Page 31 - The Poetic Books - Student Text

Elihu uses a different tactic to begin. He has heard speech after lengthy
speech. He sprinkles a bit of humor into his beginning. “I am full of
words,” he says (32:18). “I am like bottled-up wine, like new wineskins
ready to burst,” he adds (32:19). He must speak. Elihu, in trying to
approach the situation of suffering from a different angle admits to being
a wind-bag. He emphasizes the “breath of the Almighty” (32:8; 33:4) and
words about the process of speaking: “lips” (32:20, 33:3) and “tongue”
(33:2) and “mouth” (33:2), for example. He tries to calm Job by
comparing the two of them. “I am the same as you in God’s sight (33:6).”
He stands with Job as a mere mortal in contrast to the great God (33:12). Figure 17: Windbag

As with the others, Elihu suggests a variety of means at God’s disposal to speak to a human. As Eliphaz
claimed, God might speak in a dream or a vision at night (33:15). Sometimes God speaks directly to a
human (33:16). The goal in both cases is to prevent their destruction (33:17-18). Or God might speak
through pain itself. He “chastens on a bed of pain” (33:19). The most important means of
communication is not from God to a person. The most important communication is from a messenger to
God. Elihu describes this messenger as “one of a thousand” (33:23). He represents the suffering human
with grace and says, “I have found a ransom for them (33:24).” With such an intermediary, the person
can then pray to God and find favor with him (33:26). With such an intermediary, the person will admit
his sin and, more importantly, admit that God did not give him what he deserved (33:27).

Verse 33:24 is loaded with theological words: “gracious,” “spare,” and “ransom.” All picture humans as
undeserving and God as giving us what we don’t deserve in a positive sense. The noun “grace” is
repeated often in Genesis to identify people who receive undeserved blessing from God (6:8; 18:3; 33:8,
11; 39:21). While “spare” is an unusual word, “ransom” implies a payment. In later OT books the concept
is “to atone by offering a substitute” and is used 49 times in Leviticus alone “in connection with the
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removal of sin or defilement.” God is the only one who can provide the ransom spoken of here.

Elihu takes what Job had said about a mediator and fills in some important blanks. A ransom implies
payment to God for one’s sins. Vindication does not come from Job, as if he were completely innocent
and God wrong. Vindication comes from the mediator. This is Messianic language not unlike Job’s
insistence that his Redeemer lives (19:25), yet Elihu is more detailed, more pointed. If we are correct
about the backgrounds of both Job and Elihu, we find here someone more directly in the stream of
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Messianic revelation, Elihu, teaching a true believer who has less information. “Elihu is no doubt
showing Job who his witness (16:19) or his redeemer (19:25) really is and what his task will be (cf.
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9:33).” The only way any human can interact with God is from a position of grace. We can never get
God in our debt. He will never ever owe us anything. Favor, favor won by a Redeemer and mediator, is
the only ground on which we can stand.

46 R. Laird Harris, ed. Theological Wordbook of the Old Testament (Chicago: Moody Bible Institute, 1980), s.v. rpk
by R. Laird Harris.
47 Note the theme and details presented by Richard Lauger in The Pentateuch (Luverne: First Baptist Church, 2016).
48 Hartley, The Book of Job, 446.
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