To Speak Well of God (Part 2 of 0)

My Messenger Before Me – Part 10

Elihu the Buzite is one of the most enigmatic characters in Scripture. Several expositors have postulated that Elihu’s character is a later addition to the book of Job.1,2,3Evidence offered in support is that Elihu does not appear in the prologue and epilogue of the book, where the drama between the characters is established and concluded; and, logically, where we might anticipate all the players to appear. Beyond this the reasons to exclude Elihu from the tale seem to be purely because the expositor cannot understand why he is there.

By contrast, we have reasoned that a newcomer is vital to release Job from the lonely corner he has backed himself into, by subpoenaing God, and we shall see a second vital reason for the presence of Elihu in what follows. There is no doubt in my mind Elihu the Buzite is an essential and original character.

10.1 Is Elihu good or evil?

As for the moral character of Elihu, this is where the enigma peaks. He is arguably the most prominent character in the Bible about whom Bible scholars cannot even agree whether he is good or evil! The preponderance of verdict goes against him. Gutierrez takes a very negative view of Elihu, and attributes to him the poorest of motives: “He is no friend of Job, and his words will therefore be cold and distant. His purpose, unlike the original purpose of Eliphaz and his companions, is not to comfort, but to teach and pass judgment.” Gutierrez goes on to label Elihu: “arrogant… conceited… pompous… impetuous… self-satisfied” within a few paragraphs of his analysis, although as a surprising caveat concedes that Elihu’s analysis is more intelligent than that of the three friends.4Atkinson takes a simi­larly dim view of Elihu, denoting him: “full of his own importance… pompous… patronizing” and even disagrees with Gutierrez that Elihu adds any value to the discussion.5Balchin duplicates both views, stating Elihu is “no friend of Job” and “does not bring any fresh thought” to the discussion. He labels him “bumptious”, “guilty of… arrogance”, and “a pompous lad”,6while the triumvirate of Gordis,7Dillard8and Weiss9all add “brash” to the list of insults.

In contrast some conclude Elihu is a good man. Ehrenberg perceives Elihu occupy­ing the worthy station of “the advocate of God”.10Spong berg concludes similarly, seeing Elihu as a mediator between God and man.11McGee describes Elihu’s role explicitly: “Elihu is preparing the way for God to answer”,12a suggestion voiced two centuries earlier by Herder: “He prepares the way for the entrance of the divine Being”, although Herder believes Elihu is not aware of his role.13

I too see Elihu as a good man. I do not see him as a type of Christ, as some have suggested.14,15I feel this is not the correct understanding of Christ’s role. Christ is the Word of God (John 1:14), and the Word of God will most certainly appear in the book of Job, in undiluted form! I submit we should understand Elihu in the form of John the Baptist, the one who went before to prepare the way for the Word of God. His name means: ‘God of him’,16or even ‘He is God’,17the latter translation portraying Elihu as being not a character in his own right, but en­tirely representative of another. McGee similarly describes Elihu as the one who advocates for God 18for, although Elihu indicates the errors to which Job’s anger has driven him, he does not condemn him.

A perpetual mystery is the absence of God’s acknowledgement of Elihu. Balchin supposes this is evidence God has destroyed Elihu;19but this is beyond what the text supports. Lovelock even proposes that God’s rebuke, “Who is this that darkens my counsel with words without knowledge?” (Job 38:2), is aimed at Elihu, not Job.20This is in error, however, since it overlooks the Scriptural proof: Job himself clarified that the rebuke was aimed at him:

“You asked, ‘Who is this that obscures my counsel without knowledge?’ Surely I spoke of things I did not understand, things too wonderful for me to know” (Job 42:3).

10.1.1 Weaknesses of the theory of Elihu being an evil man

  1. At the outset of Elihu’s entry, all the negative analyses which accuse him as arro­gant and pompous run into a significant problem: Elihu sat in silence throughout the debate (Job 32:4-6).

