Submitted to: Dr. Kathe Darr and Dr. Brandon Simonson
BU STH TO 704: Introduction to the Hebrew Bible
December 10, 2023
Introduction
Elihu as a character in the Hebrew Bible has been viewed with a wide variety of perspectives throughout the interpretative history of the book of Job.[1] This is true even in light of the difficulties inherent in Job itself, and Elihu’s speeches have been both condemned as false prophesy and lauded as the key to the rest of the book.[2] By examining the Elihu speeches in their place in between the speeches of Job and his friends and God’s appearance, their role can be determined. The author of the Elihu speeches in the book of Job wrote the section in order to resolve the tension between Job’s blamelessness and God’s righteousness through Elihu’s explanation of Job’s suffering as a warning, and did so by reorienting Job’s understanding of faith in preparation for God’s speeches out of the whirlwind.
The Book of Job
Reading the book of Job is assisted by knowledge of its structure. It opens with a story in prose in chapters 1 and 2 wherein Job’s blamelessness is established, and his suffering begins.[3] Next, Job himself begins the section composed of poetic speeches. Each of Job’s three friends then speak to Job, and he responds to each one in turn. The third repetition of this pattern is not finished, as the third friend does not have a last speech.[4] Job then speaks for three chapters, in which he laments his fate and maintains his lack of fault. Elihu, a new character, then gives a poetic speech for five chapters. God then responds out of the whirlwind, and there is a prose epilogue.
The discussion surrounding the originality or later addition of the Elihu speeches is controversial and unresolved, with both perspectives present in current literature.[5] However, this paper will examine the intent of the author of the Elihu speeches regardless of their time of writing; their place in conversation with the other parts of the book is sufficient to reveal the author’s goal. For the sake of clarity, this paper will use the term “author” in the singular to refer to the agent(s) responsible for the speeches. The contested nature of the section, and the book in general, is beyond the scope of this paper, but the argued intent present in the speeches can be supported without reliance on personal knowledge of the author. Writing about theodicy occurs within a world that contains suffering, and the author is offering their understanding.[6] This paper is not arguing the identity of the author, merely that the producer of the Elihu speeches wished to convey their understanding of theodicy in the book of Job and did so through Elihu.
Elihu as a Character
It is necessary to argue that Elihu’s place in the story is distinct from that of Job and his three friends so that his speeches can be read as the intended position of the author. Elihu is unique among the humans in the book of Job in two aspects: he claims to speak from revelation, and he is not rebuked nor praised by God at the end of the book. In Job 32:8 and 32:18-22, Elihu speaks as if he has wisdom from God.[7] This is significant claim for a character to make, and it sets the reader in a receptive posture for the rest of the speeches. Elihu’s position is supported by the author’s understanding of truth, which is conveyed through this claim of authority. The larger section also has notable structure, suggesting that it was written in a careful rhetorical manner.[8] This is combined with God’s lack of condemnation of Elihu’s lengthy speeches to show significant support from the author that Elihu is to be taken as authoritative. God, in Job 42:7-9, commands the three friends to make a burnt offering and for Job to pray for them. Elihu, despite arguing in the same conversation as Job and his friends, is absent. No burnt offering or prayer is needed for Elihu in the epilogue because he did not make the error that the friends did.
Elihu’s name is also significant, and he is given a more personal introduction than the three friends are. “Elihu” means “He is my God”,[9] pointing to the faithfulness of the character. Even his father’s name, “Barachel” means “God has blessed”.[10] The family name, “Ram”, also suggests a connection to Abraham.[11] The three-fold connection to the God of Israel in this character reinforces his role in the story as one that speaks with wisdom.
Elihu’s Argument
Elihu’s position holds both that Job is “blameless and upright”[12] and that God is perfectly just. But Job’s blameless state is not without misunderstanding. In Job 1, it is clearly established that Job dutifully performed the required rituals for both him and his children. However, Job’s speeches throughout the course of the book reveal the legalistic framework under which he does so. Even though he correctly maintains God’s justice and his own innocence, he cries out for a mediator to correct the perceived injustice.[13] Job seeks to “argue my case with God”[14] and believes that his situation is one to be rectified in a court case. He sees this injustice as a misunderstanding or mistake, and he is attempting to appeal to an authority in order to remedy his suffering. Although Job is faithful in maintaining God’s goodness, he is mistaken in that he understands faith to be legalistic in itself. His friends make the worse mistake of equating wickedness with earthly punishment[15] and judging Job, but Job is notable in that even though he understands religion legalistically, he does not compromise what he knows to be the truth. Job’s unique posture towards God, as truly blameless but within a legalistic framework, is why God singled him out to Satan in Job 1:8. Correcting this misunderstanding could only be done in a story with a truly blameless character because the punishment had to be truly undeserved; if the character had any reason to be punished, their sin could be blamed for that temporal punishment.
