The book of Job--Elihu

Lamb Chopped

I'm reading the book of Job at the moment and the character of Elihu bothers me. He doesn't really seem to belong there--I mean, he's not mentioned at the beginning, he's not mentioned at the end either for good or ill, and no judgement is passed on what he says, positive or negative. His (crap) just stops abruply as God shows up to argue in chapter 38.

I looked online and there are quite a few people who think he gets out of being judged because he's in the right--more or less speaking for God, possibly as an intro. But my impression of him is not positive at all, really. He seems to me a pompous ass and someone who, if he avoids the gross errors of the first three guys, still ends up blaming Job for his own misfortunes. In short, I'd like to slap him.

what say you?

BroJames

I wrote an extended essay on Elihu for my first degree (cough, cough thirty-five years ago). The narratological comment on him comes in him concluding (I paraphrase) that Job might as well expect an answer from the coming storm cloud as from the voice of God — then God speaks from the cloud.

I haven’t really returned to Job in the interim, but my top of the head assessment is that Elihu is a kind of tl:dr version of what all the other ‘comforters’ have been saying.

Gramps49

It seems the Elihu may have been inserted at a latter time. As Lamb Chop indicates, Elihu suddenly appears, says his piece, and then suddenly lives. Where the three friends of Job had argued Job was suffering because of a sin, and Job wanted to put God on trial, Elihu reminds them God is just. Elihu says even in the midst of suffering we should use it as a means of spiritual growth

MaryLouise

The translation of Job I found the most moving and powerful is by Robert Alter (we've mentioned his work before) and I went back to his introduction to Job and found that he reads Elihu as "bombastic, repetitious and highly stereotypical". Even if Calvin admired Elihu and I've looking around for a bookmarked text on that.

pease

I like Elihu. Either way, I think he's the one most likely to join the forums and start posting in Purgatory...

Rufus T Firefly

(Coming out of hiding after a long time....)

I did a lot of studying of the Book of Job at university. It's one of my favourite books of the Bible.

I don't buy the theory that it is a later addition, intended to provide a 'correct' view. If you wanted to correct Job, I think there are plenty of better ways to do it.

I tend to go for Norman Habel's view that Elihu is a sort of humorous interlude before God speaks. Everything up until this point has been leading to God finally responding to Job's bitter entreaties. But instead of hearing God speak, we get a blustering Elihu, whose arguments completely fail to address the basic fact that Job has done nothing wrong. Job's sufferings are not a result of any sinning on his part, nor are they to teach him a lesson.

Then, once Elihu has stopped, God steps in, with the speeches that rightly emphasise that Job is not the centre of everything and does not have the right to have answers to all his questions. Some suffering is simply inexplicable and seemingly unjust. That's just how life is.

I had the fortune many years ago to be part of a dramatised reading of Job. Among the things we learned were:
- the arguments of the three friends don't go anywhere. They just say the same thing over and over again.
- in contrast, Job's arguments develop over the course of the book. He pushes the boundaries in striving for answers to his questions.
- Elihu really is just a boring blowhard. It was almost impossible to take him seriously.

I know that not everyone agrees with this view of Elihu but I really think that any interpretation that tries to take his view seriously is barking up the wrong tree. In the context of the drama of Job, Elihu is just wrong.

Doublethink

Welcome back

James Priestman

What frustrates me about the Book of Job is that there is no final meeting of God and the Adversary (Satan) at the end. I would love to have heard what Satan had to say.

Anthony Swindell (University of Chester) is giving a talk on The Book of Job in Modern Literature on 5th July: "We will look at the treatment of this biblical work in literature from Charles Dickens to Muriel Spark, asking how each author frames the problem of suffering in relation to belief in God.". It is part of the Festival of Biblical Literature in Malvern, which I am directing. https://www.festivalofbiblicalliterature.co.uk/programme/

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Lamb Chopped

He would have sulked, of course.

jay_emm

I guess he could push it further (again). Declare victory on the basis of some of Job's lines.
The adversary is portrayed different from later, so maybe celebrating Jobs completion of his task is plausible.

Not sure I can think of an ending (part 2) that doesnt clash with the first (which is also arguably a bit of a cop out) and isnt cringey

Lamb Chopped

I keep trying to think of the English work that starts with a frame story but alas! It disappears entirely by the end of the work. Something in Shakespeare?

agingjb

Taming of the Shrew?

Lamb Chopped

That might be what i was thinking of, though i seem to recall the frame story being more interesting!

The_Riv

Lamb Chopped wrote: »

He would have sulked, of course.

Well, I don't think so. He killed, maimed and destroyed. Who's to say that wasn't enough in the end.

TurquoiseTastic

It's not really about Satan though is it. It's about God and Job - the others are by-the-by. IMO finishing up with a God/Satan "review" would detract from that emphasis.

alienfromzog

I love the book of Job.

I have preached on it once. It's very hard work as to make sense of it, you have to take it as a whole. You cannot do it verse by verse.

God's appearance is awesome in every sense and the truth is that God's answer to Job's questions is essentially "I am God, deal with it."

I also think it vital to notice that, that is not God's only answer for Job is fully restored and blessed at the end. Indeed it is Job who is tasked with interceding for his foolish friends.

Ultimately, Job sits in the Rabbinic tradition of answering the most challenging questions with a story. You may have noticed that Jesus did this a lot too.

In many ways, Job is the answer to that most challenging of questions: why does a good God allow terrible things to happen to good people.

The key here for Job's friends is that they cannot conceive that the horrible things that have happened to Job are nor his own fault. To do so, they would threaten their own (false) security and have to admit they maybe they're not as righteous as they think they are.

This is an example of how the lesson of Job is thoroughly relevant to every age, including ours:

https://alienfromzog.blogspot.com/2013/03/joblessness.html

All of that waffle is my thinking about the book. On the subject of Elihu, himself I have not thought as much. His speeches seem to be quite different from the others. He avoids their errors and he's not rebuked by God. In many ways his speech, is a prelude to what God himself says.

I also think the youth/age thing is important. Elihu does a much better job of wisdom than the old men...

AFZ