- Critics argue that Elihu was a later addition to the book. How can we respond to that?
- The passage clearly makes the case that is not true
- The passage offers a lot of details about Elihu that would be unnecessary
- The Jews held God's word in high esteem, and I cannot believe that any person would dare to add to the text
- Elihu is not mentioned until this point, but we do understand a few things about him, both from this text and the book
- He was younger
- He was angry at both groups
- He felt Job was wrong in justifying himself
- He felt his friends were wrong in not answering Job
- Elihu may have been a relative of Abraham (Constable)
- Buz was a descendant of Nahor
- Elihu was a Buzite (Gen 22:20-21; Jer25:23)
- Also, Ram is mentioned (vs 2). And in the genealogy of David (Ruth 4:19-22)
- Elihu is very wordy, which actually makes him more difficult to understand at times, but what are his first points?
- God does speak, we don’t actually see it
- God uses many avenues to teach but we don't look for it
- Job's wife argued God was unfair
- Job's friends argued that the purpose of suffering was punitive
- Elihu argues that God is trying to teach something. The purpose of suffering is pedagogical, educational
- How does Elihu continue the argument? God uses many different ways to get people's attention
- He may be protecting them from bad decisions
- He may be protecting them from pride
- He may be protecting them from death
- He may be trying to get a person's attention
- What is the argument here?
- People learn from the experience
- People witness to others of what they have learned
- Suffering can have good
- What is his point here?
- God may bring upon suffering multiple times to get a person's attention
- God wants people to experience life as he intended them
- Elihu is very tough on Job. He calls him a scoffer
- Elihu is right in terms of God's justice (Job at times said the same but then at other times seem to say the opposite)
- What is Elihu saying here?
- He seems to agree with the friends that Job has sinned, if only in his words
- Personally, I think Job's words are harsh, but that Job is in a lot of pain, so I am not sure I agree with Elihu
- Elihu is not chastised by God, because I think he has pointed out a central truth -- God brings purpose to "pointless" suffering (Rom 8:28)
- Observations?
- God does hear
- It does make a difference to be righteous
- Because God has not responded to your attacks, that does not mean God does not hear or does not respond
- Observations:
- Job is obsessed with his own idea of justice
- Job is in danger of being a scoffer
- Job's scoffing can lead to sin
- God can teach you if you only will listen
- Hoping for death is foolishness and prevents you from learning the lesson
- You can never really know what God is doing
- At this point there is a storm rumbling in the distance. I don't think that Elihu realizes that God is coming in the storm to speak
- APPLICATION:
- There is purpose in suffering for the believer (God has promised it)
- It is one thing to express your emotion, but it is another thing to become a scoffer
- You can be angry at God
- You can yell at God
- But you can't deny the very nature of God (He is not wicked, unjust, uncaring, or wrong)
- You cannot understand all that God is doing
Job
32:1–5 (NRSV) So these three men ceased
to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 2 Then Elihu son
of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, became angry. He was angry at
Job because he justified himself rather than God; 3 he was angry also at
Job’s three friends because they had found no answer, though they had declared
Job to be in the wrong. 4 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because
they were older than he. 5 But when Elihu saw that there was no answer in
the mouths of these three men, he became angry.
Job
33:8–15 (NRSV)
8
“Surely, you have spoken in my hearing,
and I have heard the sound of your words.
9
You say, ‘I am clean, without transgression;
I am pure, and there is no iniquity in me.
10
Look, he finds occasions against me,
he counts me as his enemy;
11
he puts my feet in the stocks,
and watches all my paths.’
|
12
“But in this you are not right. I will answer you:
God
is greater than any mortal.
13
Why do you contend against him,
saying,
‘He will answer none of my words’?
14
For God speaks in one way,
and
in two, though people do not perceive it.
15
In a dream, in a vision of the night,
when
deep sleep falls on mortals,
while
they slumber on their beds,
|
Job
33:16–19 (NRSV)
16
then he opens their ears,
and terrifies them with warnings,
17
that he may turn them aside from their deeds,
and keep them from pride,
|
18
to spare their souls from the Pit,
their
lives from traversing the River.
