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The three friends fall into silence. Job refuses to listen to their condemnations, so they have nothing more to say. To them, Job's current condition shows that he is under God's condemnation. In the words of a newcomer Elihu, "they were amazed" (32:15). The word translated ‘amazed’ is ‘châthath’ meaning to knock flat (Strong, H2865). Clarke mentions a significant variation in several of the older texts, causing verse one to read, “because he was righteous in their eyes” (Clarke, note on 32:1). By this reading, the three friends, by the strength of Job's defense, have come to believe him. This would place the introjection of the new character Elihu in an entirely different light, the recalcitrant defender of the creed.
And so, a youngster enters the narrative to take up the argument. Elihu is a true mystery of the Bible. He has not been mentioned up to now, nor is he mentioned after he quits speaking, leading many scholars to conclude that his section is a later addition. This appears to be likely (Vicchio 2020, loc. 7228). We really have no way to know. The argument is a scholar's distraction. Elihu's speech is scripture and for our purposes continues the dramatic narrative.
Elihu does add to the debate that will culminate in God's appearance. First, Elihu sums up the argument so far. Second, he will set the stage for Gods appearance in chapter thirty-eight. And finally, while Job has told us about himself in terms of what he has done, I believe that Elihu provides a mirror into the character of Job himself. This is essential to understanding God's dealing with Job.
Elihu is an enigma, not only because of his mysterious appearance and equally mysterious disappearance from the dialog, but because opinions vary so widely concerning which side he is on. According to John Lucas, “Elihu definitely belongs to God, and God has much to say through Elihu the prophet” (Lucas, chapter 12).
Lucas understands well what God is after in Job, and it is worth quoting extensively from his gloss on Elihu's speech: “That He may withdraw man from his own purpose and cut off pride from him” (33:17). “Memorize verse 17 and never forget it. Your valleys, tribulations, afflictions, chastisements, hardships are designed to cause verse 17 – to withdraw you from your purpose, your goal, your motives and cut off the pride that gave you your own purpose – AT THE ROOT, but ONLY when you hear from heaven the voice that reveals the purpose of your affliction. This is the Father’s voice of instruction! The Holy of Holies is given the name in Solomon’s temple as ‘THE ORACLE OF GOD’. This name literally means ‘THE SPEAKING PLACE’. When we talk about a life in the Holy of Holies we are talking about a life that ‘hears from heaven’, a life that has ears to hear what the Spirit of God is saying. Some want a ‘Holy of Holies’ for the sole purpose of giving them a ‘sense of God’, but the true Holy of Holies speaks to us and we are to heed that voice – THEN we will ‘sense God in our midst’. It is only THEN can we stand holy in the midst of our holy God. It is only then shall we have God’s GLORY upon our life” (Lucas, chapter 12).
Twelfth century Rabbi Maimonides seems to add much of God's speech to Elihu, perhaps because Maimonides spends so much time arguing that God does not speak to us directly. He sees the book of Job as a metaphor for rising to philosophical wisdom. To Maimonides, Elihu brings fresh new wisdom when he brings in the idea of an angel as mediator (33:23) (Maimonides 2010, 255). I, myself, don't see the significance.
Gregory the Great sees Elihu as a mixed bag. On the one hand he seems to speak with a genuine prophetic voice. On the other, he is arrogant to point that he “pollutes even the truths he able to entertain” (Gregory, Morals on the Book of Job, XXII, xv).
Oswald Chambers suggests that Elihu puts creed and legal relationship first, simply because, like Job, he has no personal relationship to God (Chambers, 111-120, also 129). “In Elihu, the passion for authority is represented” (Chambers, 111). “Elihu is stating with enourmous airs that ‘Humanity’ is another name for God” (Chambers, 123). Robert Fyall, in his book How Does God Treat His Friends?, says, “Elihu takes great slabs of truth and constructs a monstrous edifice without doors or windows” (Fyall, 103). Barnes says, Elihu “comes with great apparent modesty, and yet with great pretensions” (Barnes, Introduction to Job, section 5). Jerome, following several Talmudists, identifies Elihu as Ba-laam, making Elihu a false prophet (Vicchio 2020, loc. 7287).
My own position is that Elihu is a little of both, occasionally filled with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, but other times filled with himself ad nauseum. In a similar position, Jesse Penn-Lewis maintains that Elihu is genuinely inspired by the Holy Spirit, but when he receives no honor for his message becomes self-possessed and angry. “The difference between Elihu the interpreter and Elihu the man is very plainly to be seen. Elihu appears to have been wounded by the persistent silence of Job and his friends. In his self-hurt he ceases to speak on God's behalf, loses his quiet restraint, and begins to make charges against Job as the elder men had done” (Penn-Lewis, page 159).
