A younger man by the name of Elihu has been listening to this dialog. He has been patient, because of his age (Job 32:6), to the point of almost bursting.
Behold, my belly is like wine that has no vent;
like new wineskins ready to burst.
I must speak, that I may find relief;
I must open my lips and answer.
And to claim his place in the conversation, he alludes to how a potter makes a series of dishes.
Behold, I am toward God as you are;
I too was pinched off from a piece of clay.
But as Elihu joins the conversation he says something very different, in this first discourse, because he does understand that God is indeed the potter (Romans 9:1-29). While Eliphas, Bildad, and Zophar argue that if Job does something, then God will do something, Elihu asserts that because of God's immenseness, the opposite is true.
“Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you,
for God is greater than man.
He explains the "If God, then man" paradigm in a clear Ordo Salutis (order of salvation):
If there be for him an angel,
a mediator, one of the thousand,
to declare to man what is right for him,
and he is merciful to him, and says,
‘Deliver him from going down into the pit;
I have found a ransom;
let his flesh become fresh with youth;
let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’;
then man[a] prays to God, and he accepts him;
he sees his face with a shout of joy,
and he restores to man his righteousness.
He sings before men and says:
‘I sinned and perverted what was right,
and it was not repaid to me.
He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit,
and my life shall look upon the light.’
Then in a second discourse he turns first to his companions and asks them to reexamine their arguments. He does so by egregiously misquoting Job twice (Job 34:5-6 vs Job 13:26 and Job 5:9 vs Job 9:22) as they seem to have done in their arguments.
He goes on to explain that Job's calamity and God's sovereign withdrawal of blessing are not connected.
When he is quiet, who can condemn?
When he hides his face, who can behold him,
whether it be a nation or a man?
Then he turns to Job and challenges him for placing himself on equal footing with God. Others are more penitent.
“For has anyone said to God,
‘I have borne punishment; I will not offend any more;
teach me what I do not see;
if I have done iniquity, I will do it no more’?
Will he then make repayment to suit you,
because you reject it?
For you must choose, and not I;
therefore declare what you know.
Then in a third discourse, Elihu explains to Job his place in the enormity of creation. He simply does not have an impact on God.
Look at the heavens, and see;
and behold the clouds, which are higher than you.
If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against him?
And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?
If you are righteous, what do you give to him?
Or what does he receive from your hand?
And he goes on to assert that God does not in fact have to take up Job's case.
Surely God does not hear an empty cry,
nor does the Almighty regard it.
How much less when you say that you do not see him,
that the case is before him, and you are waiting for him!
In all of this Job does not respond. There is a truth about it that was not present in the discourses of the earlier speakers.
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