February 14

Elihu

Job 32

With Job’s speech the debate between him and his friends is virtually at an end. At the proper time Bildad had spoken a few inapplicable words; but when an opportunity was afforded, Zophar, who should have spoken, held his peace; and when another occasion was afforded, Eliphaz spoke not, perhaps not only because he had nothing to say, or despaired of making any impression upon Job, but because he would not commit the indecorum of seeming to speak instead of Zophar. So when Job had finished there was a general silence. The three friends looked upon each other, but declined to make any answer to the sufferer. This brings a new personage upon the scene. If our judgment of the locality of the land of Uz be correct, this person must have lived in the neighborhood, and appears to have been present, as probably were many others during the whole debate. His youth had held him silent, though burning to take part in the discussion; the etiquette of the East—such as we have lately described it—constraining him to silence until these venerable seniors had exhausted their arguments, and clearly had no more to say. He then, with all the ardor of youth, and all the eagerness of long-suppressed desire, leaps abruptly into the arena, and with a becoming apology for the interference of one so young, undertakes to explain in what respects, as it appeared to him, both parties in the debate had erred, and to state where the truth of the question lay.

This person was “Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram.” It is remarkable that this is the only one of the parties introduced in the poem whose genealogy is thus carefully given. Hence from this and other circumstances, some have thought that Elihu was the author of the book; but others have only been able to gather from it that he was a comparatively obscure and unknown person, so that these marks of identification became necessary. None, about the time in which the book was written, needed to be told who such eminent persons as Job, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar were; but they might have been at a loss respecting Elihu, had not these particulars concerning his family been given.

We, in this remote age, can gather little more from it than that Elihu belonged to a branch of the family of Abraham. His brother Nahor had two sons, Uz and Buz. Job, it would seem, was descended from the former, and Elihu appears to be descended from the latter; and the circumstance of his being of the family of Buz, was doubtless thus pointedly mentioned by the sacred writer to draw respectful attention to him, notwithstanding his youth, on account of his relationship to Abraham. Indeed this may be even more emphatically indicated than at first view appears. It is said he was “of the kindred of Ram.” Who was this Ram? No one knows; but what if it should be Abraham, or rather Ab-ram, by which, his older name, he probably continued to be mentioned in the land from which he went? Many solid writers, including several Jewish commentators, are of this opinion; and it must be allowed that there is much probability in favor of it.

More than this we can hardly know respecting Elihu; but conjectures have not been wanting. We have before us a goodly volume, Note: Elihu; or an Inquiry into the Principal Scope and Design of the Book of Job. By Walter Hodges, D.D., Provost of Oriel College, Oxford. 1750. by a writer of some note in his day, which is devoted to the argument that “a representative character of the Messiah is herein exhibited, who was God himself, the Son of the blessed God, of the kindred of Ram, or the holy line.” He of course supposes Ram to have been Ab-ram. Again, this writer asks, “May it not deserve consideration, whether the human nature, as it was afterwards to be united to the Divine, was not typified and represented in the person of Elihu? as that person who was to assume our nature, speaks in that principally in the following chapters? Upon this supposition, and no other that I have met with, the great things that are said of Elihu—his success in ending this dispute—and the silence concerning him in the conclusion, may be accounted for. It is likewise observable that the definitive sentence of God and Elihu turns upon the same point, and the three friends are censured alike by both, after speaking to much the same purpose…. As Job had wished that he could approach the Deity, to speak all his mind, as a man talks with his neighbor, Elihu presents himself; ‘I am such a one,’ says he, expressly to gratify his desire, herein aptly setting forth the mediatorial office as fulfilled and exemplified in the incarnation of the Son of God. ‘I am formed out of the clay,’ says he, ‘as thou art,’ from whence one would guess that there appeared something more than man in this excellent personage, to make such a declaration necessary, to take off the awe of his presence. Job being hereby made easy, and gradually and graciously led to hear and love the Divine converse, the Divinity alone then continues the discourse, and after enlarging upon the same topics, concludes the whole. Unless Elihu be intended to represent the humanity of our Lord, as it was to be united to the Second Person in the Essence, and so one with Him who speaks out of the whirlwind, he will appear to be an insignificant character, as being passed over without notice, or any mention of him in the conclusion of the book. But supposing the two natures in Christ to be here represented, everything is consistent.”

In support of this view, Dr. Hodges leans much upon the etymology and significance of the name Elihu. He is also disposed to insist upon the words in which Job expresses his repentance—“I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear, but now mine eye seeth thee.” He contends that something more than a metaphorical view is meant in this passage, and a clearer sight of the Divine presence than could be taken by the eye of the mind or by the eye of faith. It can, under this view, hardly refer to the manifestation from the whirlwind, for it is not said that aught was seen, but only that a voice was heard therefrom.

This view was not new when thus produced. Authorities ancient and modern might be cited in favor of it, or as more or less leaning towards it.

If this view could be sustained, there do not appear any essential objections to it, nor is it contrary to Scripture analogies. But although the learned author has guarded his interpretation by all the means in his power, he has still left it open to serious exceptions. For example, it is not only said that Elihu was “of the family of Ram,” supposed to be Abram, but that he was “the son of Barachel the Buzite,” which seems to overturn the whole, unless it is meant, and it is not, that a mere man of known parentage was, for the nonce, made the representative of the Savior.

Other writers have grossly misunderstood this person in quite the opposite direction, declaiming about his pertness, affected modesty, self-sufficiency, etc. But we apprehend that he assumes the office of umpire in no unbecoming spirit, and decides the question between the disputants justly and well; the best proof of which is found in the fact, that his tone of argument and his virtual decision are in all essential respects the same which the Voice from the whirlwind afterwards declares. He also is exempted from the censures passed upon the arguments of the three friends, nor is Job required to offer an expiatory offering on his account. These are manifest though tacit tokens of approval upon the reasoning and the decision of the son of Barachel.