Chapter 33
Elihu says that Job's questions about why God is letting this happen to him are answered by the fact that God is punishing him. This means that Job is doing something that needs correcting and God is therefore correcting, but will release him at some point. He may also be saying that God will/has revealed the answer in a dream to Job, or in other ways.
In vvs 8-11 Elihu summarizes Job's position to this point. Job maintains that he has not sinned, that he is a righteous man, and that for unknown and unjustified reasons, God has chosen to make Job his enemy.
Then this verse:
12 "Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you, for God is greater than man. 13 Why do you contend against him, saying, 'He will answer none of man's words'? [Job 33:12-13 ESV]
Elihu, in vvs 14-18 says that God does answer. He does so in dreams and visions, or other ways that perhaps man does not perceive. In doing so, God saves men from the pit. He says this is one way that God "answers". Another way God answers, in vs 19-33, is summarized in 19:
19 "Man is also rebuked with pain on his bed and with continual strife in his bones, [Job 33:19 ESV]
Elihu seems to be saying that the answer to why God is causing this is that God is causing this. But the purpose is to "rebuke" Job. It is to bring Job to the very edge of the pit, and to see then if there is a mediator, one to plead his cause, and if so - if there is one to "offer a ransom" to God for the life of this pathetic man, then that man can pray, and God will accept the man because of the ransom that is paid, and God will restore the man. This verse:
27 He sings before men and says: 'I sinned and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me. 28 He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall look upon the light.' [Job 33:27-28 ESV]
Surely this is the gospel in the book of Job. Jesus is our mediator, our redeemer, our ransom-payer. All men deserve what Job is getting, and will a mediator step forward? Elihu says this is one of the things that the suffering could be about. It is something going on in heaven - the identification of some mediator that might speak on Job's behalf in heaven - and turn aside the wrath that God is pouring out on him for his sin. After all, even Job is but a man.
The chapter ends with Elihu saying:
33 If not, listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom." [Job 33:33 ESV]
I really don't care much for this Elihu. He seems to be in over his head. (This is the conclusion I reached the first year. The next year, after talking to Dwight Dickey in class one day, I conclude that Elihu is preaching NT gospel.)
2021 - Nope. I still don't like Elihu despite what Dwight said. We know from 1:8 what God's opinion was of Joel. Unique in all the earth for his righteousness. Blameless before God. This is NOT the case that Elihu is making. In vvs 10,11, Elihu quotes Job's position that for some unknown reason, God has declared Job his enemy, and then Elihu, beginning in 12, disputes this. Elihu's point is that there is a reason, and that God is telling Job what it is, but perhaps not in the way Job expects. Elihu says the reason may have been revealed in a dream or vision, and that Job just didn't understand the connection. Or that: 19 "Man is also rebuked with pain on his bed and with continual strife in his bones, [Job 33:19 ESV], so that perhaps an angel, one of "the thousand", will appeal to God on this man's behalf and offer a ransom for the suffering he endures, so that God will heal him. Where does Elihu get this kind of information? I am unaware of anything like this. Who are these "thousand"? MSB says these verses are Elihu saying that God never acts "whimsically", but allows suffering as chastening. Well...isn't this exactly what Job's friends have been saying all along, and Elihu says they were wrong to say it? And hasn't Job said all along that it is NOT this, because he, Job, has no sin in his life for which he should be chastened? Is Elihu really as "unconventional" as he thinks he is, or like most young people, does he just think what he's saying is new, when it is really just the same philosophy rephrased? MSB totally ignores the reference to "one of the thousand". This looks to me like Elihu is spouting heresy here. Dreams and visions or special angels should be consulted to understand God's reasons. But he still thinks there is a problem in Job's life that explains all this. He is offering "mystery religion" instead of the spiritually based - but wrong in this case - logic of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. No. Elihu is in Job to show that neither the old and wise nor the young and confident could offer any consolation to Job. The reason they could not is because Job was correct. Nothing that was happening to him was deserved. It was purposefully unjust in every way. And that was the point!
2022 - Elihu is into some kind of special mediation. If God won't talk to you, though he has something against you, then that means God's message to you was not understood. He won't tell you again, so you have to find an "angel/mediator", who DOES understand because angels are higher than men, to speak with God on your behalf. That angel has to "take you under his wing", though he is not required to do so. The angel can "pay your ransom", which surely indicates his position as your mediator, and so satisfy God to let you off the hook you are squirming on. This is what Elihu is preaching. No. Elihu is a young fool in my opinion, who has no more understanding of what is going on than the three older friends have. I suggest that this procedure of Elihu's is akin to today's "name it claim it" theology. All that is lacking is for Elihu to offer to place Job in touch with one of the thousand, since he (Elihu) is linked right up with them.
2025 - I still think Elihu is way off anything that might be called orthodox. God is doing this to Job to see if any angel will intervene on Job's behalf? It reads very strangely. Doesn't vs 28 imply that it is this intervening angel that can "rescue" Job and restore him to health? Isn't Elihu saying the intervening angel has to pray to God on Job's behalf and God will relent? That the whole thing was just to find out if any angel would be empathetic enough to intervene? Sure sounds cultish to me. And that whole "God told you in a dream and you just don't remember it" stuff? God speaks to prophets, but to what end if they don't even remember the dream? God is not the author of confusion!