Job Chapter 36



Well, he goes on further still (Job 36): "Elihu also proceeded, and said, Suffer me a little, and I will show thee that I have yet to speak on God's behalf. I will fetch my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. For truly my words shall not be false; he that is perfect in knowledge is with thee. Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any" (vers. 1-5). What a wonderful saying! People might have thought, and do think, that the greater the majesty of God, the less He takes notice of the very smallest thing on earth. It is all the other way. And God shows His might by His being able to grasp everything, and take notice and show His concern about the smallest insect. "He preserveth not the life of the wicked" - His great concern is man, but He takes in everything - "but giveth right to the poor. He withdraweth not his eyes from the righteous." That is the great point of this chapter. In the 33rd it was "man," but here it is "the righteous" man that He more particularly looks at. The discipline that God exercises over man in order to win him to God is far more strictly over the righteous man, to keep him right; that if He has justified him it should not be to His dishonour. For it is a terrible thing when a saint of God gets wrong. "But with kings are they on the throne; yea, he doth establish them for ever, and they are exalted. And if they be bound in fetters and be holden in cords of affliction" - and sometimes kings come under these things very decidedly - "then he showeth them their work" (vers. 6-12). It is not entirely occupied with the righteous; but it is particularly with kings. "But the hypocrites in heart heap up wrath: they cry not when he bindeth them. They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean." But what He has pleasure in is this: "He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression. Even so would he have removed thee" - he applies it to Job - "out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness, and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness." It was to be accomplished strictly, exactly, as Elihu explained it. "But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and justice take hold on thee." Job was not yet right. There was a process going on under Elihu, and it was shown by this - that he never interrupts him. It is not without a little proof that Elihu saw signs as if he were going to speak, but he stops him. I need not enter into the proof of that new.

Then he says: "Because there is wrath, beware lest he take thee away with his stroke" (vers. 13- 26). He is infinitely above our thoughts. "For he maketh small the drops of water." Elihu illustrates it by God's power with outward things. And if that is the case with so small a thing as the rain, how much more with a thing so great as the soul of man; the soul of man that is due to the inbreathing of God Himself? "They pour down rain according to the vapour thereof, which the clouds do drop and distil upon man abundantly. Also can any understand the spreadings of the clouds, or the noise of his tabernacle?" The speaker takes up the same line of argument that Jehovah does when He speaks out of the whirlwind in the latter part of this book. "Behold, he spreadeth his light upon it," etc. (vers. 27-33) For the cattle are very sensitive to a thunderstorm, and show that they regard it as a very serious matter; there are men who only harden themselves. But here Elihu gives his last words, and is very much occupied with describing a thunderstorm. For he had proper thoughts about God even in outward matters.