Today, I am reading and commenting on Job 29-33.

When I read Elihu’s monologue I am always struck by his humility.  He waited to speak until Job’s other three friends, who were his elders, had said all that they had to say.  The passage tells us that he was angry with Job for justifying himself instead of justifying God.  An important point to remember is that in the conclusion to the Book of Job, God condemns what the other three had to say, but does not mention Elihu, which suggests that Elihu made mostly good points.  So, let me look at some of those good points.  As Elihu begins to address Job he makes sure to tell Job that he does not think that he is better than Job.  Elihu is not claiming to be more righteous than Job, or better than him in any way.  Elihu then takes issue with Job’s claim to be pure and without sin.  He does not make much of that point, instead transitioning into what seems to be his main contention with what Job has said: that God respond to those who cry out to Him for explanations.  Elihu says that Job is wrong, God does speak.  It’s just that we often do not recognize His voice when He does so.  Elihu then tells us some of the ways in which God speaks to us: sometimes in dreams, sometimes through pain or other suffering.  I don’t believe that Elihu means to limit the ways in which God speaks to us to those two.  He just gives them as examples.  In fact, he sort of gives us an example of that.  He says that we will have a messenger at our side who was sent to tell us how to be upright.  That messenger, that angel, may be a voice which speaks to us in our dreams; it may be a person who speaks to us, it may be a supernatural being who speaks to us in other ways; it may also be the Bible itself.

I use the daily Bible reading schedule from “The Bible.net” for my daily Bible reading.