Job 36 and Elihu and Book of Job

After addressing Job (32-33), the friends (34), and Job again (35), Elihu concludes with a lengthy address to Job in which he claims to be speaking "on God's behalf (36:2)." Thoughts tumble one after another in the next two chapters, and cannot easily be outlined. The best way to get a basic overview of Elihu's crucial last speech is to follow the flow of the major points of his conversation. Two Advanced mini-essays focus on the decisive thoughts in 36:15-17.

Introduction

Elihu's introductory words are mercifully brief, even though the content might be off-putting. He will provide words that are not false because "one who is perfect in knowledge is with you (36:4)." Whether the last words are just an over-the-top claim or are to be taken as an expression of justified confidence is not clear; in any case, Elihu is about to give Job an earful.

The Purpose of Pain

Elihu is firmly in the camp of those who see the educative and soul-building character of affliction. While God does not keep the wicked alive, he "gives the afflicted their right (36:6)." While the afflicted are in their chains, God declares their transgresion to them, opens their ears to instruction (36:10) and commands them to turn back from their iniquity (36:10). Then comes the crucial thought: "He (God) delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear by adversity (36:15)."

The thought is worth pausing over. The Hebrew text has it that afflicted people are delivered "buh" (Hebrew word) their affliction. "Buh" is a preposition attached to a noun, and can be translated either as "in" or "by means of." However we render it, Elihu believes that God is there speaking through the process of affliction. Then in 36:16-17, Elihu applies this insight to Job's life: God also has allured (or "is alluring") you from your own distress to a broader and wider field of life, in which your table will be full of fatness (36:16-17). In short, and using language from the 21st century, Elihu makes the claim that Job's distress is the means for God to lead Job to freedom.

The Book of Job never mentions what it is that ultimately enables Job to change his approach to God in Job 42. Most scholars assume that it is God's speeches in chapters 38-41 that overwhelm Job and lead him to repentance and turning. My argument is that Elihu's ability to plunge an interpretive wedge between Job's pain and Job's interpretation of his pain is the key to Job's change of heart.

God is Coming!

But Elihu does not just place an interpretive film or filter over Job's distress. He also prepares the way for God's advent. Job wanted to talk to God directly ever since Job 9; now, Elihu says, God is coming for a visit. "At this also my heart trembles, and leaps out of its place. Listen, listen to the thunder of his voice and the rumbling that comes form his mouth (37:1-2)." God's thunderous voice shows that God does "great things that we cannot comprehend (37:5)." Elihu so bears the divine spirit that he is able even to predict the kind of questions God will ask Job. For example, Elihu asks, "Do you know how God lays his command upon them (i.e., the wondrous works of God), and causes the lightning of his could to shine (37:15)?"

He closes his speeches with portentous words. "Out of the north comes golden splendor; around God is awesome majesty (37:22)." God is on the way and will appear in a different form than Job has ever imagined.

Conclusion

Elihu, the much-maligned and ignored, is, in my reading, the crucial character in the Book of Job. He listened to Job. He gave a variety of suggestions concerning how God might be trying to communicate with Job through his distress. He provided a particular interpreation. He prepared the way for the majestic God. Is it too far-fetched to believe that Job's silence during Elihu's four speeches might be the silence of one who was finally able to listen because he was finally heard, and that the seed, and even more than the seed, of his future change of heart was planted through the words of Elihu?

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