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In my exposition of Job 36:15-16, I stressed that Elihu's words bring a special kind of hope to Job because they are words directed to his condition right now rather than words concerning some distant future. In a nutshell, Elihu sees God delivering the afflicted through their affliction (36:15). Affliction itself becomes the means or provides the conditions for instruction and new freedom. Then, in 36:16, Elihu applies this insight to Job himself: "He (God) also allured you out of distress...."

Luring from Distress

There is some controversy among scholars on how best to translate the verb rendered "allured" in the NSRV ('sut'). At times it means "instigate" or "incite" as in 2 Sam. 24:1 or I Chron. 21:1, and even in Job it is used in that sense in 2:3, where God brings to The Satan's attention the fact of Job's uprightness despite God's being "incited" against him.

But it is also has a gentler meaning suggesting wooing, luring, enticing or even beguiling. It appears in Job 36:16 and 18 to suggest contrary realities, though the word is best translated identically. "God has allured you" is the sense of 36:16, while "Don't let wrath entice (allure) you" is the meaning of 36:18. Since 36:16 is the application to Job of Elihu's point in 36:15 about deliverance, we best understand the sense of 36:16 as God's wooing Job from distress in and by means of Job's pain. Indeed, one of the ways God might be wooing Job from his distress is through the alternative interpretation of his distress provided by Elihu. Pain has a way of freezing our interpretive capacities for a time. Elihu pleads with Job to see his distress as something other than God's irrational anger or hatred directed against him.

Job's Problem

But Job is currently unable to receive this advice, Elihu continues, because he is obsessed with judgment and justice.

"But you are obsessed with the case of the wicked; judgment and justice seize you (36:17)."

Legal method is not a method of wooing. Law is concerned with rights and responsiblities, with precisely calibrated attributions of fault, with judgments rendered and entered, with parties that can stand up and say, "I won!" Elihu suggests that the legal mentality stands behind Job's entire approach to God. Job has to be heard. He must be proved right. His integrity is at stake. Job's entire sense of self rests on his "case." "I have indeed prepared my case; I know that I shall be vindicated," he says (13:18). The language of law is the language of accusation and vindication.

Conclusion

What is ultimately at stake in the Book of Job is Job's ability to change his mode of thinking about his pain. Those who imagine themselves to be good or righteous people can become wedded to interpretations of life that are unhelpful, even if they are true. The hardest thing a good person may ever have to do is to abandon an interpretation of life which is utterly true but ultimately corrosive.

By the time Elihu finished speaking to Job, he not only prepared Job to hear God but, equally important, he showed Job that his alternative way of looking at Job's pain could set the conditions for Job's new freedom. Job will have to abandon his sense of being right, his sense of legal entitlement, his need to be vindicated, however, in order to enter into this new and possibly strange world of freedom. There is life after great distress, but it will only happen if the distressed person begins to see his pain as an avenue leading to freedom. This is the reason why Elihu's words are the most important words in the Book of Job.