Behold, I [am] according to thy wish in God's
stead
So some persons are, as civil magistrates, the ministers of the
word, the prophets of the Old Testament, and the apostles of the
New; see ( 2
Corinthians 5:20 ) ; and so in some sense was Elihu; he
undertakes to be an advocate for God, to vindicate his justice in
his dealings with the children of men, and clear him from the
charge of severity towards them, and hard usage of them, and
particularly Job; and whom he besought, as in God's stead, to be
reconciled to his providential dealings with him; to bear his
afflictions patiently, and wait the issue of them: or "I am as
thou art"; so the Targum and Ben Gersom interpret it; one that
belongs to God, a creature of God's, a sinful frail mortal
creature, as Job was, and accountable to God; one that belonged
to him both as the God of nature and providence, and of grace;
and such an one Job seemed to have wished for, to dispute the
point in question with; see ( Job 9:32 Job 9:33 ) ;
I also am formed out of the clay;
or "cut out" F5 of it; alluding to the potter, who,
out of a mass or lump of clay before him, cuts a piece out of it
to make a vessel of God is the potter, men are as clay in his
hands, their bodies are bodies of clay, houses of clay, which
have their foundation in the dust; reference may be had to the
original formation of man, ( Genesis 2:7 ) , and may
denote not so, much the pollution of his nature, clay being
defiling, but the frailty of man, a vessel made of clay being
brittle, and easily broken; see ( Job 4:19 ) ( 10:9 ) ( 13:12 ) ( Isaiah 64:8 ) .