Tom’s Notes for the February 23rd, 2019 Bible Study

Job’s three friends [Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar] were rebuked:

Job 12:1-5 “Job upbraids his friends with the good opinion they had of their own wisdom compared with his.” From Matthew Henry

Job 32: 12 [Elihu to the three friends] Yea, I attended unto you, and, behold, there was none of you that convinced Job, or that answered his words:

Job 32: 3 Also against his three friends was his [Job’s] wrath kindled, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job.

Job 40:7 …the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite, My wrath is kindled against thee, and against thy two friends: for ye have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job hath.

And Job was rebuked too:

Job 37: 1-2 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind, and said, Who is this that darkeneth counsel by words without knowledge? Pulpit Commentary: “…God addresses wholly to Job, with whom he begins by remonstrating. Job has not been without fault. He has spoken many “words without knowledge”

Job 32:2 Then was kindled the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram: against Job was his wrath kindled, because he justified himself rather than God.

Job admitted he did not understand:

Job 42:3 Who is he that hideth counsel without knowledge? therefore have I uttered that I understood not; things too wonderful for me, which I knew not. Matthew Henry “Job was now sensible of his guilt; he would no longer speak in his own excuse;”

Elihu was not rebuked:

Job 32: 14 Elihu: he (Job) hath not directed his words against me

Job 33:5 Elihu: If thou canst answer me, set thy words in order before me, stand up.

A couple comments on Elihu by John Calvin and Carl Cornill:

John Calvin was extremely complimentary toward Elihu for “there are few people in the Bible Calvin admires more.”29 [Susan E. Schreiner, Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? Calvin’s Exegesis of Job from Medieval and Modern Perspectives. [Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 131-34). 29 Ibid., 131. For Calvin, Elihu’s teaching was essentially the same truth declared in God’s whirlwind speeches.]

Cornill refers to the Elihu speeches as “the summit and crown of the Book of Job, and says they provide the only solution to the problem of suffering.33 33 Carl Cornill, Introduction to the Canonical Books of the Old Testament, trans. 108; G. H. Box, Theological Translation Library, vol. 23 (New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1907), 428.