Is it the behavior of a pompous man to sit in silence, for weeks, while others speak? Does an arrogant man listen patiently while seven lengthy speeches and their rebuttals are presented to the assembly in which he sits? I find that highly unlikely! Even McGee, who ultimately concludes that Elihu is just another of the miserable comforters,21concedes his surprise: “He hasn’t opened his mouth so far, which is unusual for a young man.”22It defies belief that Elihu could have maintained silence through what we have conjectured was weeks of formal de­bate, if he were suffering from the many deficiencies of boastfulness that are so readily attributed to him.

  1. Elihu was angry with the three friends.

Those who purport that Elihu simply reworks or continues the three friends’ arguments have to explain what caused Elihu to be angry with them (Job 32:3). If Elihu duplicates the arguments of the three friends, why would he be angry with what they have said?

10.1.2 Similarities between Elihu and the three friends

I do not gloss over the potential weaknesses in interpreting Elihu as a good man. The fundamental concern is distinguishing him from the three friends. While I believe that the differences between Elihu and the three friends, listed below, are so compelling that they lend me peace of mind with my conclusion, there are apparent similarities of significance.

  1. The apparent presence of the doctrine of retribution. Elihu says:

“If [men] obey and serve [God],
they will spend the rest of their days in prosperity
and their years in contentment.
But if they do not listen,
they will perish by the sword
and die without knowledge” (Job 36:11,12; also 34:11).

Elihu seems to apply the doctrine on the scale of one person and within the scale of one human lifetime, the two characteristic mistakes which the three friends made.

However, Job also offers commentary which looks suspiciously like the doctrine of retribution (ch 7), and we know that Job is accepted before God.

  1. The apparent condemnation of Job.

“Oh, that Job might be tested to the utmost
for answering like a wicked man!
To his sin he adds rebellion;
scornfully he claps his hands among us
and multiplies his words against God” (Job 34:36,37).

Here I note some mitigation. Elihu has not invented specific false accusations, such as Job oppressing widows and orphans, as the friends did. Nor has Elihu called Job a wicked man; rather, he likens Job’s answer to the type of answer he would have anticipated from a wicked man. Before we dismiss this as hair-splitting, notice this is the same construct Job used when countering his wife’s suggestion to ‘curse God and die’:

“[Job] replied, ‘You are talking like a foolish woman’ ” (Job 2:10).

No expositor castigates Job as condemnatory here, as if he called his wife a fool. Job said that she had answered in the same manner in which a foolish woman would have done, and the difference, which Spongberg also noticed,23is important. Elihu uses the same construct, saying Job was “answering like a wicked man”.

That said, it is not trivial to dismiss the issues in this section, which is why Elihu the Buzite continues to puzzle any diligent expositor. I determine my conclusion from seeing that the differences between Elihu and the three friends (below) to be considerably more compelling than the similarities. This is not an ideal conclusion, I would prefer to confidently rebut the similarities we appear to see between Elihu and the three friends independently of the consideration of the differences, but I do not find the resources to do so. Perhaps it is helpful to consider that in a drama in which one major theme is to demonstrate the justification of God alone, we are not likely to see any man presented without some degree of flaw.

10.1.3 Differences between Elihu and the three friends

In all, I offer ten reasons for seeing Elihu as fundamentally different from the three friends of Job, which subdivide into three categories:

  • How Elihu speaks about the three friends
  • How Elihu speaks about Job
  • Most importantly, how Elihu speaks about God

In each of these categories he differs strikingly from the three friends.

  1. Elihu consistently proclaims God as the source of life, justice and wisdom: any wisdom he possesses has come from God.

“But it is the spirit in a man, the breath of the Almighty, that gives him understanding” (Job 32:8; also 33:4; 36:3).

By contrast the three friends claim that they are the source of their own wisdom, through their own years of learning, and do not honor God with any recogni­tion.

