DEAR CHARITY

Part 4

Dear Charity,

I’ve got just one question for you:

WHO IN THE WORLD WAS ELIHU?!?!?

Why does this guy pop up out of nowhere, say his thing, then disappear into the ether?  Okay, technically that was two questions.  Seriously, though.  God didn’t even deign to address him or even take note of him.  What gives?

The truly interesting thing is that while the three friends are given titles concerning their tribes or where they’re from, Elihu is given a small genealogy.  Not even Job gets that.  What are we supposed to make of this guy?  He admits to being young, but he for sure puts himself forward like he’s all that in the wisdom department.  Except that he says pretty much the same thing as Job’s friends only not as eloquently.  He also says a lot of what Job already said (again, not as eloquently).  His accusations of Job’s wickedness, though, are off the charts, and he speaks with utter surety of his own correctness.  Dude.

I confess that I used to think there was a lot of wisdom in what he said, but I look at it now and all I can see is the arrogance of a young man who thinks he knows oh so much more than anyone else.  In other words, I see a lot of me in him.

A thought stirs.  I wonder if he was the author of Job.  That would make sense of why only he is given a family name — or, rather, that his family name is given.  Maybe he really did say those things to Job and his friends but after God spoke, he recognized his own arrogance and realized that he should never have supposed he could speak for Him.

I’ve read commentaries about who Elihu might have been and I know that most people think of what he said as good and right.  But I just don’t see it that way.  Maybe my writer tingles get the better of me sometimes and I read too much into things, but there are a couple of things he says right off the bat that make me go, “Yeahhhhh...”

First, he tries to come off as all respectful and humble and everything when he says he’s waited to speak because “I am young, and you are very old” (which, you know, might not be the most respectful way to address your elders, just sayin’).  They’re just words on a page and I have no idea what tone of voice was used, so this is nothing more than pure speculation, I just hear that phrase as him being more snarky than respectful.  I think my speculation has foundation in some of what he says in his opening salvo.  Try these on for size:

“It is not the great who are wise, nor the aged who understand justice.”

“Therefore I said, ‘Listen to me; I also will show my opinion.’”

“I also will answer my part, and I also will show my opinion.”

“For I am full of words.”

“I will speak, that I may be refreshed.”

“My words will utter the uprightness of my heart.”

I am well aware that it’s not cool to take statements out of context and I hope I’m not being guilty of that here.  I just hear pretty much all of what Elihu says as a huge diss to Job and his friends.  He said they are very old, then he declares that they’re not wise or understanding.  Sorta, kinda, I don’t know, RUDE.  Then he says twice that he is going to share his opinion.  And not only that, but he feels the need to do so in order that he can be refreshed.  The JPS puts it, “Let me speak, then, and get relief.”  That just seems to me like he’s talking out of his tail end and not because he has this grand wisdom to impart.  Also, he condemns Job for justifying his own uprightness, and then he...does the exact same thing.

Elihu really strikes me as being no better than the other three in so many ways, not least of which is that he also wastes Job with his completely baseless accusations.

For Job has said, ‘I am righteous, God has taken away my right:

Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar.

My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.’

What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water,

who goes in company with the workers of iniquity,

and walks with wicked men?

For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing

that he should delight himself with God.’”

Like, really, did he even listen to what Job was saying???  I think he heard the words that came out of Job’s mouth but instead of listening and thinking about what Job was actually trying to communicate, he heard just enough to formulate his own response and that was that.

And oh, but just like Eliphaz, Zophar, and Bildad, Elihu wasn’t done, yet.  Apparently, he needed to share a whole, whole lot of opinion before he was gonna feel refreshed and relieved.

Men of understanding will tell me,

yes, every wise man who hears me:

‘Job speaks without knowledge.

His words are without wisdom.’

I wish that Job were tried to the end,

because of his answering like wicked men.

For he adds rebellion to his sin.

He claps his hands among us,

and multiplies his words against God.

Therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk,

and he multiplies words without knowledge.

Dudely!  He just said, “I know what’s what and every wise man will agree with me.”  Then he pronounced judgement on Job and never looked back.  What really gets my goat is that he then says, “I will make my opinion known; I will justify my Maker.”  Um, yeah, my dude, I don’t think God needs YOU to justify Him at all.  He can handle that one on His own just fine.  But lest anyone think that Elihu doesn’t know what he’s talking about, he makes sure to point out, “In truth, my words are not false; a man of sound opinions is before you.”  Wow.

