Bible Commentaries

The Speech of Elihu.
III.

Job 33:4).

The Bible has no difficulty in connecting human life instantly with God. There is a wonderful sense of nearness as between the Creator and the created. Elihu does not interpose millions of ages between the creating God and the created man; he rather speaks of the creation as the very last thing that was done. Elihu does not say,—I am the result of intermediate operations and causes, and secondary influences; I represent the civilisation of my line or day. He speaks as Adam might have spoken when he was turned from the hand of God a living Job 33:14).

Let the meaning be this: God does not speak in one way only; there is nothing monotonous in the divine government: God speaks "once," "twice,"—that Job 34:10).

Elihu now occupies moral ground. His deity is not a majestic outline; it is a heart, a conscience, the very source and centre of life. This gives comfort wherever it is realised. A thought like this enables man to give time to God, that he may out of a multitude of details shape a final meaning. Elihu says in effect, Things look very troubled now: it seems as if we were dealing with shapelessness, rather than with order and definite meaning: now the great space of the firmament is full of thunders and lightnings and tempests, and the very foundations of things seem to be ploughed up; but write this down as the first item in your creed, and the middle, and the last—"far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; and from the Almighty, that he should do iniquity.... Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment." Then wait: he will bring forth judgment as the morning, and righteousness as the noonday. Such doctrines establish the heart in gracious confidence. They do not blind men to the tumult and confusion which are so manifest on all the surface of life; such doctrines enable men to cultivate and exemplify the grace or virtue of patience: they acknowledge that appearances are against their doctrine, but they claim time for the Almighty: they reason analogically; they say, Look at nature; look at human life; look at any great enterprise entered into by men: what digging, what blasting of rocks, what marvellous confusion, what a want of evident form and shape and design! Yet when months have come and gone, and architects and builders have carried out their whole purpose, they retire, and say, Behold what we have been aiming at all the time,—then in great temple, or wide noble bridge spanning boiling rivers, we see that when we thought all things were in confusion, they were being carried on to order and shape and perfectness and utility. So Elihu says, One thing is certain: to be God he must be good; if he were wicked he would not be God: brethren, he would say in modern language, Let us pray where we cannot reason, let us wait where we cannot move: our waiting may be service, our prayer may be the beginning of new opportunities.

Following this doctrine, and part and parcel of it, Elihu advances to say—

"For the work of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways" ( Job 34:11).

Being righteous, he will cause the law of cause and effect to proceed whatever happens in relation to human conduct and spiritual results. This is what Paul said—"Be not deceived; God is not mocked: whatsoever a man soweth that shall he also reap." That is a New Testament translation of Old Testament words—"For the work of a man shall he render unto him, and cause every man to find according to his ways." How much have we advanced beyond that doctrine? Where is the difference between the Old Testament and the New in this particular? God is of one mind; who can turn him as to the law of moral cause and moral effect? A man cannot sow one kind of seed and reap another: the sowing determines the harvest. Elihu might make a false application of this principle to Job 34:17-22).

Observe here the action of what may be called the moral imagination. We are at liberty to expand what we do know of God in the letter. This is the meaning of preaching. The preaching however must be the expansion of what is found in revelation. If there be in one discourse a word of man's own making, it must be taken out. Not an evidence of man's invention must be found in any discourse. Whatever is said must be provable by what is written. Expansion is our sphere; tender, gracious, beautiful amplification is the work to which we are called: the kingdom of heaven is like unto a grain of mustard seed, but when the mustard-tree is grown it is not an oak, nor a cedar; it is still what it was in the seed. So Elihu resorts to images, illustrations, rhetorical enlargements, and the like; but he is always tethered to the centre, always fixed in the settled and eternal truths; what he does otherwise he may do as the result of inspired genius, but it is all consonant with what is positively and definitely revealed. What then do we know of God? Nothing of ourselves. We have imaginings, conjectures, suggestions, quite a thousand in number, but as they are only imaginings, suggestions, and conjectures they are open to all kinds of disappointment; but when we come to Job 34:23). This is the way by which we are to judge the Bible. If we were governed wholly by the majestic images of the Bible, we should be overwhelmed, unable to follow the high delineation; we should be blinded by excess of light; but the Bible comes down from its high Job 34:33), Which is to be the supreme intelligence? That is the great question. Who is to be on the throne? Who is to be uppermost? Who is to speak the guiding word? It must either be the mind of man or the mind of God. Elihu says, Shall it be the mind of man? See what man has done; behold all the way through which he has passed, and see how he has been correcting himself, stultifying himself, coming back from his prodigalities, reversing his judgments, and rewriting his vows. The world cannot be administered according to a finite or limited mind. It comes to this, then; that such a world as ours, and such a universe as we know it, must be ruled by a mind equal to the occasion. We who cannot tell what will happen tomorrow ought to be silent rather than audible; we should wait, rather than advance: if we could prove our infallibility we might assert, but until we can establish it as a fact we must not broach it as a theory. The universe is too large for our management. We cannot manage our own affairs without blunder and mistake: how much less then could we manage the affairs of all men, and the courses of all worlds, and the destinies of all operations! It is ours to believe that God ruleth over all and is blessed for evermore; that all things, visible and invisible, are parts of a great empire, of which God is King and Lord. It is a noble faith. No man may come to the acceptance of this faith on the ground of weak-mindedness. No man can accept this faith without being mentally enlarged and ennobled. It may be assented to without reasoning and without reflection, and then it is not a religion but a superstition; or it may be received upon our knees, lovingly, adoringly, consentingly; our acceptance of it may be the last result of our inspired reasoning: then it becomes a faith, a religion, an inspiration, and we bow down before it, not ashamed because we cannot explain it, but glorying rather because its mystery will not come into human words, and all its meaning is too vast for the tiny vessel of human speech.

