The first of these chapters introduces a new speaker into the great debate. Elihu, it is well known, has been the occasion of a great deal of speculation. It seems to be rather discreditable to the judgment of those who have conjured up or yielded to such difficulties. There is scarcely more reason to doubt of Elihu than of Eliphaz, of Job himself, or any other. The historic reality of all stands or falls together. Nor is there better reason for imagining a superhuman personage in Elihu than in Melchizedek. Doubtless as Melchizedek was the type, and in a very striking way too, of the Lord Jesus as the royal priest, Scripture recording neither birth nor death, neither predecessor nor successor, and this in order to suit the more impressively His glory who was shadowed, so here comes forward one who remarkably exemplifies—for I should call him not a type, but one who exemplifies—the Spirit of Christ which we know did work in the saints of old. In some it took a prophetic character. Here it is more in the way of dealing with conscience and vindicating the character of God. This is indeed what Job needed and had longed for, as we gather from earlier words. The very things he desired were in due time vouchsafed by grace. He had asked for one of like passions when crushed in spirit under the hand of God. He pined after a man who should intervene between God and him. And God now gives him his desire (not yet the man Christ Jesus), a man of God indeed, but with infirmities like his own. Elihu takes particular pains to insist that he presumed on no higher ground than this. Impossible, if it were any anticipative intervention of the Lord Jesus, that he should speak of his “opinion” and the like. We see how constantly he talks about giving his opinion. The Lord Jesus, let Him take the lowest place, never spoke as the scribes, but always as One giving out the word of God and the words of the Father. His mission indeed was to manifest the Father. The only begotten Son who was in His bosom, He declared Him. Elihu takes no such attitude. He was a man, but one in whom the Spirit of God was working then, and who gives us the reason why he had not appeared on the scene before. He was comparatively young, and in those days different feelings governed from those of the present day. There was a strong sense of propriety in the deference due to elders from those younger. Saintship strengthened instead of weakening this. Elihu might, as compared with Eliphaz and the rest, enter much more into the mind of God; and it seems evident that he did so, more than Job himself, not to speak of the three friends—these “very old” men of whom he speaks. But until they were fairly silenced, until they had not a word more to say against Job or for themselves, Elihu abides in the shade. But, though he introduces himself with a good deal of preface, and apologizes for one comparatively young giving his opinion, when he does speak, wisdom from God is in it. Does not all this show us how men were given to understand, even in these earliest days, what was becoming; and that the power of the Spirit, far from destroying relative decorum, does, on the contrary, set it off with a greater force than natural reverence because it judges self in the presence of God? At the same time, as there was a free opening for the light of God to enter, so it does not fail to shine. Elihu lets us know the deep feeling that filled his soul as, on the one hand, he looked at these three men who were more vexed at their failure than humbled, because they had not really weighed the question in the light of God's presence; and, on the other hand, at Job, who up to the present had failed to learn the lesson of subjection of heart to God, although a terrible process was going on; and I am very far from meaning that God does not give wholesome lessons before the full blessing comes out. There is no time or form of God's dealing, beloved brethren, he assured, that is lost to the soul. Nor is it by any means what most appears that is the most important part of the blessing. One might venture to say, that in all the good that abides and bears fruit there is a groundwork that is unseen—or what goes on within—which, although it be by no means the fullness of the blessing that God intends for us, is its all-important and necessary condition. Just so, consequently, there was a work now going on within. Job was learning himself. Neither his complaints of God, nor his collision with respected friends, could he have believed possible; he never had known such thoughts or feelings in all his previous experience. It is evident, too, that his friends were wholly unprepared for the exhibition that had taken place, quick as they were to see the faults of Job. But had they seen their own? There was a beam in their eye as truly as there was a mote in Job's. What wonder then that they should see badly? In part, therefore, this closing portion of the book is meant to bring before us the manner in which God brings the whole question to a solution, as far as this could be till Christ came. So, after Elihu has thus made his excuses for speaking, he takes the last place, really the weightiest of all, though he was so little to be thought of that we had not even heard his name before. And this is one of the things that men habitually fail to understand, that the last should be first, and the first last. To my own mind it is one of the moral congruities, not of this book only, but of Scripture, and of God's ways generally, who brings people forward at the right moment. It is an important lesson, therefore, that God is teaching in that very fact. Man would not have done so. If he had essayed to write such a book as this, he would have prepared us for such an one as Elihu at the very outset. God acts with supreme wisdom; and the force with which Elihu comes into the scene when needed is so much the greater because of the retired and lowly place that he had maintained up to that moment.
