Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

To read Job 33, find the link HERE.

To read Job 34, find the link HERE.

Then Elihu said:
“Do you think this is just?
    You say, ‘I am in the right, not God.’
Yet you ask him, ‘What profit is it to me,
    and what do I gain by not sinning?’
“I would like to reply to you
    and to your friends with you.
Look up at the heavens and see;
    gaze at the clouds so high above you.
If you sin, how does that affect him?
    If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
If you are righteous, what do you give to him,
    or what does he receive from your hand?
Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself,
    and your righteousness only other people.
“People cry out under a load of oppression;
    they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,
    who gives songs in the night,
who teaches us more than he teaches the beasts of the earth
    and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?’
He does not answer when people cry out
    because of the arrogance of the wicked.
Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea;
    the Almighty pays no attention to it.
How much less, then, will he listen
    when you say that you do not see him,
that your case is before him
    and you must wait for him,
and further, that his anger never punishes
    and he does not take the least notice of wickedness.
So Job opens his mouth with empty talk;
    without knowledge he multiplies words.”

• Job 35:1-16

To read Job 36, find the link HERE.

“At this my heart pounds
    and leaps from its place.
Listen! Listen to the roar of his voice,
    to the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
He unleashes his lightning beneath the whole heaven
    and sends it to the ends of the earth.
After that comes the sound of his roar;
    he thunders with his majestic voice.
When his voice resounds,
    he holds nothing back.
God’s voice thunders in marvelous ways;
    he does great things beyond our understanding.
He says to the snow, ‘Fall on the earth,’
    and to the rain shower, ‘Be a mighty downpour.’
So that everyone he has made may know his work,
    he stops all people from their labor.
The animals take cover;
    they remain in their dens.
The tempest comes out from its chamber,
    the cold from the driving winds.
The breath of God produces ice,
    and the broad waters become frozen.
He loads the clouds with moisture;
    he scatters his lightning through them.
At his direction they swirl around
    over the face of the whole earth
    to do whatever he commands them.
He brings the clouds to punish people,
    or to water his earth and show his love.
“Listen to this, Job;
    stop and consider God’s wonders.
Do you know how God controls the clouds
    and makes his lightning flash?
Do you know how the clouds hang poised,
    those wonders of him who has perfect knowledge?
You who swelter in your clothes
    when the land lies hushed under the south wind,
can you join him in spreading out the skies,
    hard as a mirror of cast bronze?
“Tell us what we should say to him;
    we cannot draw up our case because of our darkness.
Should he be told that I want to speak?
    Would anyone ask to be swallowed up?
Now no one can look at the sun,
    bright as it is in the skies
    after the wind has swept them clean.
Out of the north he comes in golden splendor;
    God comes in awesome majesty.
The Almighty is beyond our reach and exalted in power;
    in his justice and great righteousness, he does not oppress.
Therefore, people revere him,
    for does he not have regard for all the wise in heart?”

• Job 37:1-24

Job 32-37 ”When the argument between Job and his three friends at last collapses into silence, a fifth speaker appears for the first time, a certain Elihu the Buzite. Perhaps Elihu’s long monologue (chs. 32-37) is meant to promote some reconciliation between Job and the friends, but it seems unlikely to do so. Elihu makes clear his scorn for all the previous speakers. Job’s friends did not speak with wisdom, as expected (32:11, 12), and as for Job, he ‘speaks without knowledge’ (34:35).

Elihu’s words, like those of the three friends, often contain passages of great insight, insight that is unfortunately spoiled by its style of delivery. For instance, Elihu speaks with great fervor of God’s majesty (36:5-37:24), but that reverent speech is prefaced with Elihu’s pompous claim, ‘Truly my words are not false; One who is perfect in knowledge is with you’ (36:4). Given such a beginning, it is difficult to imagine that Elihu’s long-winded reasonings would effect any reconciliation.

”

• John MacArthur, John MacArthur Commentary (quoted Scripture without bold/italics)

The Message

Elihu has many words.  Just ask him.  He uses those words – the longest of the oratories.  But after promising a new tactic, is there any change?

Job 33 starts with Elihu charging Job in contradictory ways.  Job is to not talk but listen.  But Job is to speak up if he disagrees with Elihu.

Elihu tells Job that he is wrong.  Everyone has sinned in some kind of way.  Job cannot say that he is perfect.  Only God is perfect.

His new tactic comes in the rest of Job 33.  Elihu suggests that Job was on the wrong path and He sent Job a test of faith, a reminder of what the true path was.  God might send up to three such tests to get Job to turn to the proper path.

As some scholars say, this could have been wise counsel except that Job had not strayed to a wrong path.  Indeed, Job was not sinless, but Job was not wicked, nor was Job on a path toward wickedness.  Elihu’s good advice was presented as accusation.  Thus, his oratory failed based on Elihu’s own ignorance, although ignorance is his next accusation toward Job.

Job says that he is innocent.  God does not do evil.  But God is not answerable to us.  If God removed His Spirit, we would all die, but we have no say so as to what God does.  If God remains silent, we cannot fault God.  Through this chapter, Elihu talks of God’s omniscience, omnipotence, and sovereignty.

But then in Job 35, Elihu says things that seem off the rails.  He says that with God’s infinity, wickedness and righteousness on earth do not affect God – but they do.  God is saddened by the wickedness and He is pleased by righteousness.  Then Elihu basically says that God pays no attention to us – but God does.

And all Elihu can add is that Job multiplies words.  If you have kept track, Job’s responses are usually more verbose than the accusations, in almost every case.

Now, Elihu betrays himself.  He calls his words true.  No one is perfect.  Everyone fails, but that mysteriously does not apply to Elihu in his oratory.  With these few verses, can we trust anything Elihu says?

He accuses Job to favor evil over affliction.  In all Job’s complaining, Job was not seeing the chastening that God was doing.  Thus, Job was improperly complaining by wanting an audience with God.  Job was being drawn closer to evil, but if he embraced the suffering for what it was – a test – then he might hear what God intended.  Again, a small morsel of good advice sprinkled with a lot of accusations and anger toward Job’s protest of innocence.  But in a few words, Elihu hit on how James starts his letter.  We should count it Joy when we suffer the tests that come our way.  The complaints get in the way of what we are to learn at times.

Then Elihu gives a weather report.  In knowing how the cycle of moisture works, Elihu is reasonably accurate.  God draws up the water to fill the clouds and the rains fall on the wicked to punish and on the righteous for their crops to grow.

And Elihu ends by glorifying God.

And now let us sing.

The following song is Let it Rain.  This is sung by Michael W. Smith and featuring Alex Seeley, doing a oratory in the middle of a repeated chorus.  What struck me is that her points mirror what Elihu says about God, especially in how rain affects us.

 

Closing Prayer

Dear Lord,
We need Your wisdom.  Lord, I have sinned.  I am not perfect, but I cannot make the same claims Elihu made.  He said Job was not perfect, but then he claimed his words to be perfect.  Was that the arrogance of youth?  Lord, You can use our words, even when we are not perfect.  Elihu’s anger kept him from seeing where he might be wrong.  Help us to see where we are wrong before speaking.  In thy Name we pray.
Amen

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.