Like Job's friends, Elihu is outraged that Job has questioned the justice of God's judgments. Job's words about life...
Like Job's friends, Elihu is outraged that Job has questioned the justice of God's judgments. To Elihu, Job's words about life's injustice, and about suffering and death being the lot of both the righteous and the lawless, sound blasphemous. Elihu himself, then, finds life in this world justly ordered. Life is ordered as it should be and God is just, Elihu maintains. The lawless and the wicked will not escape God's wrath; the very order of the world is such that the lawless perish and die suddenly.
The speculative nature of this argument is obvious. Job's lament that people suffer and perish regardless of guilt is based on his actual perception of what is happening around him. Human perception itself, our understanding of what is good and what is bad, may be distorted—but within the limits of his own vision, Job is honest. Elihu, meanwhile, tries in a roundabout way to say the same thing as Job's friends: in this life the righteous do not suffer, and if someone does suffer, that person is not righteous. The Gospel, which contains what is most important in biblical revelation, says precisely the opposite.
The question, it seems, is not whether God is just; here, as far as we can judge, Elihu is right, and the path of lawlessness does not lead a person to life. The world in which humanity lives is distorted by sin and does not correspond to the Creator's design. Elihu is therefore only partly right: in this life God's righteous judgment upon the lawless is distorted, and the world is more hostile to the righteous. John the Evangelist will later write in his First Epistle: ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the Father's love is not in him. For everything in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not from the Father but from this world’ (1 John 2:15–16). The characters in the Book of Job are certain that everything in the world comes from God, and so suffering without guilt seems utterly impossible to them. But whereas Elihu and Job's friends try to dispute the obvious, the author of the book gives Job himself a position that is deeper and more honest before God.
Yet the author is not only a prophet but also a literary genius, and so the Elihu of his book is a portrait drawn from life. Century after century, religious circles produce such figures, people who are satisfied with their own lives. For that reason alone they are ready to justify the existing order of things and invent justifications for God, who supposedly accepts it.
34 Elihu proceeding bespeaks the attention of the company, Job 34:1-4.
Charges Job with other indecent expressions, Job 34:5-9.
Shews God's justice, sovereignty, power, omniscience, Job 34:10-25.
His severity against sinners, Job 34:26-28.
His over - ruling providence, Job 34:29-30.
Teaches Job what he ought to say, Job 34:31-32.
Appeals to his own conscience, and concludes with reproving him for murmuring, Job 34:33-37.
34:2 Ear - The ear, is put for the mind to which things are conveyed by it.
34:4 Let us - Not contend for victory, but for truth and equity.Know - Let us shew one another who hath the best cause.
34:5 Said - I am so far righteous, that I have not deserved, such hard usage from God. Had taken - So Job had said, chap.Job 27:2, he denies me that which is just and equal, to give me a fair hearing.
34:6 Should I lie - So Job had said in effect, chap.Job 27:4-6, should I falsely accuse myself of sins of which I am not guilty?Without transgression - Without any such crying, sin, as might reasonably bring down such terrible judgments upon my head.
34:7 Like water - Abundantly and greedily: who doth so break forth into scornful expressions, not only against his friends, but in some sort against God himself.
34:8 Who goeth - Although I dare not say, that he is a wicked man, yet in this matter he speaks and acts like one of them.
34:9 He said - Not in express terms, but by consequence; because he said that good men were no less, nay, sometimes more miserable here than the wicked.
34:12 Pervert - As Job hath affirmed.
34:13 Who - Who or where is his superior that made the world, and, then delivered the government of it to God? God himself is the sole creator, the absolute Lord of all, and therefore cannot do unjustly: because the creator and Lord of the world must needs have all possible perfections in himself, and amongst others, perfect justice. Disposed - Or, committed, to him, to be governed by him, in the name, of his Lord, to whom he must give an account.
34:15 All - The design of this and the foregoing verse is the same with that of ver. Job 34:13, namely, to declare God's absolute and uncontrollable sovereignty over all men.
34:17 Shall he - That is unrighteous. Govern - Elihu's argument is the same with that of Abraham, Gen 18:25, and that of St. Paul, Rom 3:5-6. If God be unrighteous, how shall he judge or govern the world? And the argument is undeniable: if God were unjust, there would be nothing but injustice and confusion in the world, whereas we see there is a great deal of justice administered in the world, and all this must proceed from him who is the fountain of all justice, and rule, and authority. And he that makes men just, shall he be unjust?Most just - God, who hath given so many clear and unquestionable evidences of his justice, in giving just and holy laws, in encouraging and rewarding righteous persons in this life, and inflicting dreadful judgments upon tyrants and oppressors.
34:18 Wicked - Though a king may be wicked, yet his subjects neither may nor dare call him so.
34:21 For - God doth not destroy either prince or people unjustly, no nor out of his mere pleasure, but for their sins, which he sees exactly, although they use all possible arts to hide them.
34:26 As - Because they are wicked men. In the open light - In publick view for their greater shame, and for the greater glory of his justice.
34:28 Cry of the poor - Their case is bad, who have the prayers and tears of the poor against them: for these will draw down vengeance sooner or later, on the heads of their oppressors.
34:29 Whether - God can carry on his work either of mercy or justice, as irresistible upon an whole nation as upon one particular person.
34:30 Reign not - May not continue his tyranny, lest the people be ensnared, lest the people should be longer kept in the the snares of oppression; God doth this to free poor oppressed people from the snares which ungodly men lay for them.
34:32 That - The secret sins which I cannot discover, manifest thou to me.
34:33 Should it be - Doth God need thy advice how to govern the world, and whom, and when to reward or punish? Refuse - To submit as is expressed, ver. Job 34:32.Therefore - If thou canst say any thing for thyself, I am ready to hear thy defence.
34:34 Let - I am content that any wise man should judge of my words, and let such consider what I say.
34:36 End - Throughly and exactly, 'till the cause be brought to an issue. Wicked men - On their behalf; he hath put arguments into their mouths against God and his providence.
34:37 Addeth - He sinned before, by impatience under his afflictions, now he is grown obstinate, and instead of humbling himself for his sins, justifies himself, and accuses the blessed God. Clapped - Insulting and triumphing. Against God - In effect, though not directly.