Here let me take the opportunity of stating that we must not be misled by the word “inspiration” here. Elihu does not claim it in the same sense in which the apostle Paul applies it to all Scripture. He uses it simply as the source of that understanding which God gives to man, and in no way pretends to the unfailing, absolute, perfectly communicated word of God. When we talk about “inspiration,” we mean the mind of God conveyed so that error is absolutely excluded. Does Elihu herein pretend to any such thing? Would he talk about his opinion if it were so? This is the more necessary, because often one sees danger through a tendency, on the one hand, to let slip the force of Scripture as inspired of God, and, on the other, to weaken it by giving other men or writings such a name as “inspired,” which can only be in a lower poetic or figurative sense. The context must always direct us in deciding such questions. In the present instance of Elihu the context seems to me conclusive that inspiration, as applied to him here, does not mean what Paul predicates of every Scripture in 2 Timothy 3. Of the Scriptures, of course, the book of Job is part, and so inspired. The Holy Ghost, from whom it came, whoever might be the instrument, gave us a book as truly inspired of God as 2 Timothy which vouches for all. But the inspiration of the Almighty of which Elihu speaks does not go beyond the source of human understanding.
But in chapter 33 we find the first grand principle introduced for meeting the question of Job. He begins to open the moral reason for God's dealings, and for those trials under which job had been groaning. “Wherefore, Job,” he says, “I pray thee, hear my speeches, and hearken to all my words. Behold, now I have opened my mouth, my tongue hath spoken in my mouth. My words shall be of the uprightness of my heart: and my lips shall utter knowledge clearly. The Spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life.”
Then he puts forward the very point referred to already. “Behold, I am according to thy wish in God's stead: I also am formed out of the clay.” This is exactly what Job had desired, and now beyond his expectation, when he was entirely disappointed in his friends, God furnishes the help that was needed—a patient consideration of the awfully trying circumstances, with jealousy for God's glory at the right moment, and doubtless from the last quarter to which Job should have looked for it. “Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid.” He had complained that God acted thus on his soul and body. Was he a land or sea-monster that God should treat him as He did? for Job indeed had used most uncomely words. But should no account be taken of his friends' provocation and of his extreme agony in soul and body? “Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon thee.” It was God's hand that Job had so strongly deprecated. “Surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, and I have heard the voice of thy words, saying, I am clean without transgression, I am innocent; neither is there iniquity in me.” Beyond a doubt Job had gone too far. It was quite true that there was no such unseen wickedness as his friends insinuated, but it was utterly false that God had not the wisest reasons for withering self in Job's eyes.
Job had, by the very contemplation of the grace that had wrought so much in and by him, lost sight of the source of grace. He had been occupied with its effects; and the doubts of his friends, in addition to the dealings of God, had well-nigh maddened him. Instead of directing him to the grace that is in God, Eliphaz had thrown him more and more on himself and his ways, which was precisely the error into which Job had fallen. That is, Eliphaz thought that if he made righteousness his confidence, if he had a true ground of practical godliness in his life, it was impossible that he should be afflicted of God as he had been; whereas it was really because Job had slipped into the error of thinking too much of his own righteousness, necessarily breeding not a little self-complacency in his soul, that it was a needful discipline for God to bring him down. If to be blessed fully, he must have a sound judgment of himself, as well as a truer estimate of God; and this grace did give.
Now we do need practical righteousness and a good conscience as well as faith to resist the enemy, as we see in Ephesians 6 But we want something far brighter than this armor as a robe before God; we want divine righteousness here; and this Job had to learn. He had confounded the two things, as many a saint does to-day, to his own loss and the dishonor of God.
Elihu then puts clearly before him that he had spoken wrongfully of God, as well as too highly of himself. “Behold, he findeth occasions against me.” Was it comely so to speak of God? “He counteth me for his enemy.” Elihu justly complained of such language. A saint should be reverent. “He putteth my feet in the stocks, he marketh all my paths. Behold, in this thou art not just.” Is it possible that a godly man should allow his lips to accuse God of injustice? “I will answer thee, that God is greater than man. Why dost thou strive against him?” The three friends had failed to convict Job rightly while suspecting him wrongfully. Not only was Job judging God, but also he was not subject to Him. There was insubmission of heart. If God was dealing with him, why did he not inquire of Him, instead of murmuring? “Why dost thou strive against him? for he giveth not account of any of his matters. For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction.”
In this very chapter then Elihu points out to Job a rather ordinary way of God's dealings, though not by any means an invariable one. God is not at all limited in His methods of reaching men, but can in divers ways act on the soul. Here Elihu begins at the beginning with the greatest propriety. He begins with the first work of God in the man who does not know Him. It is grace working to awaken an unconverted soul. The reason for the remark will appear presently. Such is the first installment to the solution of the difficulty which all had felt; but as yet it remained entirely unsolved. “In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed; then he openeth the ears of men, and sealeth their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.” It is exactly what characterizes divine mercy in appealing to the unconverted man. He is carried away by his own will. But God knows how to bend or break it. “He keepeth back his soul from the pit” (such is the merciful object of God's intervention), “and his life from perishing by the sword.” Here is more than a dream of the night or passing vision; here are corrective ways, as well as glimpses of God's light, or of His judgment that he was despising. “He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, and the multitude of his bones with strong pain: so that his life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat. His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; and his bones that were not seen stick out. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers. If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness: then he is gracious unto him.”
