What Is Elihu’s Intense Message to Job’s Friends?
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Elihu bridges the wide gap between the advice of Job’s friends and the voice of God in the poetic narrative of the Book of Job.
What Does the Name Elihu Mean?
The name “Elihu” means “My God is He” or “God is my helper.” Elihu is an appropriate name for someone who reveals God’s connection to our human struggles.
God has given young Elihu insight into Job’s problems:
“I thought, ‘Age should speak; advanced years should teach wisdom.’ But it is the spirit in a person, the breath of the Almighty, that gives them understanding.” (Job 32:7-8)
After a whirlwind of words from Job and his friends functioning as amateur counselors, Elihu speaks. Job complains about his situation and takes exception to his friends’ advice: they insist Job has sinned and God is punishing him. Elihu understands God’s presence in our lives goes much deeper and wider than that. While criticizing the friends, Elihu respects the three elders attending to Job. However, young Elihu defends God’s righteousness and introduces His profound message on human suffering.
What Happens Before Elihu Shows Up in the Book of Job?
Job is a wealthy, model citizen, faithful to God, before his life becomes a disaster. God has given Job a rich life with a big, feasting family and large herds of livestock. Job remembers to be thankful by making sacrifices to God regularly. All is well.
Everything changes after God meets with a satanic agent who bets that Job will denounce God if Job’s good fortune turns into bad times.
Flash forward. Job loses his children, livestock, and health. His children are killed when a building collapses on them during a storm. Then Job’s livestock are stolen, and Job's enemies kill his servants. At this juncture, Job does not blame God for his troubles. He holds steady in his faith, saying to his fed-up wife, “Shall we indeed accept good from God and not accept adversity?” (Job 2:10).
The devil agent’s next skillful move is to try to ruin Job’s spirit by inflicting illness on him. The evil one covers Job's body with boils. Job sits in ashes, covered with sores and cutting himself.
Job is devastated by his loss of family, property, and health. He thinks it unfair that a good man such as he should suffer while wicked men thrive (Job 10:1-7; 21:7-16). His faith in God wavers but does not buckle. Job asks why God has given him the silent treatment on top of misery. Job claims he can’t find God, let alone get any answers from Him as to why he has lost everything dear to him (Job 13:22-24).
The three friends—Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar—attempt to explain Job’s suffering based on their understanding of God’s justice. The friends state that Job has sinned and God is punishing him with afflictions. They also believe God rescues the righteous in due time. Job does not see any of God’s justice in human affairs:
“It is all the same; that is why I say ‘He destroys both the blameless and the wicked.’ When a scourge brings sudden death, He mocks the despair of the innocent” (Job 9:22-23).
Job despairs as he maintains he is innocent (Job 27:3-6).
After listening to the friends and Job speak, Elihu becomes “angry with Job because he justified himself rather than God” (Job 32:2). That is, Elihu is displeased with Job’s self-righteousness. Elihu also believes the three friends judge Job based on a narrow, legalistic view of God’s righteousness.
What Does Elihu Say to Job?
Elihu introduces himself as partial to no one, speaking for God (Job 32:21-22; 33:3-4). His intention contrasts with Job’s three friends, who speak for themselves and their own understanding of God’s justice. Elihu believes God does speak to us in our troubled times:
“For God does speak—now one way, now another—though no one perceives it. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on people as they slumber in their beds, he may speak in their ears and terrify them with warnings, to turn them from wrongdoing and keep them from pride.” (Job 33:14-17)
Job must release his pride and examine his heart and actions. Elihu says, “What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water? . . . For he [Job] says, ‘It profits a man nothing when he tries to please God’” (Job 34:7, Job 34:9). “Drinking scorn like water” implies that Job cannot accept criticism or rebuke from God. According to Elihu, God’s spokesperson, Job has not examined his soul through God’s lens.
Elihu further states, “He repays a man for what he has done, He brings upon him what his conduct deserves. It is unthinkable that God would do wrong, that the Almighty would pervert justice” (Job 34:11-12). Job ceases his protests about fairness when Elihu speaks. The friends also sit in silence as Elihu acts as God’s mouthpiece. Elihu speaks with authority.
Elihu tells the listeners that there is more than justice in God’s work. God allows suffering in people’s lives to teach them important lessons and to turn their hearts back to Him. We find these wise words about God in Elihu’s speech:
“But if people are bound in chains, held fast by cords of affliction, He tells them what they have done—that they have sinned arrogantly. He makes them listen to correction and commands them to repent of their evil.” (Job 36:8-10)
There is grace in God’s dealing with sinful people, as Elihu explains: “But for those who suffer, he delivers in their suffering; he speaks to them in their affliction.” (Job 36:15)
When all is said and done, Elihu reminds readers that a person finds trust in God no matter their situation: “God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him?” (Job 36:22)
Elihu emphasizes God’s mercy and power in his conversation with Job (Job 37:23-24). As Elihu concludes his speech, God’s power is described in terms of His awesome creation. These lines of poetry, immediately after Elihu’s speech, introduce God’s own stunning description of His presence in the natural world.
What Makes Elihu’s Advice Different from What Job’s Friends Say?
Elihu defers to God in all of his speeches. Elihu does not “lean on his own understanding” (Proverbs 3:5). He explains God’s high expectations for our righteousness and humbleness. At the same time, Elihu conveys that people's actions determine their destiny. God respects those “wise in heart” (Job 37:24) and watches evil people fall to ruin.
Job listens silently to Elihu and then to God. There are no rebuttals from Job during Elihu’s speech. This alone indicates Job has become wiser. Elihu opens the door to Job’s listening to God.
How Can We Emulate Elihu Today?
Elihu teaches us to view God’s creation and human inhabitants in a big-picture frame. He would want us to see the broad scope of God’s care for us. The God who made rain and lions—and oversees life and death—watches our individual lives. Therefore, in our own difficult times, it is wise to keep a broad perspective of God, the natural world, and our place in it.
We may wonder, like Job, why there is suffering in our lives. If God is just, why do bad things happen to good people? Bible scholars believe that the book of Job is possibly the first recorded book of the Bible, so it appears that wondering, like Job, why good people have trouble is a question as old as the hills. In all of Job’s and his friends’ speculation (but more so in the God-given words of Elihu and God Himself) the book of Job faces this question.
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This article is part of our People from the Bible Series featuring the most well-known historical names and figures from Scripture. We have compiled these articles to help you study those whom God chose to set before us as examples in His Word. May their lives and walks with God strengthen your faith and encourage your soul.
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