Elihu steps up to set Job straight, claiming to have understanding given to him from the breath of the Almighty. Convinced that God is rebuking Job and repaying him for his wicked ways, he accuses Job of “drink(ing) up scoffing like water.” He uses the same reasoning as the other “friends,” that if God is rebuking him he must have done something worthy of God’s rebuke, because God “will not pervert justice.” They don’t question whether God’s intent is actually to rebuke Job – it must be rebuke, for causing him to suffer unworthily is not just. They equate such action with wickedness. Again, Elihu is wrong because he thinks he has God figured out.
Elihu isn’t the only one in history to think he has God figured out. The Roman Catholic Church in the Renaissance is an example of others who have been convinced that they know God, and know that God would never do the scandalous thing of which He has been accused by man. But God does do some things that are scandalous to man. In the question placed before the Roman Catholic Church leaders during the Renaissance, He did in fact create the earth to revolve around the sun. In the case of Elihu, God did allow Job to suffer for reason other than his sin. God did allow a blameless man to suffer as no other man in recorded history has suffered.
But then again, God Himself was willing to suffer unworthily. Suffering can accomplish so much in God’s economy. His own suffering accomplished man’s redemption from sin. If God were only just, we would never be saved from sin, would be permanently ruined, without opportunity to enjoy relationship with Him. What a scandal that He suffered unjustly for the purpose of having relationship with ruined man. Who could have ever understood that truth without God’s explaining it to us in His word?
Given the example of His own suffering, what makes us think that we could ever have God figured out enough to decide what He is or is not doing? Hopefully we are all frustrated enough by Elihu to remember his example: WE CANNOT ASSUME WE HAVE GOD FIGURED OUT. He is GOD, and we are not.
However, we aren’t doomed to ignorance of what God is doing. We are given enough examples in Scripture of people who have sought understanding from God and been granted understanding, that we can humbly present our questions to God, seeking understanding for the purpose of knowing Him better, and have hope that He might give us the insight we seek. Job has expressed longing numerous times to get answers from God. What will be God’s response? Can you feel the tension building in the plot of Job’s story?
Elihu is so far off the mark. He accuses this blameless man of being the ultimate wicked person. In verses 34:7-8 he says, “What man is like Job, who drinks up scoffing like water, who travels in company with evildoers and walks with wicked men?” In contemporary jargon, his words would be, “Who is as bad a man as Job?” How do you suppose God feels in response to Elihu’s conviction that he has the all-wise, all-powerful creator/sustainer God figured out, and that he speaks for God in calling wicked the one whom God has actually called blameless? Don’t you wish God would put him in his place?
Don’t miss the next couple days of reading – it is very satisfying!