The author has Elihu provide the solution in Job 33. A reading of Job 33 that applies Elihu’s “But in this you are not right”[16] to only verses 10 and 11, not verse 9, allows for Elihu to hold Job’s purity. Elihu paraphrases two of Job’s claims: that he is without transgression and that God is against him. While it has been said that Elihu is quoting Job unfairly in this section,[17] Elihu’s emphasis is not on Job’s sin but on Job’s cry that God is treating him unjustly. Even if Elihu is taking Job’s statements about innocence farther than Job himself, the resolution is in Elihu’s claim that God communicates to people through various means, including suffering, in order to tell them to change their ways. In verses 17 and 18, “that he may turn them aside from their deeds, and keep them from pride, to spare their souls from the Pit, their lives from traversing the river,”[18] Elihu is framing Job’s affliction not as punishment but as a message and warning.
Job’s legalistic misunderstanding of faith is something the author believes there is a need to be warned against. Job’s suffering is not a moral consequence nor something to be appealed in court because it is a message.[19] Job, and those that have a similar view as Job, are seen by the author as in danger of complacency and entitlement. Elihu, in chapter 34, extols God’s just nature. In chapter 35, he illustrates the smallness of humans in comparison to God. No human act, in Elihu’s understanding, binds God to certain actions or treatment; no number of sacrifices or sins can help or harm God, so it is wrong to assume that God will act in a certain manner merely because of one’s own actions. Elihu reframes Job’s relationship to God out of a legal system and into one of powerlessness in relation to God.[20]
The fear of God, in contrast to reliance on Job’s own understanding, is done through the use of natural imagery that mirrors God’s speeches.[21] Elihu begins with God’s creation of storms: “Can anyone understand the spreading of clouds, the thunderings of his pavilion? See, he scatters his lightning around him and covers the roots of the sea.”[22] The magnitude of a thunderstorm dwarfs a person, so the power it takes for God to create one is meant to make Job, and by extension the reader, feel minuscule. In 37:2, God’s voice itself is thunder, again raising the perceived power of God. Not only does God create thunderstorms, but his very voice is also thunder. The continued and invocation of destructive storms throughout chapter 37 culminates in a line of questioning from Elihu beginning in verse 15.[23] There is a shift away from showing Job the power of God to asking Job if he knows the workings of creation. Elihu’s last ten lines then build in preparation to God’s speeches by emphasizing God’s greatness to Job.
God’s Speeches
God’s speeches begin with a series of questions to Job that assert God’s power. These rhetorical questions contain no direct answer to Job’s extensive lament except that God is exceedingly powerful, especially in relation to Job. The nature imagery serves to double the contrast in power through the creation and domination of something that already dwarfs Job. “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth”[24] is an immediate change in Job’s frame of reference. From his own suffering, he is told to behold the creation of the world; this is not an answer to Job’s pain but to Job’s place in relation to God. In verses 38:25-28, storm imagery similar to Elihu’s is used. The difference is that the rain and the thunderbolt, seemingly massive in Elihu’s speech, is surrounded by even more cosmic language. Just before, in verse 17, God speaks of the “gates of death”. [25] Just after, he appeals to his power over the constellations themselves. This is another increase in the magnitude of imagery used to talk of God’s power. The steps taken up towards God’s statement “shall a faultfinder content with the Almighty?”[26] result in Job’s realization of God’s infinitude in relation to himself. This is no longer a God that Job is to reason with and satisfy with sacrifices: this is a God to be obeyed beyond understanding. God continues with more assertions, then Job responds once more, with his final turn: “Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know”[27] Job was not given an answer for his suffering directly from God. God only had to reveal His power to Job after Elihu’s explanation. Both God and Elihu speak with the author’s authority, and the two sets of speeches are to be read together.
Elihu’s Purpose
Elihu’s entire section serves to reorient Job into a posture of humble learning from God. At the beginning of Elihu’s speeches, he is chastising Job and his friends for their errors. He then moves into his own explanation of Job’s affliction, which is that it is a warning to Job. He ends his section by pointing to God’s majesty and all-powerful nature, so that Job assumes the correct stance before God. The author of this section, by framing the suffering as a warning, effectively connects the two seemingly incompatible extremes of the book: Job’s righteousness, asserted repeatedly in the face of doubt, and God’s infinite power and wisdom. Both can be held as true when Elihu’s speeches are read in between the two positions. God answered Job not with a rational appeal, but with a display of power. If God’s speeches had been read immediately after Job’s lament, the immediate shift in Job’s posture would not be due to a new, humble, understanding, but out of a mortal fear. God offered no explanation, but Elihu did in preparation for the encounter. The author wrote Elihu’s speeches as an explanation for the rest of the book because they serve to reveal that the paradox of Job’s blamelessness and God’s goodness and power is not a paradox at all.
