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Elihu continued and said,2 📚“Bear with me a little while, and I will show you that there is still more to be said on God’s behalf. 3 📚I will bring my knowledge from afar. I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 4 📚And truly my words are not false; one who is perfect in knowledge is with you.
36:3-4 He thinks he will give new truth not revealed in anything the others have said. He is sure he knows the truth and that his wisdom is very great indeed. Again he gives us good reason to doubt his humility. Is he not speaking of himself when he says “one who is perfect in knowledge is with you?” It seems so, but see Job 37:16.⚜
5 📚“See, God is mighty, but does not despise anyone; he is mighty in strength and wisdom. 6 📚He does not preserve the life of the wicked, but gives the poor their rights. 7 📚He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous, but seats them with kings on the throne; yes, he establishes them forever, and they are exalted. 8 📚But if they are bound in fetters and held by the cords of affliction, 9 📚Then he shows them their deeds, and the transgressions they have arrogantly committed.
10 📚He also opens their ear to instruction and commands them to turn back from iniquity.
11 📚If they obey and serve him, they will spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures.
12 📚But if they do not obey, they will perish by the sword 📖, and they will die without knowledge.
13 📚“But the hypocrites in heart store up wrath; they do not cry out for his help when he binds them.
14 📚They die in youth, and their life ends among the male shrine prostitutes.
15 📚He delivers the poor in their affliction, and opens their ears to hear him in oppression.
16 📚“And also he would have brought you out of distress into a broad place free of restraint; and what is set on your table would have been full and rich.
17 📚But now your life is full of the judgment on the wicked; judgment and justice have taken hold of you.
18 📚Because of his wrath, beware that he does not take you away with a blow; for a great ransom would not be able to deliver you.
19 📚Will he esteem your riches? No, not gold or all the powers of strength.
20 📚Do not desire the night, when people are cut off from their places.
36:18-20 The language of the Hebrew is difficult here and the meaning uncertain.⚜
21 📚Be careful, do not turn to iniquity, which you have preferred to affliction.
36:5-21 In these verses Elihu has two main points. First, God wisely and impartially determines what men should experience (vs 5-9); second, God’s chastening has a merciful purpose – the correction and reformation of erring men (vs 10-15. See Job 33:14-30). He then applies these truths to Job (vs 16-21). There is good in what he says (v 15, for example), but his remarks are not what we would expect from a person “perfect in knowledge”. Concerning God’s rewarding the righteous and punishing the wicked in this world, he gives the same old view that both he and the three friends have presented before. He ignores, just as they did, all the facts which Job had urged against this view. And by some of his remarks he reveals again that he does not understand Job.⚜
22 📚“See, God is exalted in his power. Who teaches like him?
36:22 With this verse Elihu begins a long passage on the greatness of God which goes on to Job 37:24. It is full of beautiful truth. We might call it “Elihu’s sermon on nature”. The key verses are Job 36:26; and 37:5, 14-19. Elihu is saying to Job “we cannot understand God’s ways with His physical creation. How then can we understand His ways in His government of the world of men? They also will be mysterious and beyond our ability to grasp”. How true this is! (Job 5:9; 11:7; 15:8; Isa 55:8-9; Rom 11:33-34). But we should not think it was a truth of which Job was ignorant. Elihu wanted Job to apply this truth to himself. But was Elihu just as eager to apply it to himself? It seems he thought he knew all about God’s ways with Job.⚜
23 📚Who can appoint his way for him, or say, ‘You have done wrong?’
36:23 He thinks Job is trying to do this.⚜
24 📚Remember to praise his work, which men see 📖.
25 Everyone sees it; man looks on from afar.
26 📚See, God is great, and we do not know him; nor can the number of his years be searched out.
27 📚“For he draws up the drops of water 📖; they distill as rain from the vapour 📖,
28 📚Which the clouds pour out and let fall on man abundantly.
29 📚And can anyone understand how the clouds spread out, the thundering sound from his tent 📖?
30 📚See, he spreads his light on it, and covers the depths of the sea.
31 📚Through these things he judges the peoples and gives food in abundance.
32 📚He conceals lightning in his hands 📖, and commands it to strike the mark 📖.
33 📚Its sound announces it.
36:27-33 God shows His great wisdom in the making of rain and storm, and in using them in governing earth’s people (v 31).⚜