JOB 37
OPENS WITH ...ELIHU SEES GOD IN THE STORM
Verses 1-5 tells us The thunder of His voice.
"At this also my heart trembles,
And leaps from its place.
Hear attentively the thunder of His voice,
And the rumbling that comes from His mouth.
He sends it forth under the whole heaven,
His lightning to the ends of the earth.
After it a voice roars;
He thunders with His majestic voice,
And He does not restrain them when His voice is heard.
God thunders marvelously with His voice;
He does great things which we cannot comprehend.”
Hear attentively the thunder of His voice: Elihu felt that Job needed a good dose of the greatness of God. It was good advice wrongly applied to Job's situation. Elihu did rightly understand that the mighty sound of thunder seems to man to be the voice of God.
The Bible contains some magnificent descriptions of the thunderstorm. Psalm 29 is the best of these, but Elihu's poem comes a close second.
He does great things which we cannot comprehend…
This is a repetition of Elihu's theme that Job had transgressed the line that separates God and man, and that Job presumed to know more than he could or should know from God. In this, Elihu was partially correct.
Verses 6-13 tells us What the voice of God can do.
“For He says to the snow,
'Fall on the earth';
Likewise to the gentle rain and the heavy rain of His strength.
He seals the hand of every man,
That all men may know His work.
The beasts go into dens,
And remain in their lairs.
From the chamber of the south comes the whirlwind,
And cold from the scattering winds of the north.
By the breath of God ice is given,
And the broad waters are frozen.
Also with moisture He saturates the thick clouds;
He scatters His bright clouds.
And they swirl about, being turned by His guidance,
That they may do whatever He commands them
On the face of the whole earth.
He causes it to come,
Whether for correction,
Or for His land,
Or for mercy."
Elihu considered that the voice of God commanded the snow, the gentle rain, and the heavy rain; His breath makes ice and freezes the broad waters.
He seals the hand of every man, that all men may know His work…
The idea is that when God sends the cold and the snow, the farmer can not do his work. His hand is sealed from further effort, and the time away from work makes him reflect on the work of God.
Elihu wanted Job to not only appreciate the greatness of God, but also the submission of creation. The implication was that unrepentant Job should submit to God the way His creation does.
Verses 14-18 tells us Elihu says to Job: "You do not know as much as you think you do."
"Listen to this, O Job;
Stand still and consider the wondrous works of God.
Do you know when God dispatches them,
And causes the light of His cloud to shine?
Do you know how the clouds are balanced,
Those wondrous works of Him who is perfect in knowledge?
Why are your garments hot,
When He quiets the earth by the south wind?
With Him, have you spread out the skies,
Strong as a cast metal mirror?"
Young Elihu again appealed to Job in a very direct and personal way, more personal that the three other friends of Job had. Elihu condemns Job sorrowfully, but absolutely; he declares that not only has Job made shipwreck of his faith, but he has become defiant in silencing his friends.
Significantly, God WILL address Job among similar lines when God begins to speak starting at Job 38 (Do you know … Do you know). Though Elihu here had many of the right ideas, he presented them with a wrong premise, the premise that Job's whole crisis came from his sin.
Verses 19-24 tells us Elihu says to Job: "Stop trying to speak to God, and simply fear Him instead."
"Teach us what we should say to Him,
For we can prepare nothing because of the darkness.
Should He be told that I wish to speak?
If a man were to speak, surely he would be swallowed up.
Even now men cannot look at the light when it is bright in the skies,
When the wind has passed and cleared them.
He comes from the north as golden splendor;
With God is awesome majesty.
As for the Almighty, we cannot find Him;
He is excellent in power,
In judgment and abundant justice;
He does not oppress.
Therefore men fear Him;
He shows no partiality to any who are wise of heart."
Here Elihu confronted what he believed to be Job's arrogance in saying that man deserved an audience or a justification from God. "Job, if you insist that God owes us an audience, then please teach us what we should say to Him."
These chapters intensify the sense of the loneliness and solitude of Job. He stands there, silent and alone, with none to sympathize with him, none to enter into his perplexities; condemned as impious, heretical, and even blasphemous, by the concordant voice of friends and bystanders; alike by his own generation, and by that which was growing up to take its place; yet enduring to the end, and awaiting with trust and confidence the verdict of his God.
He comes from the north as golden splendor…
The meaning is that man by nature is utterly ignorant. He knows nothing of God in heaven above. All is darkness there to him. Yet God is there in all His wondrous glory. And just as when a storm has dispersed all the dark clouds and cleared the air, so, when God reveals Himself, His light and truth are seen.
We can not find him…
Elihu returned to his theme of God's distance and transcendence. He wanted to discourage Job from insisting that God owed him (or anyone else) an audience or an explanation.
Significantly, the God whom Elihu believed to be utterly beyond and unreachable by man (we can not find Him) has come in the storm, and will speak to Job. It seems that God had finally heard enough of the almost-right wisdom of man, and had heard enough of this talk that He was so beyond man that He was beyond reach. God was about to confront not only Job, but his three friends and especially Elihu, with both His words and His presence.
MASON says it well, as a closing of this chapter, “In the story of Job, too, the Lord has apparently been sound asleep until now, peacefully curled up in the stern of the boat while Job has been struggling all alone with the wind and the waves. . . . in the case of Job He let the storm rage for 37 chapters, until finally He calmed not the storm itself, but Job's heart.”