19
They are also chastened with pain upon their beds,
and
with continual strife in their bones,
|
Job
33:23–28 (NRSV)
23
Then, if there should be for one of them an angel,
a mediator, one of a thousand,
one who declares a person upright,
24
and he is gracious to that person, and says,
‘Deliver him from going down into the Pit;
I have found a ransom;
25
let his flesh become fresh with youth;
let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’;
|
26
then he prays to God, and is accepted by him,
he
comes into his presence with joy,
and
God repays him for his righteousness.
27
That person sings to others and says,
‘I
sinned, and perverted what was right,
and
it was not paid back to me.
28
He has redeemed my soul from going down to the Pit,
and
my life shall see the light.’
|
Job
33:29–30 (NRSV)
29
“God indeed does all these things,
twice, three times, with mortals,
30 to
bring back their souls from the Pit,
so that they may see the light of life.
Job
34:1–15 (NRSV) Then Elihu continued
and said:
2
“Hear my words, you wise men,
and give ear to me, you who know;
3
for the ear tests words
as the palate tastes food.
4
Let us choose what is right;
let us determine among ourselves what is good.
5
For Job has said, ‘I am innocent,
and God has taken away my right;
6 in
spite of being right I am counted a liar;
my wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.’
7
Who is there like Job,
who drinks up scoffing like water,
8
who goes in company with evildoers
and walks with the wicked?
9
For he has said, ‘It profits one nothing
to take delight in God.’
|
10
“Therefore, hear me, you who have sense,
far
be it from God that he should do wickedness,
and
from the Almighty that he should do wrong.
11
For according to their deeds he will repay them,
and
according to their ways he will make it befall them.
12
Of a truth, God will not do wickedly,
and
the Almighty will not pervert justice.
13
Who gave him charge over the earth
and
who laid on him the whole world?
14
If he should take back his spirit to himself,
and
gather to himself his breath,
15
all flesh would perish together,
and
all mortals return to dust.
|
Job
34:35–37 (NRSV)
35
‘Job speaks without knowledge,
his words are without insight.’
36
Would that Job were tried to the limit,
because his answers are those of the wicked.
37 For
he adds rebellion to his sin;
he claps his hands among us,
and multiplies his words against God.”
Job
35:1–3, 10-16 (NRSV) Elihu continued
and said:
2 “Do
you think this to be just?
You say, ‘I am in the right before God.’
3 If
you ask, ‘What advantage have I?
How am I better off than if I had sinned?’
…
10 But
no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker,
who gives strength in the night,
11 who
teaches us more than the animals of the earth,
and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’
12
There they cry out, but he does not answer,
because of the pride of evildoers.
13
Surely God does not hear an empty cry,
nor does the Almighty regard it.
14 How
much less when you say that you do not see him,
that the case is before him, and you are waiting for him!
15 And
now, because his anger does not punish,
and he does not greatly heed transgression,
16 Job
opens his mouth in empty talk,
he multiplies words without knowledge.”
Job
36:16–26 (NRSV)
16 He
also allured you out of distress
into a broad place where there was no constraint,
and what was set on your table was full
of fatness.
17
“But you are obsessed with the case of the wicked;
judgment and justice seize you.
18
Beware that wrath does not entice you into scoffing,
and do not let the greatness of the ransom turn you aside.
19
Will your cry avail to keep you from distress,
or will all the force of your strength?
20 Do
not long for the night,
when peoples are cut off in their place.
21
Beware! Do not turn to iniquity;
because of that you have been tried by affliction.
22
See, God is exalted in his power;
who is a teacher like him?
23 Who
has prescribed for him his way,
or who can say, ‘You have done wrong’?
24
“Remember to extol his work,
of which mortals have sung.
25 All
people have looked on it;
everyone watches it from far away.
26
Surely God is great, and we do not know him;
the number of his years is unsearchable.
Job
37:1–4 (NRSV)
“At
this also my heart trembles,
and leaps out of its place.
2
Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice
and the rumbling that comes from his mouth.
3
Under the whole heaven he lets it loose,
and his lightning to the corners of the earth.
4
After it his voice roars;
he thunders with his majestic voice
and he does not restrain the lightnings when his voice is
heard.
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