1 ¶
Furthermore Elihu answered and said, 2
Hear my words, O ye wise men; and give ear unto me, ye that have
knowledge. 3 For the ear trieth words,
as the mouth tasteth meat. 4 Let us
choose to us judgment: let us know among ourselves what is good. 5 For Job hath said, I am righteous: and God
hath taken away my judgment. 6 Should I
lie against my right? my wound is incurable without transgression. 7 What man is like Job, who drinketh up
scorning like water? 8 Which goeth in
company with the workers of iniquity, and walketh with wicked men. 9 For he hath said, It profiteth a man nothing
that he should delight himself with God.
Elihu, in verse
3, repeats Job’s statement from 12:11, reminding all of those involved in the
arguments to listen carefully to what he is saying. He admonishes them to judge
rightly and discern what is good. Job insisted that he was righteous and has
been stricken unfairly so there is no value or point in love toward or worship
of God. In verse 7, Elihu alludes to Eliphaz’s statement in 15:16. He is
referring now to the accusation that Job is a companion of wicked men and acts
as they act.
So, we start
with Job’s self-righteousness and his lamentation that God has stricken him
unfairly so what’s the point in taking delight in God. After all, as said in
9:22, God destroys the good and the bad alike. One might say, why do I bother
praying, reading the Bible, attending worship services, or trying to do right?
What’s the point? I’m going to suffer and die horribly anyway just like someone
who doesn’t do all of these things. What is the benefit to me that I waste my
time in such things?
10 ¶ Therefore hearken unto me,
ye men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness; and
from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity. 11 For the work of a man shall he render unto
him, and cause every man to find according to his ways. 12 Yea, surely God will not do wickedly, neither
will the Almighty pervert judgment. 13
Who hath given him a charge over the earth? or who hath disposed the
whole world? 14 If he set his heart upon
man, if he gather unto himself his spirit and his breath; 15 All flesh shall perish together, and man
shall turn again unto dust.
Elihu argues
that God does not sin. God ultimately delivers to every man the just reward for
what he has done. In the Age of Grace we can say that God ultimately delivers
to every man the just reward for what Christ has done, if that man will receive
it. But God is just in His judgment on us.
An immediate
and vital point is made in this passage. Life isn’t something that God set up
and walked away from, with its processes working automatically. If we were to
examine life closely, at all levels, and look at our understanding of the
underlying mechanisms that keep life going in an otherwise barren universe,
devoid, for all we know, of biological life like our own on earth, we would see
a strange thing. Were God to withdraw His hand, His active hand in life’s
processes every moment, all living things would die.
God is not a
watchmaker who wound it all up and walked away to admire his work. Every
intimate detail of cell function and every movement of a living organism,
including our very breath and life from second to second, is a direct function
of God’s providence at that moment. Medieval man understood this in a way that
modern man has been brainwashed into not understanding it. We exist and move
and have our being because of God’s active involvement and are not merely the
byproduct of something He did long ago.
In the same
regard our Bible is the result of God’s active inspiration of copyists and
translators and not merely the result of a one-time involvement of God in the
mind of a long-ago writer as traditional fundamentalism claims.
As Paul said when
he was presenting his gospel to the Athenians and quoted the pagan philosopher
and poet, Epimenides, in the first part Acts 17:28, who is referencing Zeus as
immortal in his poem, Cretica, and
the cause of our continual existence.
Acts 17:28
For in him we live, and move, and have our being; as certain also of
your own poets have said, For we are also his offspring.
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