37
📚The cattle also show the rising storm. “At this also my heart trembles and leaps from its place. 2 📚Listen! Listen to the thunder of his voice and the sound that comes from his mouth.
3 📚He sends it out under the whole heaven, and his lightning to the ends of the earth.
4 📚A voice roars after it; he thunders with his majestic voice. He does not restrain the lightning flashes when his voice is heard.
37:1-4 Evidently, while Elihu has been speaking, a storm has come up. He compares its thunders to the roar of God’s voice.⚜
5 📚God thunders marvellously with his voice. He does great things which we cannot comprehend.
37:5 Elihu goes on (up to v 14) to other phenomena in nature which show God’s great wisdom.⚜
6 📚For he says to the snow, ‘Be on the earth’, likewise to the gentle rain, and to his great strong rain.
7 📚He seals the hand of every man, so that everyone will know his work.
8 📚Then the beasts go into dens, and remain in their places.
9 📚From the south comes the whirlwind, and cold from the north.
10 📚Ice is given by the breath of God, and the broad waters are frozen.
37:10 God’s breath here means the wind.⚜
11 📚And he loads the thick cloud with moisture, and scatters his lightning through the cloud.
12 📚By his guidance it swirls around, to do whatever he commands them over the face of the whole inhabited earth.
13 📚He causes it to come, whether for correction, or for his land, or as a mercy.
37:13 God uses climatic conditions in His wise government of the earth.⚜
14 📚“Listen to this, Job. Stand still and consider the wonderful works of God.
15 📚Do you know how God dispatches his clouds and causes their lightning to flash?
16 📚Do you know how the clouds are balanced, those wonderful works of the One who is perfect in knowledge?
17 📚Or how your clothes are hot when he stills the earth with the south wind?
18 📚Have you joined with him in spreading out the sky, looking as strong as a cast metal mirror?
19 📚“Teach us what we should say to him, for we cannot put our words in order because of the darkness.
20 📚Should he be told that I would speak? If a man speaks, surely he will be swallowed up.
21 📚And now men cannot look at the bright light in the clouds, but the wind passes by and clears them away.
22 📚From the north comes golden splendour; God comes in awesome majesty.
23 📚The Almighty! We cannot find him. He is excellent in power, in judgment, and in abundant justice. He does not oppress.
24 📚Therefore men fear him. He does not look to 📖 anyone wise in heart”.
37:14-24 Elihu comes to the conclusion of all he has to say. The essence of it is this: He wants Job to recognize that God’s greatness and wisdom are unsearchable (vs 14-18), to abandon his presumptuous desire to make a case before God (vs 19,20), and reverently submit to God (v 24). Verse 23 gives the sum of his views of God. Such a God is worthy of all honor and reverence from men. Elihu speaks well of God’s greatness, of His just and righteous character.
But what of the man and his words as a whole? We should think of him neither too highly nor too lowly. He was a man made of the same clay as Job and his friends (Job 33:6), and he revealed in his words that this was indeed so. He was eloquent and had considerable wisdom and knowledge of God. But he seems over-confident in his own wisdom (on this see 1 Cor 8:2). He says some fine things, but he fails to understand Job or to solve the riddle of Job’s sufferings. He did not know that Job was a better man than he was himself. He seems on the whole to be superior to Job’s three friends, but he was not Job’s equal in character. We have God’s own word for this (Job 2:3).
Like all believers Elihu was a mixture of good and bad, wisdom and ignorance. He is a reminder to us that the highest reach of man’s reason cannot comprehend the mysteries of God (1 Cor 1:25). It was good that he himself recognized this to some extent at least. His closing words beautifully lead us up to the coming of God on the scene in chapter 38. His words, possibly, have prepared the minds of Job and his friends for the words of God which follow.⚜