Eliphaz: “What do you know that we do not know?

What insights do you have that we do not have? The gray-haired and the aged are on our side,

men even older than your father” (Job 15:9,10).

Zophar: “I hear a rebuke that dishonors me,

and my understanding inspires me to reply” (Job 20:3).

  1. Elihu encourages Job to (continue to) praise God. I believe speaking well of God to be the central theme in the Joban tale, which places even more emphasis on this worthy remark of Elihu:

“Praise God:

Remember to extol his work,

which men have praised in song” (Job 36:24).

By contrast there is silence from the three friends on recommendations to praise God, which silence speaks volumes; especially as it sets in sharp relief their insis­tence that Job should recognize their own intelligence and rectitude.

  1. Elihu does not share the same mindset as the three accusers. Elihu is angry at the three friends for their condemnation of Job (Job 32:3).24

Indeed he explicitly rejects their arguments as worthless:

“But Job has not marshaled his words against me,
and I will not answer him with your arguments” (Job 32:14).

  1. In fact, Elihu’s emotions are the same as God’s. Later in the drama we see that God is angry with the three friends and displeased with Job for focusing on his own justification rather than that of God’s. Elihu voices the same views (Job 32:3; 33:S-12).

By contrast, the friends are angry with Job because Job refuses to accept their arguments as valid, not because Job justifies himself rather than God.

  1. Elihu confines his criticisms to Job’s statements, not his former life. (Baird makes this same observation.25) Where Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar all commented on what Job had done in his past life, and at the same time attached random attribu­tions of invented sins, Elihu does not. He does not refer to any of Job’s disastrous situations, implying he well recognizes that he can’t explain why they have happened. Elihu’s criticisms are limited solely to the things Job has spoken, which base his justification on his own righteousness, not God’s.
  1. Elihu makes clear that he does not see himself as fundamentally elevated above Job. The only elevation Elihu will permit is that of God above all men:

“I am just like you before God;
I too have been taken from clay.
No fear of me should alarm you,
nor should my hand be heavy upon you” (Job 33:6,7).

By contrast the three friends do not sit alongside Job to speak well of God, but rather create barriers and distances between themselves and Job in their construc­tions of speech (Job 5:27; 18:2).

The sense of camaraderie that Elihu takes care to construct is helpful in allowing his corrective comments, which are contrastingly blunt, to be heard by Job.

  1. It may seem a small point, but Elihu calls Job by name ten times during his dialogue, both directly in the second person and indirectly in the third (32:12,14; 33:1, 31; 34:5,7,35,36; 35:16; 37:14). By fascinating contrast, none of the three friends call Job by name even once! Given the length of their speeches, that is surprising indeed.

I believe using someone’s name helps establish a sense of friendliness, camara­derie and respect. Learning at least someone’s name, and therefore being able to address them personally in discussion, is a small step forward in establishing mutual respect and thereby trust. I believe this is the mark of respect which Elihu shows Job, and which the three friends pointedly do not.

  1. Elihu wants Job to be vindicated, and explicitly says so:

“If you have anything to say, answer me;
speak up, for I want you to be cleared” (Job 33:32).

The friends don’t call for this at all! Rather they condemn Job outright and called for his abandonment of sins he has not committed.

  1. Elihu rightly reasoned that restoration from suffering comes at God’s discre­tion, not necessarily at the eschewing of sin.

“Yet if there is an angel on his side
as a mediator, one out of a thousand,
to tell a man what is right for him,
to be gracious to him and say,
‘Spare him from going down to the pit;
I have found a ransom for him’ —
then his flesh is renewed like a child’s;
it is restored as in the days of his youth” (Job 33:23-25).

The three friends wrongly reason that Job’s salvation is essentially in his own hands, via the doctrine of retribution, where if he abandons the sins they assume to be present, God will be essentially compelled to restore his fortunes.