Elihu delivers incredible prophesies of redemption, as did Job. He also falls into fits of self-focused anger, as does Job, but without the excusing circumstances that Job labors under. In all, Elihu resembles Job in his vision, his self-focus and his temperament. As a result, he aids the narrative most by providing another way to look in on the character, both good and bad, of Job.
Because, by Elihu's own admission, he is much younger (32:6-7), it is conceivable that his presence has simply been ignored according to the custom of the time. He jumps into the debate because he is bursting to talk.
Elihu attempts to be deferential, but he is upset with both Job and the three friends, and he doesn't hold back. He insults them almost immediately: “Great men are not always wise: neither do the aged understand judgment. Therefore I said, Hearken to me” (32:9-10). Elihu excuses his brashness, “When I had waited, (for they spake not, but stood still, and answered no more)” (32:16), I just had to speak, “For I am full of matter, the spirit within me constraineth me” (32:18). This is very nearly Job's comment: “for now, if I hold my tongue, I shall give up the ghost” (13:19). Elihu alludes to compulsion by ‘the spirit’. He is referring to ‘the inspiration of the Almighty’ (32:8).
Despite his unbridled passion, Elihu, has listened carefully to Job, which the three friends have not. He has also listened to Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, and found their replies wanting: “There was none of you that convinced Job, or that answered his words” (32:12). This is not the spirit of the inspiration of the Almighty, which will condemn the friends for false accusations, but the spirit religious self-confidence, which condemns them for not convincingly condemning Job.
Elihu believes it important to listen for God's inspiration to receive understanding (32:8), the word for inspiration here is actually ‘neshâmâh’ or breath, as when Jesus breaths on the disciples and they receive the Spirit (John 20:22). Like Eliphaz in chapter four, Elihu also claims to have heard from an inner voice (32:18), which, in Elihu's case, Penn-Lewis suggests is the genuine inspiration of the Holy Spirit (Penn-Lewis, pages 139-140). As we will see, Elihu has profound things to say, indicative of the presence of the Holy Spirit.
“My belly is as wine which hath no vent; it is ready to burst like new bottles” (32:19). More properly this should read ‘to burst like a new skin.’ The word ‘bottle’ is ‘ôb’ meaning a mumble and is applied to wine skins. Strong's suggests this is because of the sound of the sloshing in a skin, however he notes that a necromancer, one who contacts the dead, is also called by the same name (Strong, H178). We today call strong drink ‘spirits’, I would imagine the same allusion applied in Job's day. An additional point from my experience in younger days, wine or beer that is bottled too soon will ferment and build up too much pressure and break the bottles. I believe the technique in those days was to use new skins with more stretch, and to vent the gases off when the skins became too tight. “His word was in mine heart as a burning fire shut up in my bones” (Jer. 20:9).
I do believe that Elihu is genuinely inspired, unfortunately, Elihu is also struggling with a strong spirit of religious self-confidence, similar to the one that the Lord is working on in Job: “Let me not, I pray you, accept any man’s person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man. For I know not to give flattering titles; in so doing my maker would soon take me away” (32:21-22). Elihu is absolutely confident of his place in God, as was Job before he was struck down so severely. It appears that Elihu is a younger version of Job himself. One could easily imagine Job making the same penetrating analysis of himself, were the hand of the Lord not crushing him. Elihu is able to dispassionately observe, where Job is caught thrashing in the pool of his self-pity and the disconnect between his beliefs and his situation.
The speech of Elihu could easily be seen as Job looking at himself, trying to put the pieces in place. In this light, Strong’s derives the name ‘Job’ from ‘hated’ or ‘persecuted’ (Strong, H347). Other commentators note that this only holds up if the name is Hebrew. It seems unlikely that his birth name would be ‘hated’. It could be nickname given by history. Or conversely the sense of persecution could have become attached to the name through usage. ‘Elihu’ in Hebrew means ‘God of Him’ (Strong, H453), which could be a birth name. As clever and enticing as the conjunction of Elihu and Job may sound, and I did seriously consider that Elihu could be Job, the theory falls in pieces when Elihu savagely distorts the context of one of Job's statements to brutalize him (34:9). However the character of Elihu is a clear window into the character of Job. Both have genuine touches of the Holy Spirit. Both are too fully self-possessed. Both fear the Lord and seek to be in His favor. Both are passionate to a fault.
If the author of the book of Job is in fact Job, then the inclusion of Elihu's discourses may have been especially pertinent to Job because of the close affinity of Elihu's thoughts and sentiments to Job's own thinking, prior to this his change.
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