Elihu

“ No, though Elihu is a young man, and upon his preferment, he will not dissemble truth to court the favour of great men. It is a good resolution he has taken up—" I know not to give flattering titles to men; I never used myself to flattering language;" and it is a good reason he gives for that resolution— in so doing my Maker would soon take me away. It is good to keep ourselves in awe with a holy fear of God's judgments. He that made us will take us away in his wrath we do not conduct ourselves as we should. ”

“ Elihu is a hard working, docile, respectable negro. If I wanted anything hard done to-night such as to send by land or water ten miles Elihu is the man I could call upon, knowing he would not refuse. If I had occasion to drive forty miles this night through the darkness, Elihu is a man I could trust to take me safely through the darkness and do it cheerfully. And you think I will see him put on the chain gang illegally? You don't know me, Mr. Haman. ”

“ He cannot respect any man's person now. In Job's day, God chose the weak thing, as He has done ever since. Elihu was but a youth. Timothy was the same. But the ancient men had failed. The stone of help lies in another stripling of Bethlehem. For, from beginning to end it must be known, that the good that is done upon the earth, He doeth Himself. "Not by might, nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord." Eliphaz and his companions shall not have it to say, "We have found out wisdom;" for "God thrusteth him down, not man," said Elihu of Job. ”

“ But there is practically nothing new in the Elihu speeches: in emphasizing the greatness of God, they but anticipate the Jehovah speeches, and in emphasizing the disciplinary value of chastisement, they but amplify the point already made by Eliphaz in v. 17ff., and most summarily expressed in xxxvi. 15. Almost the only other assertion made is that, as against Job's contention, God does speak to men—through dreams, sickness, angels, etc. The lengthy description in which Elihu is introduced, and the mention of his genealogy, are very unlike the other introductions. ”

“ It has already been noted that Elihu's name is not in the prologue, he comes in with a bit of a prologue of his own (xxxii. 1-5) ; and when the three friends are rebuked in the epilogue, he, who surely deserved the same condemnation, is ignored. All his speeches, provocative enough, draw no reply from Job. When, at the end of Elihu's discourse, God answers out of the whirlwind (xxxviii. 1 ff.) , "Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge," it is to Job he addresses himself, not Elihu; and the appearance of God is naturally taken as the response to Job's challenge in xxxi. ”

“ Elihu, on the contrary, makes this humiliation lighter to him, by setting over against his longing for God to answer him, the pleasing teaching that his affliction in itself is already the speech of God to him, - a speech designed to educate him, and to bring about his spiritual well-being. What objection could Job, who has hitherto maintained his own righteousness in opposition to affliction as a hostile decree, now raise, when it is represented to him as a wholesome medicine reached forth to him by the holy God of love? ”

“ Elihu, like the rest, is far beneath Job. If he can be said to have a glimmering of the idea it is only that he may oppose it. This moral affinity with God as the principle of human life remains the secret of the inspired author; it lifts him above the finest minds of the Gentile world. The compiler of the Elihu portion, although he has the admirable sentiment that God giveth songs in the night, has missed the great and elevating truth which fills with prophetic force the original poem. ”

“ Elihu's words fairly trample on each other's heels, and though only giving a weakened statement of what had been said before, like a strong voice weakened by age, he thinks his is a sledgehammer argument, illuminative, convincing, unanswerable; yet because he thinks he speaks in God's behalf and in God's stead, he rises into eloquence withal, though his words are pitiless; for himself knows not suffering, nor can he compass Job's calamity. Elihu mistakes the sight of his eyes for the truths of God, a blunder of not infrequent recurrence. ”

“ See; the difference between the charge which Elihu exhibited against Job and that which was preferred against him by his other friends; they would not own that he was just at all, but Elihu only says, "In this, in saying this, thou art not just." 1. "Thou dost not deal justly with God." To be just is to render to all their due; now we do not render to God his due, nor are we just to him, if we do not acknowledge his equity and kindness in all his dispensations of his providence towards us, that he is righteous in all his ways, and that, however it be, yet he is good. ”