God’s lack of rebuke towards Elihu also serves to unite his position with God’s. The epilogue does not mention Elihu at all. While he is not explicitly endorsed, he is also not condemned along with the three friends that offered explanations. Elihu’s speeches are more similar to those of Job’s friends than to Job’s in that he is trying to explain to Job why he is suffering. If the mere act of attempting an explanation is a sin, then Elihu would have been included with the three friends in the command to offer a sacrifice. Job was praised by God in the epilogue for his steadfastness. Elihu, even though he was right, did not have to defend God or withstand any suffering for his position, and thereby did not earn a positive mention in the epilogue either. His connective role had been played, and he was neither punished nor praised even though he claimed to speak with revelation.
Conclusion
Elihu’s speeches, even though their time of writing is disputed, are in the book to serve as an interpretive guide for the proceeding and following sections. Job’s lament and assertions of innocence are reframed as a message from God that could only be given to a character as upright as Job himself. The author answers the question of theodicy by offering, in the Elihu speeches, a situation in which undeserved suffering is not unjust. God’s power and wisdom are absolute, so the problem is not in the suffering itself but Job’s understanding. Job is being warned against complacency, and even though the messenger is harsh, the author of the book is attempting to convince the reader that they don’t know God’s will and they should not assume that their plight is due to their sin nor unjust. The author’s crescendo of nature imagery into God’s speeches from Elihu’s speeches guides the reader’s perspective away from their suffering and into the heavens without a sudden shift, helping the reader to connect the beginning and ending of the book. Both Job’s and God’s moral standings are preserved by the author of the Elihu speeches.
Bibliography
Andersen, Francis I. Job an Introduction and Commentary. London: Inter-Varsity Press, 1976.
Andersen, Ragnar. “The Elihu Speeches: Their Place and Sense in the Book of Job.” Tyndale Bulletin 66:1 (2015): 75–94. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAn3804072&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Boström, Lennart. “Another Ending to the Book of Job.” Word & World 40:3 (2020): 300–307. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLAiREM200930000413&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Brueggemann, Walter. “Theodicy in a Social Dimension.” Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 10:33 (1985): 3–25. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0000953424&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Hartley, John E. The Book of Job. The New International Commentary on the Old Testament. Grand Rapids, Michigan: William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988.
Pope, Marvin H. Job. The Anchor Bible. Third ed. Garden City, New York: Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965.
Skehan, Patrick William. “I Will Speak up: Job 32.” The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 31:3 (1969): 380–82. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0000716310&site=ehost-live&scope=site.
Waters, Larry J. “Elihu’s Categories of Suffering from Job 32-37.” Bibliotheca Sacra 166:664 (2009): 405–20. https://search-ebscohost-com.ezproxy.bu.edu/login.aspx?direct=true&db=lsdar&AN=ATLA0001748732&site=ehost-live&scope=site
[1] Ragnar Andersen, “The Elihu Speeches: Their Place and Sense in the Book of Job.” (Tyndale Bulletin 66:1, 2015) 76.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Lennart Boström, “Another Ending to the Book of Job.” (Word & World 40:3, 2020) 300.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Ragnar Andersen, “The Elihu Speeches: Their Place and Sense in the Book of Job.” 76.
[6] Walter Brueggemann, “Theodicy in a Social Dimension” (Journal for the Study of the Old Testament 10:33, 1985) 7.
[7] Marvin H. Pope, Job. (Garden City, Doubleday & Company, Inc., 1965) 242; John E. Hartley, The Book of Job (Grand Rapids, William B Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1988) 427.
[8] Patrick William Skehan, “I Will Speak up: Job 32.” (The Catholic Biblical Quarterly 31:3, 1969) 382.
[9] Marvin H. Pope, Job. 242.
[10] Ibid.
[11] Ibid.
[12] Job 1:1 New Revised Standard Version
[13] Job 9:33
[14] Job 13:3
[15] Job 15:1-35
[16] Job 33:12
[17] Marvin H. Pope, Job. 248; John E. Hartley, The Book of Job. 440; Francis I. Andersen, Job an Introduction and Commentary (London, Inter-Varsity Press, 1976) 248.
[18] Job 33:17-18
[19] Larry J. Waters, “Elihu’s Categories of Suffering from Job 32-37.” (Bibliotheca Sacra 166:664, 2009). 409.
[20] Lennart Boström, “Another Ending to the Book of Job.” 303.
[21] Ragnar Andersen, “The Elihu Speeches: Their Place and Sense in the Book of Job.” 87.
[22] Job 36:29-30
[23] Job 37:15
[24] Job 38:4
[25] Job 38:17
[26] Job 40:2
[27] Job 42:3
Logan Abraham 