-37)
Elihu joins the discussion in
chapter 32 and is described as a man who had become angry with Job's continued
insistence that he had not been an evildoer. By the time Elihu joins in the
discussion, the other three men had exhausted their arguments about suffering
being God's punishment on Job's sins. Elihu indicates that he has become
impatient with their discussion because nothing they had said had changed Job's
insistence on his innocence before God and his arguments that God was treating
him unfairly.
34: 1-4. Elihu calls on
those present to come to some conclusion about Job's plight.
34: 5-9. Elihu first sets
out a summary of what Job has said in his arguments with God. Job has claimed
that he is innocent of evildoing and that God has been unjust to him. Job
refuses to assent to the arguments of his friends, that his suffering is proof
of his wrongdoing and is God's punishment on his sins. Elihu then speaks very
unfairly of Job, assuming that Job is an evildoer and presenting a false
picture of what Job's life had actually been like.
34: 10-30. Elihu then sets
out, rightly, the Israelite belief that God is totally righteous, omnipotent
and omniscient. Because of his moral character he punishes sinners who cannot
hide from him: 'There is no darkness dark enough to hide a sinner from God.'
34: 31-37. Elihu then comes
to the conclusion that Job has been speaking from ignorance of God's nature;
Elihu indicates that Job's afflictions are just punishment for the evil he is
presumed to have committed. To Elihu, Job is a rebellious sinner.
When we try to assess the
value of what Elihu has said, we get the impression of the speaker as a man who
has carefully learnt the proper beliefs of his community about the nature of
God, but judges Job from a rigid position, assuming Job's guilt because he
assumes Job's suffering to be the punishment of God. In this chapter, Elihu
does no better than the other three men in helping Job to understand his
plight.
35: 1-16. In this chapter,
Elihu emphasizes what he understands of the transcendence of God. God is far
above men; nothing that man does can harm God. It is difficult to see how
anything Elihu says here could help Job.
36: 1-21. Elihu keeps firmly
to his theme, that God is totally just and that Job's sufferings are just
punishment from God for what he has done wrong.
36:22-37:24. At last Elihu
begins to move away from his rigid assessment of Job's sufferings, to
word-pictures of the wonderful power of God as it is revealed in the world
around. The picture which Elihu builds up of God, the great sustainer of life
in the world he has created, is going to prepare Job for his dramatic encounter
with God himself (Job 38-41). Although Elihu does not do better than Job's
other friends when he first enters the discussion on Job's plight, he ends by
speaking in a way that prepares Job for what Job has cried out for-God's
revelation of himself to Job.
36: 22-26. A hymn praising
God's greatness.
36:27-37: 13. In this
psalm-like passage, God who sends and controls life-sustaining rain and weather
is described in majestic poetry; the thunder is the voice of God; lightning is
thrown from his hands; his breath freezes the water and turns it into ice.
'Everyone has seen what he has done; but no one understands it all' (36: 25).
We take for granted what happens in the environment in which we live but the
speaker in this passage is challenging his listeners to think about what a
wonderful thing it is that life is sustained in the world, in the way it is.
37: 14-24. The speaker asks
Job to open his mind to the wonderful signs of God's power and sustaining care
which are all around him. He asks Job if he can explain what he sees. How does
the lightning flash occur? How do the clouds float in the sky? Can Job do
anything to help God 'stretch out the sky'? How can human beings speak to God
when he is so 'totally other', their creator on whom their existence depends?
Verse 20