“ He regards Elihu as the type of the false wisdom of the heathen, which fails to recognise and persecutes the servant of God: Sunt alii extra ecclesiam, qui Christo ejusque ecclesiae similiter adversantur, quorum imaginem praetulit Balaam ille ariolus, qui et Elieu sicut patrum traditio habet (Balaam and Elihu, one person - a worthless conceit repeated in the Talmud and Midrash) , qui contra ipsum sanctum Iob multa improbe et injuriose locutus est, in tantum ut etiam displiceret in una ejus et indisciplinata loquacitas. ”

“ He is Orthodoxy rationalised. Elihu’s name is suggestive of his ambiguity; it seems to mean one whose ‘God is He’ and he comes from the tribe of Buz, whose Hebrew meaning might almost be represented in that English word which, with an added z, would best convey the windiness of his remarks. Buz was the son of Milkah, the Moon, and his descendant so came fairly by his theologic ‘moonshine’ of the kind which Carlyle has so well described in his account of Coleridgean casuistry. Elihu means to be fair to both sides! Elihu sees some truth in both sides! ”

“ Shall we light a candle to the sun? Observe, When Elihu would give glory to God as a ruler he praises him as a teacher, for rulers must teach. God does so. He binds with the cords of a man. In this, as in other things, he is unequalled. None so fit to direct his own actions as he himself is. ”

“ Elihu here speaks with a great deference to the divine will and wisdom, and a satisfaction therein: it is highly fit that every thing should be according to God's mind. He speaks also with a just disdain of the pretensions of those that are proud, and would be their own carvers: Should it be according to thy mind? Should we always have the good we have a mind to enjoy? We should then wrongfully encroach upon others and foolishly ensnare ourselves. Must we never be afflicted, because we have no mind to it? Is it fit that sinners should feel no smart, that scholars should be under no discipline? ”

“ After his first speech Elihu has made a brief pause; now since Job is silent, he begins anew. ויען ויאמר, lxx correctly, here as in all other instances where the phrase occurs: ὑπολαβὼν λέγει, taking up the word he said. The wise and the knowing (Arab. ‛ulamâ) , whose attention he bespeaks, are not Job and the three (Umbr., Hahn) , who are indeed a party, and as such a subject for the arbitrative appearance of Elihu; also not every one capable of forming a judgment (Hirz.) ; but those in the circle of spectators and listeners which, as is assumed, has assembled round the disputants (Schlottm.) ”

“ Elihu, however, deprives these thoughts of their hitherto erroneous application. If piety gives nothing to God which He ought to reward, Job dare not regard his affliction, mysterious as it is to him, as unjust; and if the godly do not directly experience the avenging wrath of God on the haughtiness of their oppressors, the question, whether then their prayer for help is of the right kind, is more natural than the complain of a want of justice in God's government of the world. ”

“ An elder brother, Elijah, who afterwards published The Geography of the Heavens and other text-books, went out into the world while Elihu was still a boy, and after editing a paper in Georgia came back to New Britain and started a school. Elihu, however, had to pick up what knowledge he could get from books at home, where his father’s long illness, ending in death, made his services necessary. ”

“ Elihu thinks over much of kings and exaltation beside them and of years of prosperity and pleasure, and his own view of human character and merit follows the judgment of those who have honours to bestow and love the servile pliant mind. ”

“ Might and mercy are the principal attributes of God. The verses in which Elihu applies this doctrine to Job’s case are ambiguous and perhaps corrupt, but it appears as if Elihu regarded Job as in danger of missing the disciplinary object of his sufferings. It is in the second part of his speech (xxxvi. 26-xxxvii. 24) that Elihu displays his greatest rhetorical power, and though by no means equal to the speeches of Jehovah, which it appears to imitate, the vividness of its descriptions has obtained the admiration of no less competent a judge than Alexander von Humboldt. ”