  1. Elihu is not criticized by God.

At the end, God rebukes the three friends because they have not spoken of Him what is right. Yet there is no rebuke, nor even mention, of Elihu. This difference is of profound importance, because the single most important parameter in de­termining whether a man is good or evil is how God responds to him. The books of Kings and Chronicles illustrate this excellently. One can read of the deeds of two different kings, which seem to speak of almost indistinguishable lives. Yet the text pronounces, with the certainty only the Father can wield, that one is a good king and the other is evil. If nothing else, we learn to form our conclusions about a man primarily from what God says of him, if that information is available, and only secondarily from our own deductions from acquired evidence.

Applying this idea, therefore, we ask: If the arguments of Elihu are mere duplicates of the arguments of the three friends, and Elihu is as culpable as they, should he not be rebuked the same way? Is it even credible that God would serve three out of four identically culpable people the same judgment and frankly ignore the other? Surely not!

Yet one might counter: “But if Elihu were as innocent as Job, why is he not com­mended for speaking that which is right about God, as Job was?”

I will suggest an answer in next month’s article.

  1. Atkinson, “The Message of Job”, 1991, Inter-Varsity Press, Leicester, UK, 121
  2. Gordis, “The Temptation of Job — Tradition versus Experience in Religion”, 1955, in N.N. Glatzer, “The Dimensions of Job”, 1969, Schocken Books Inc., New York, NY, USA, 82
  3. J. Royce, “Studies of Good and Evil: A series of Essays upon the Problems of Philosophy and of Life”, 1898, in N.N. Glatzer, Ibid, 157
  4. Gutierrez, “On Job, God-Talk and the Suffering of the Innocent”, 1987, Orbis, New York, NY, USA, 44-48
  5. Atkinson, Ibid, 122,123
  6. J. Balchin, “Sitting with Job”, 1998, Rhoswiel Books, Oswestry, UK, 6, 54-58
  7. Gordis, Ibid
  8. R. B. Dillard and T. Longman III, “An Introduction to the Old Testament”,1994, Zondervan, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 204
  9. P. Weiss, “God, Job and Evil”, 1948, in N.N. Glatzer, Ibid, 184
  10. H. Ehrenberg, “Job the Existentialist”, 1952, in N.N. Glatzer, Ibid, 94
  11. EM. Spongberg, “The Book of Job”,1965, private publication,104
  12. J.V. McGee, “Thru the Bible Commentary Series: Job”, 1991, Thomas Nelson, Nashville, TN, USA, 159
  13. J.G. Herder, “Vom Geiste”, 1783, in N.N. Glatzer, Ibid, 146
  14. EM. Spongberg, Ibid
  15. CC. Walker, “Job”, 1935, Detroit Christadelphian Book Supply, Detroit, MI, USA, 21
  16. J. Strong, “A Concise Dictionary of the words in the Hebrew Bible with their Renderings in the Authorized English Version”, in “Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance”, 1997, Baker Book House, Grand Rapids, MI, USA, 13
  17. D. Baird, “The Education of Job”, 2002, Stallard & Potter, Torrensville, Australia, 224; although I have been unable to ratify this asserted translation directly in a Hebrew text or concor­dance
  18. J.V. McGee, Ibid, 157
  19. J. Balchin, Ibid, 62
  20. R.T. Lovelock, “Job”, 1957, The Christadelphian, Birmingham, UK, 87
  21. J.V. McGee, Ibid, vii
  22. Ibid, 156
  23. E.M. Spongberg, Ibid, 14
  24. This point is complicated by the fact many scholars agree that an earlier version of 32:3 read that the friends had condemned God, not Job. This is considered another of the Emendations of the Sopherim, which were discussed earlier. I have no expertise to deem these alleged emendations true or false, but I note it is hard to see where the friends have explicitly con­demned God, yet plainly apparent where they have condemned Job. Fortuitously, the point is not of great significance to my arguments.
  25. Baird, Ibid, 227