Chapter 36

Elihu goes on...and on...and on...

This verse:

2 "Bear with me a little, and I will show you, for I have yet something to say on God's behalf. [Job 36:2 ESV]

Really?  This young man now presumes to speak for God?  Perhaps it is not Job's pride but Elihu's that we should note?

And he follows this up with personal pride:

4 For truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you. [Job 36:4 ESV]

He thinks he is perfect in knowledge???  At his age?

2021 - The first "millennial", perhaps?

Elihu says this:

9 then he declares to them their work and their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly. [Job 36:9 ESV]

This seems to me to be the crux of what Elihu is saying.  He thinks Job has too much pride, and that Job's questioning of God is the evidence of that pride.  I can see this point...unless Job was without sin.  But he could not have been because he was a man!  (Job 1:8 though.  Calls him blameless.)

As he goes on, though, Elihu does state the same principle they've been arguing for the whole book.  Elihu says repentance will bring relief, and that stubborn refusal to admit one's wrong will lead to further punishment.  But we know that what is happening to Job is not punishment.  It is at the very least a test of his faith - hmm, or a proof of the faith that God already knew he had.  I don't think that the ONLY thing God is doing here is proving a point to Satan.  I think Job also gains from all this in the end.  God uses it for good.  Job's faith will be even stronger, his pride far less, as a result of this "proving".

MSB says this about chapter 36:

"Elihu had agreed with his 3 co-counselors that Job had sinned, if nowhere else, in the way he questioned God, by seeing his suffering as indicating God is unjust, and by feeling that righteousness had no reward."  This I agree with.  Where I think I would disagree with MSB is that I think Elihu was right about Job's sin.  He hadn't sinned to bring on the punishment, but his reaction to that punishment seems to have exposed some underlying problems - mostly Job's pride in his own righteousness.  But if I am right, why is Job mentioned with Daniel and Noah as the best examples of faith the Bible has to offer?

Yeah...my guess is that I am wrong...but...We'll see in the rest of the book.

2025 - I am wrong.  Job was not only blameless, he also lacked character flaws like thinking himself above the corruption in the world that began with Adam and remains to this day.  Job is not/will not be the first or only person in the Bible to ask God some hard questions.  Look at Habakkuk, Jeremiah, Elijah!  God can handle hard questions, whether he answers them or not.  He does not slap anyone down for asking - so long as they are coming from the right place.

2021 - The whole point, I see now, this year, is that the things happening to Job are unjust.  The whole point is that we are to have faith, even when we are treated unjustly, even when God allows us to be treated unjustly.   In vss 1-12, Elihu basically espouses the same "way things work" as the three friends did.  Good people get blessings, bad people get punished.  But Job demonstrated previously that if you look around at the world, this is NOT the rule.  It happens sometimes.  Sometimes it is just the opposite of this.  Faith is the only constant.