The Calm Before the Storm

I think the figure of Elihu operates in the same way John the Baptist does for Jesus. He prepares the way for Job to encounter God. And as Elihu commences the content of his speech he arrives at the first hint of the sort of ideas he is going to bring to the table in this book. 

Job 33:9–12 (ESV) You say, ‘I am pure, without transgression; I am clean, and there is no iniquity in me. 10 Behold, he finds occasions against me, he counts me as his enemy, 11 he puts my feet in the stocks and watches all my paths.’ 12 “Behold, in this you are not right. I will answer you, for God is greater than man.

Elihu is the first person to ask Job to consider that God is not as a man. He is greater than a man. Job has acknowledged God's greatness already but Elihu presents it in the framework of Job's contending with God. Elihu stipulates that God speaks in ways we do not understand and operates in ways we cannot often comprehend. 

Job 33:13–18 (ESV) Why do you contend against him, saying, ‘He will answer none of man’s words’? 14 For God speaks in one way, and in two, though man does not perceive it. 15 In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on their beds, 16 then he opens the ears of men and terrifies them with warnings, 17 that he may turn man aside from his deed and conceal pride from a man; 18 he keeps back his soul from the pit, his life from perishing by the sword.

That is exactly what makes Him - GOD. We look for pat answers to life's challenges. But God is neither beholden to our understanding of how life should work nor is He bound to operate according to our specifications.

Then Elihu presents the picture of a man suffering through the Lord's rebuke:

Job 33:19–20 (ESV) “Man is also rebuked with pain on his bed and with continual strife in his bones, 20 so that his life loathes bread, and his appetite the choicest food.

Job 33:22 (ESV) His soul draws near the pit, and his life to those who bring death.

Then Elihu describes a mediator for such a man.

Job 33:23–26 (ESV) If there be for him an angel, a mediator, one of the thousand, to declare to man what is right for him, 24 and he is merciful to him, and says, ‘Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom; 25 let his flesh become fresh with youth; let him return to the days of his youthful vigor’; 26 then man prays to God, and he accepts him; he sees his face with a shout of joy, and he restores to man his righteousness.

What Job asked for is what Elihu presents. And it brings us back to the theme of this book which we must remember is wisdom literature. If a man suffers the rebuke of God, he ultimately needs a mediator to plead his case because none of us understand His ways or comprehend His methods. A mediator unlike any other (1 in a 1000) is necessary to bring us right standing with God. But notice the line in Verse 24: "Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom". We need more than a mediator, we need a ransom who will pay what we owe the Lord for our sins. 

Elihu is making clear to Job, there's no man who is righteous to plead his case before God and there's no man who can pay to God what he owes. Job had considered that he was unjustly treated, but here, with heavenly insight, he is presented with the fact that not even he understands the truest sense of righteousness. And as Job is, so we all are no matter how "good" we perceive ourselves to be. 

We need both mediator and ransom, and His name is Jesus.