What God then shall we have? We must have some deity. We may deify ourselves, and thus become fools; or we may worship the God of the Bible, and thus receive an instruction which operates even more directly upon the moral than upon the intellectual nature. No man can serve God, and do evil: he may do the evil, never willingly or joyfully, but always with assurance that he ought not to have done it and that God rebukes him in a thousand ways. We cannot rightly receive the God of the Bible, and be little, mean, uncharitable, and unworthy. If we can find persons who profess to have received the God of the Bible and are yet all these things, then their profession is a lie. "By their fruits ye shall know them." We are not asking for assent; we are asking for faith. It is one thing not to differ from a proposition, and another to live upon it and to have no other means of mental existence. That is faith. He is no Christian who simply "does not dispute" the facts of Christian history. Only he is a Christian who is crucified with Christ, as it were on the same cross, as it were pierced with the same nails, wounded with the same spear. That is Christianity. We debase the whole conception if we suppose that a man is a Christian because he does not differ from the New Testament in any energetic or aggressive way, that a man is a Christian because he passes through certain forms of Christian worship. That is not Christianity at all. A man may do all that, and a thousand times more, yet know nothing whatever of the Spirit of Christ He does not receive the God of the Bible who is not as good as that God, according to the measure of his capacity: "Be ye holy, as your Father in heaven is holy." No man can receive the Christ of the gospels who is not dead and as much raised again as was that mighty Son of God, according to the man's measure and capacity. To believe in God we must be one with God. To believe in Christ we must be one with Christ. When we are so identified we shall need no argument in words, for our life will be argument, our spirit will be persuasive and convincing eloquence.

Note

In his second speech Elihu returns to the main question of Job's attitude towards God. He begins by imputing to Job language which he had never used, and which, from its extreme irreverence, Job would certainly have disowned ( Job 34:5, Job 34:9), and maintains that God never acts unjustly, but rewards every man according to his deeds. There is nothing in his treatment of this theme which requires comment.... The subject of the third speech is handled with more originality. Job had really complained that afflicted persons such as himself appealed to God in vain ( Job 24:12, Job 30:20). Elihu replies to this ( Job 35:9-13), that such persons merely cried from physical pain, and did not really pray. The fourth and last speech, in which he dismisses controversy and expresses his own sublime ideas of the Creator, has the most poetical interest. At the very outset the solemnity of his language prepares the reader to expect something great, and the expectation is not altogether disappointed. "God," he says, "is mighty, but despiseth not any" ( Job 36:5); he has given proof of this by the trials with which he visits his servants when they have fallen into sin. 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 ( Job 36:26 to Job 37:24) 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 his description has obtained the admiration of no less competent a judge than Alexander von Humboldt. The moral is intended to be that, instead of criticising God, Job should humble himself in devout awe at the combined splendour and mystery of the creation.—Rev. Canon Cheyne.

"Handfuls of Purpose"

For All Gleaners

"... an interpreter, one among a thousand"— Job 33:23

Why should not all men be interpreters? As a matter of fact, they are not, and we are called upon to consider the moral import of that fact.—Men are variously gifted.—To be gifted at all is to receive honour from God.—The judgment is not as between one man and another, but as between each man, as a trustee, and God who has put him in trust.—The interpreter will always make his influence felt; there will be something about his manner, mode of thinking, tone of expression, which will identify him as one on whom the tongue of flame is resting.—Society should honour its interpreters.—To be one among a thousand is to be in a painful position.—We envy the eminence, but forget the responsibility; we say how grand it must be to be so high up in society, forgetting that elevation means penalty, labour of many kinds, and vexations such as the great alone can feel.—The Bible is an interpreter, and one among a thousand.—This is the distinctive peculiarity of the Bible.—It is not only a revelation, it is an interpretation; it interprets God, nature, truth, and it interprets man to himself.—It is one among a thousand because there are many books which profess to have great answers to great questions, but they all break down at a given point, and are least eloquent where the heart yearns most for spiritual communication.—Let us always dwell upon the distinctiveness of the Bible, and of the cross, and of the whole priesthood of Jesus Christ.—In many points it may be like other sacred messages, but there are points at which it breaks away from them all, and stands up in noble singularity.—We must not force interpretation too far.—Sometimes it is enough to have a bint without having a whole revelation.—If we walk according to the light we have, the light will soon increase.—He is deceiving himself who supposes that he would travel fast toward the kingdom of heaven if he could start his journey at midday.—Begin your journey as soon as there is the faintest streak of light in the east, and as you walk the sun will increase in splendour.—The Christian should be one in a thousand: he should be seen from afar: he should be known by the quality of his character, by the music of his voice: he should in no case be so living the vulgar life as to be confounded with the common herd—at the same time, he must distinguish between self-display, and the uniqueness which comes of long and happy communion with his Master.— To be ostentatious is to be impious; to be a city set on a hill is to be a witness for God.