The Teacher Turns Toward the Weather

“Proceeded” is literally “added”: Elihu adds a fourth speech. It is his longest, running through the end of chapter 37, and it ends at the very moment the LORD answers Job out of the whirlwind.

“Suffer me” is katar, to wait or bear with, a word more at home in Aramaic than Hebrew. Elihu's speeches carry several such Aramaic-flavoured words, and scholars have long noticed that his vocabulary differs from that of the other speakers.

“My Maker” here is po'ali, literally “my Worker”, a rare title. Elihu means to give God tsedeq, righteousness, the very thing he accused Job of claiming for himself above God in 35:2. The speech sets out to restore the balance.

“Perfect” is tamim, from the root of tam, the word the Book of Job used of Job himself in 1:1. Integrity of life has become integrity of knowledge. The phrase returns in 37:16, “him which is perfect in knowledge”, where it plainly refers to God.

“Mighty in strength and wisdom” is literally “mighty in strength of heart”, the heart being the seat of understanding. The Greek adds “the innocent” as the object of the first half: God does not despise the innocent, which sharpens the point.

“He preserveth not the life of the wicked” flatly contradicts Job's question in 21:7, “Wherefore do the wicked live?” “Giveth right to the poor” means he secures justice, mishpat, for the afflicted, the people whose cries Elihu described in 34:28.

Setting the humble with kings on the throne is the reversal Hannah sings of in 1 Samuel 2:8, “to set them among princes, and to make them inherit the throne of glory,” and Psalm 113:8. God's eyes on the righteous mean elevation, not merely notice.

“Fetters” are ziqqim, chains, the word of Psalm 149:8, “to bind their nobles with fetters of iron.” “Cords of affliction” uses a word that can mean both ropes and pangs, as in Psalm 116:3, “The sorrows of death compassed me.” The imprisonment is real and painful.

“Exceeded” is from gavar, to act the strong man, to overreach. The sin God shows them is swagger, having behaved like warriors, gibborim, in their own strength. The fetters are meant to show that the strength was never theirs.

“Discipline” is musar, the Proverbs word for training by correction: “despise not the chastening of the LORD” (Proverbs 3:11). Eliphaz had used it in 5:17, “despise not thou the chastening of the Almighty.” Elihu adds that God opens the ear so that the correction can be heard.

“Pleasures” is ne'imim, pleasant things, the word of Psalm 16:6, “The lines are fallen unto me in pleasant places.” The book's closing chapter will in fact give Job long days and doubled wealth (42:10–17), though not on the terms Elihu sets here.

“Die without knowledge” repeats Eliphaz almost exactly: “they die, even without wisdom” (4:21). The refusal to listen has its own end: death without ever understanding what the suffering meant.

“Heap up” is literally set or store up, as goods in a warehouse. The contrast is with verse 8: the righteous in chains are taught, but the godless in chains stay silent and resentful. The same binding produces opposite results depending on the one bound.

“The unclean” translates qedeshim, men dedicated to pagan shrine prostitution, as in Deuteronomy 23:17 and 1 Kings 14:24. To die young and have one's life end among them was to die in disgrace, the life spent in shame and cut short.

The Hebrew is a pun: he rescues the afflicted one, ani, by his affliction, oni. The same letters serve for the sufferer and the suffering. “Openeth their ears” repeats the idiom of 33:16, uncovering the ear to receive a message.

“Fatness” is deshen, the richest part of food, the abundance of Psalm 63:5, “as with marrow and fatness.” A spread table in a wide open place recalls Psalm 23:5, “Thou preparest a table before me.” The contrast is with the narrow strait in which Job sits.

Judgment (din) and justice (mishpat) are both legal terms, and here they “take hold” like officers of the court arresting a man. Elihu says Job has taken up the case of the wicked, and so the judgment belonging to their case has taken hold of him.

The word the King James renders “stroke”, sefeq, may also mean scoffing, from the verb for clapping in 34:26 and 34:37. Many read it as “beware lest wrath entice thee into scoffing.” The danger would then be Job's anger turned to mockery.

“Riches” is shoa', close in sound to shua', a cry for help. The Hebrew can be read either way: will your wealth or your cry avail you? Gold and “the forces of strength”, the full extent of a man's resources, cannot buy a way out.

“Cut off in their place” means taken away where they stand, on the spot. Job had longed for night in chapter 3, the night of his birth blotted out and the rest of death. Elihu warns him not to wish for the night in which whole peoples vanish.

“Chosen” is bachar, the verb Elihu used in 34:4, “Let us choose to us judgment”, and 34:33, “whether thou choose”. He frames Job's protest as a choice made. “Take heed” is literally guard yourself, and “regard not” means do not turn toward.

The Greek reads “who is a ruler like him?”, a different vowel pattern of the same consonants. The King James follows the Hebrew moreh, teacher. Isaiah 40:14 asks the matching question: “who... taught him knowledge, and shewed to him the way of understanding?”

“Enjoined” is paqad, to appoint or assign, as an overseer assigns duties to workers. The second question recalls Moses' song in Deuteronomy 32:4: “a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.”

“Which men behold” is more literally “of which men have sung”. The work of God has already been the subject of human song, the psalms of creation, and Job is urged to add his voice to that chorus rather than to argue.

“Afar off” uses the same word as verse 3, where Elihu said he would “fetch my knowledge from afar”. Knowledge comes from a distance, and God's works are seen from a distance. Everyone sees them; no one sees them up close.

The years of God cannot be counted. Psalm 102:27 says “thy years shall have no end,” and Job himself asked in 10:5, “Are thy days as the days of man?” Elihu's “we know him not” includes himself among those who do not fully know him.

“Maketh small” is gara', to draw off or withdraw: God draws up the water drops. The word for vapour is 'ed, the mist of Genesis 2:6 that “went up from the earth, and watered the whole face of the ground.” Rain begins as water drawn upward.

“Distil” is to drip, drop by drop. Psalm 65:11 uses the same picture of God's provision: “thy paths drop fatness.” The skies release rain on all humanity at once, over fields no one has planted and fields ploughed by the just and unjust alike.

“His tabernacle” is sukkah, his booth or pavilion. Psalm 18:11 pictures the same: “his pavilion round about him were dark waters and thick clouds of the skies.” The thunder is the noise from God's tent, pitched in the storm clouds.

“The bottom of the sea” is literally the roots of the sea. God spreads his lightning across the sky and yet covers the sea's foundations, or clothes himself with them. The line holds together brilliance above and hiddenness below.

Some scholars propose reading yazun, he nourishes, in place of yadin, he judges, a difference of one letter. The Hebrew as it stands keeps the pairing: the same weather judges nations and feeds them.

The Hebrew is literally “he covers his hands with light”: God holds the lightning in his palms and commands it to strike its mark, a word for a target. God will ask Job in 38:35, “Canst thou send lightnings, that they may go?”

Many read the verse as “his thunder announces him; even the cattle tell of the coming storm.” Herdsmen knew that livestock grow restless before weather turns. The storm is gathering as Elihu speaks, and the voice from the whirlwind is near.