Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Job · About this commentary
Elihu: I Am Young and You Are Old
Job 32:1-22
1 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. · WEB
A young man who has been listening the whole time speaks because age has failed, and says that understanding is given rather than accumulated.
The narrator introduces him with unusual care, and gives his reasons for anger twice. He is angry at Job because he justified himself rather than God, and angry at the friends because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job Job 32:2–3.
That second charge is exact, and it is what God will say to them at the end Job 42:7. Elihu has correctly identified the friends' failure: not that they argued badly, but that they delivered a verdict without a case.
He had waited because of age Job 32:4, and he says so without resentment: I am young, and you are very old. Therefore I held back Job 32:6. He had believed the ordinary rule — days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom Job 32:7 — which is what Bildad and Eliphaz had both appealed to Job 8:8 Job 15:10.
What he says next is the reason he speaks at all, and it undoes the friends' basis for authority. There is a spirit in man, and the Spirit of the Almighty gives them understanding. It is not the great who are wise, nor the aged who understand justice Job 32:8–9.
Understanding is given, not accumulated. Years produce experience and experience is not the same thing, which the last twenty-nine chapters have demonstrated at length: three old men with a lifetime of settled opinion produced nothing that touched the case.
His account of his own listening is worth marking, because nobody else in the book claims it. I waited for your words, and I listened for your reasoning... I gave you my full attention Job 32:11–12. He has been there the whole time and has not been mentioned once. Whatever else he is, he is the only person present who let the argument finish.
And his verdict on it is the one the reader has reached: there was no one who convinced Job, or who answered his words, among you Job 32:12.
He then blocks the escape they are reaching for. Beware lest you say, 'We have found wisdom. God may refute him, not man' Job 32:13. Having failed, they are about to declare the question above human competence and hand it upward. Elihu will not let them retire undefeated.
His description of his own state is the most human thing in the speech. He is full of words; his breast is as wine which has no vent, like new wineskins ready to burst Job 32:18–19. He speaks in order to be relieved of the pressure, and he says so.
The last thing he promises is no flattery — no flattering titles to any man Job 32:21 — which is a claim to speak without regard for anyone's standing, including Job's.
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