It was of old then as now. God, who uses these outward means of dealing with a man, works by His word, and as an ordinary rule too by a messenger that He employs an interpreter, as we are told, one among a thousand. “Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom” —a singularly vivid mode of presenting that which God was about to accomplish in due time, and not merely here in a typical form of promise. Here we have plain enough language perhaps, indeed, as distinct words as any in the Old Testament, in anticipation of that infinite work which we now know to be finished in the cross of Christ.
What is the consequence then to the soul that thus bows to God while he listens to an interpreter, such as Elihu was himself? “His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth: he shall pray unto God, and he will be favorable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness. He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right.”
Accordingly we find that there is not only grace on God's part, but there is wrought repentance on man's—a repentance which is given him just as truly as faith. This answers to grace; and the sinner confides in God, when He can have no confidence in the sinner. Grace puts God and man in their true place. The question in conversion is, whether man is brought down to distrust himself, and thankfully to receive the testimony of God. For the sinner awakened it is the only true confidence in God. And faith does thus confide, and shows it wherever the testimony truly enters by repentance. The language of his heart is, “I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not.” And what does God in such a case? “He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man.”
It is not a doctrine how grace arouses sinners from the sleep of death; but there is a sketch to the life of His detailed ways; the use of sickness and sorrow, as of dreams or visions; His employment, especially, of those who come with the light of God to deal with the conscience of man. All this is brought out graphically, and the effect produced “To bring back his soul from the pit, to be enlightened with the light of the living.” Indeed it speaks to the point so forcibly that we know how often it is a favorite theme for those who preach the gospel to the unconverted even to this day. It is not meant, by any means, that Elihu's words furnish the fullest material or the deepest ground to preach from; but still it is a striking instance of living power that attaches to the earliest detail of God's way with a sinner in his awakening, that so many hundred, and indeed we may say two thousand, years before the gospel of God's grace was sent: out, we should have so ample an anticipation by Elihu the interpreter that intervenes for the help of Job himself, converted as he was.
Elihu then takes his stand first on God's using dreams and visions, trouble and sickness, as well as more directly spiritual means for blessing to the soul. But it is for one that knows nothing of God, that he may be brought into the enjoyment of His favor. Surely it is His favor that was pleased thus to work in the man, but now he is made conscious of His favor as far as the revelation went.
Thus, although the world be a ruin before God, and although it is too evident that Satan is the restless worker of all evil here below, which is brought before us in the plainest manner in this book, God who is above it all, and who seems to take no part in it, carries on His gracious ways, and this to convert and deliver those who have been wretched, vile, and rebellious. It is not that retributive government to which man's heart would constantly limit God, but a government of souls while the world goes on in pride. Man likes to see people punished when they deserve it. It is natural to the heart. There is something in our nature which, when one is not actually suffering or dreading it, likes to find some (shall I say good or bad?) reason why another should be punished if he does suffer. This was at work in the three friends. But the book of Job is intended to show that they were all wrong in their application of this truth. Not that there will not be perfect retribution when the time comes for it, by the only One capable of carrying it out; but that it is only partial now. Christ alone will act perfectly in it by and by; but the time awaits His coming. There will be no adequate retributive government till the Lord Jesus takes the reins. He Himself was in this world the greatest of sufferers, as we know; and so the saints were sufferers before Christ, and still more since Christ. At any rate, the grace now displayed is such that God counts it a privilege given us to suffer for His sake; so that we surely ought to be able to bless God for it in a way that Job and no other could, because we have Christ fully revealed. Job did not know why his gracious Master gave him up to such tremendous and reiterated trouble. He had to learn why, and to learn it slowly and painfully, but blessedly at the end. We begin where he ended. Having in Christ the true light of God, we have not only His perfect love, but that there goes on a kind of divine government quite different from retribution; that there is a gracious dealing of God for the good of souls, and connected with it a moral government, unheeded by the world, which, spite of all appearances to the contrary, never fails. It is not a government consisting in what is public, or what natural men can judge of. It is none the less God dealing with souls, and to all that how to His word and to Himself ineffable blessing. The discipline may be painful, not to say that it must be. What blessing can there be without it in our nature and in this world? The cross tells what it cost the Lord Himself to make our blessing a righteous thing; the manifestation of the same truth in the highest and deepest way. Where is there a single joy for us, once dead in sins but now saved by grace, that had not its root in the sorrows and sufferings of Him who bore our judgment? And so it is for those that learn what sin is in the presence of God.
But this is only the first part of God's government, what is taught by God's dealing with a sinner to bring him into the apprehension of his own guilt and need, as well as of God's goodness. He is thus delivered from going down into the pit.
[W. K.]
(To be continued)