Job 33: Elihu Argues

Job 33:14 "For God does speak—now one way, now another—though man may not perceive it."

Elihu had been listening when he heard Job talk about how he was pure and without sin and God went after him. Elihu disagreed with Job's ideas. God's cosmic sense of justice was very different than what our own perceptions are. Yet this wasn't necessarily a case of just vs. unjust...was it? Job wasn't being punished. He wasn't being disciplined. God put Job to the test, and so far Job was passing. 

But passing in the eyes of God doesn't always look like passing in the eyes of man. AW Tozer said that "To be right with God has often meant to be in trouble with man." This sounds quite like Job. But is Job right with God? When I think about it, I guess I don't know. I am man. This looks right to me, according to the terms set by God and Satan in the early chapters. Job has not yet cursed God. He has not renounced his faith. Questioned God, searched for God, drove himself to madness in wonder about God, but yet still believes God is God. That God will indeed exonerate Job before men, the very men who sought to say that Job was hiding sin or was being punished.

Elihu's main point in chapter 33 appears to be that God is trying to communicate with Job somehow, whether it's spirits, visions, angels...and Job just needs to listen. To quiet himself and just pay attention. But we have no proof of that. We know more than Job's four confidants. But we don't know if God has been trying to contact Job. I just don't think Elihu is right yet.