“ At any rate, Elihu expresses it as a postulate, that the deliverance of man can only be effected by a superhuman being, as it is in reality accomplished by the man who is at the same time God, and from all eternity the Lord of the angels of light.
The following strophe (Job 33:25) now describes the results of the favour wrought out for man by the מלאך מליץ. ”

“ Olympiodorus adds, πλὴν οὐκ ἐνόησε τοῦ δικαίου τῆν διάνοιαν, but he has not understood the true idea of the servant of God! [109]
In modern times, Herder entertains the same judgment. Elihu's speech, in comparison with the short, majestic, solemn language of the Creator, he calls “the weak rambling speech of a boy.” “Elihu, a young prophet” - he says further on his Geist der Ebr. Poesie, where he expounds the book of Job as a composition - “arrogant, bold, alone wise, draws fine pictures without end or aim ”

“ The twofold peculiarity of Elihu's speeches comes out in this fourth as prominently as in the first: (1) They demand of Job penitential submission, not by accusing him of coarse common sins as the three have done, but because even the best of men suffer for hidden moral defects, which must be perceived by them in order not to perish on account of them. Elihu here does for Job just what in Bunyan (Pilgrim's Progress) the man in the Interpreter's house does, when he sweeps the room, so that Christian had been almost choked with the dust that flew about. ”

“ Keil has spoken of ‘the persistently repeated assaults upon the genuineness’ of these discourses. I must however protest against the use of the word ‘genuineness’ in this connection. Even if not by the author of the poem of Job, the speeches of Elihu are as ‘genuine’ a monument of Israel’s religious ‘wisdom’ as the work of the earlier writer. No critic worthy of the name thinks of ‘assaulting’ them, though divines no less orthodox than Gregory the Great and the Venerable Bede have uncritically enough set the example. The speeches of Elihu only seem poor by comparison with the original work ”

“ Elihu on his part knows that he does not stand alone against Job, the censurer of the divine government of the world, but that men of heart (understanding) and (every) wise man who listens to him will coincide with him in the opinion that Job's talk is devoid of knowledge and intelligence (on the form of writing השׂכּיל as Jer 3:15, vid., Ges. §53, rem. 2) . ”

“ A far more formidable enemy, in the person of Elihu, is about to arise. He represents Secular Education, in unbelief of the inspiration of God, or the existence of true piety. He reasons that all men are essentially alike, imperfect; that heredity, inclination, education and surrounding circumstances account for all the difference in men. That Job, having claimed upright intentions before God, has committed a grave offence. ”

“ The fundamental thought of Elihu here once again comes unmistakeably to view: the sufferings of the righteous are well-meant chastisements, which are to wean them from the sins into which through carnal security they have fallen - a warning from God to penitence, designed to work their good.
Verses 11-12Verses 11-12 Job 36:11-12 11 If they hear and yield,
They pass their days in prosperity
And their years in pleasure. ”

“ By dropping out the episode of Elihu, as an insertion of some later hand, the movement of the poem becomes sustained and progressive. The arguments of the Jewish theology are cleverly presented, while the swift, sure sense of justice in the sufferer pierces all sophisms, and riddles all pious conventionalities. ”

“ For Elihu himself, and others favoured with prosperity, the law of the Divine order has been, "With kings on [Pg 368] the throne God setteth them up for ever." A personal consciousness of merit leading to honourable rank in the state seems at variance with the hard dogma of the evil desert of all men. But the rabbi has his own position to fortify. The alternative, however, could not be kept out of sight, since the misery of exile was a vivid recollection, if not an actual experience, with many reputable men who were bound in fetters and held by cords of affliction. ”

“ It seems most probable to me, that Elihu was the penman of it, at least of the discourses, because (ch. xxxii. 15, 16.) he mingles the words of an historian with those of a disputant: but Moses perhaps wrote the two first chapters and the last, to give light to the discourses; for in them God is frequently called Jehovah, but not once in all the discourses, except ch. xii. 9. That name was but little known to the patriarchs before Moses, Exod. vi. 3. If Job wrote it himself, some of the Jewish writers themselves own him a prophet among the Gentiles ”