Did Job have issues?  Yes.  Yes, he did.  But he did none of the things Elihu accused him of and to tell Job that his own pride and arrogance caused him to be in the position he was in was no different than what the three friends had said.  To tell Job that obviously he had something hidden in his heart and that’s why God did what He did was pretty much agreeing with the three friends and, well, we know how God felt about them.  It’s a fine line but it is most definitely a line between saying that a person’s sin caused God to inflict pain and suffering on them and saying they have things about them that aren’t perfect and God needs to address those things.  And I, for one, don’t ever want to step over that line for fear that not only might I risk seriously injuring people or making their burden heavier than it needs to be, but I also might just be angering God.  In other words, I don’t want to be like Job’s friends or Elihu.  And the argument against Elihu is the same as the one against the three friends — although what he said and what they said sounds righteous and may even be confirmed in other places in the Bible, there was something not entirely right and truthful about their words.  If all four of them had been in the right, God wouldn’t have been furious with the three and, I’m thinking, wouldn’t have just acted like Elihu didn’t even exist.

I fully admit that I’ve been dealing in some serious conjecture here about Elihu’s motivations and the state of his heart.  I can only go by his words.  And his words leave a very bitter taste in my mouth.  When it comes right down to it, I think my major gripe with Elihu is that he pretty much follows along with Bildad’s train of thought when he said:

Even the moon is not bright,

And the stars are not pure in His sight.

How much less man, a worm,

The son-of-man, a maggot.

Yeah, like you, I was raised on “worm theology,” and I bought it hook, line, and sinker for most of my life.  We are scum-sucking, sick sinners and that is all that’s true about us, even after we pray the prayer and ask Jesus into our hearts.  Elihu really seems to relish that whole idea and he contributes his most glorious opinion with this:

Behold the heavens and see;

Look at the skies high above you.

If you sin, what do you do to Him?

If your transgressions are many,

How do you affect Him?

If you are righteous,

What do you give Him;

What does He receive from your hand?

In other words, human beings?  Ppffhhh.  And I, Elihu, am a man of immense wisdom who knows exactly how God feels so I can tell you with assurance, God thinks exactly the same way about you that I do, which is:  Meh.

I get it.  I do.  I understand why that way of thinking appeals to certain people.  And I totally understand why others get caught up in believing that because of their backgrounds and how they were raised.  But Charity, I want to tell you in the absolute STRONGEST manner possible (and if I could have made that, like 5,791 font size, I would have...) that NOWHERE in the Bible does God EVER even hint that He even comes close to agreeing with Bildad or Elihu.  Man and Woman were the pinnacle, the crowning glory of all of God’s creation.  Paul declares that Man is the glory of God!  Allow me to repeat that.

THE GLORY OF GOD

Yeah, that one I felt necessary to make a little more prominent.

Don’t get me wrong, here.  I am not in any way saying that humanity remained untainted and unsullied by what Man and Woman did in Eden.  But that’s what makes their rebellion sooooo ridiculously heinous and tragic.  They were created to be the exact representation of God Himself and they traded that in for trying to grab at a glory all their own, one they manufactured themselves.  None of that, however, negates God’s continuing desire for His image-bearers to once again become what He intended them to be.  Even knowing the hearts of human beings, God never, ever, ever, ever, ever equates us with worms or maggots.  Wicked?  Yep.  Sinful?  Check.  Foolish?  You betcha.  So if God Himself doesn’t want to call me a maggot, I’m kinda thinking that maybe it’s not a good idea for me to take that on myself.

Let me say this, too — I’m not ignorant of the fact that we all bring to the table our own experiences and pasts when we read and study God’s Word.  I don’t doubt that you can hear where I’m coming from when I say all these things.  The thing is, I can’t help but feel like a whole lot of us are so enormously afraid of becoming prideful or arrogant that we do what the rabbis did to the Torah (which, by the way, God quite explicitly told them was a huge no-no).  We put a hedge around the sin of pride to the point where we inflate our scumminess out of all proportion with the result that we actually start disagreeing with God and His Word.  That’s where I see Elihu in particular as coming from.  Again, I may be just in a different universe here as far as the truth goes, and if I am, I am constantly praying that God will help me see His truth.  I really do think, though, that if Elihu had the right of it, God would have confirmed his words in some way.  Definitely don’t see that happening either in Job or anywhere in the rest of the Bible.

To give him credit, I guess the one way I see Elihu as being different than the other three is that I think maybe he really did believe what he was saying.  I think that, like Paul, he was convinced he had a market on the truth and he just had to let those old fuddy-duddies know what was up.  With the other three it felt more like they saw Job as their problem to solve and once they had pronounced their solution, they were shocked and offended that Job didn’t see things their way and praise them for their gracious assistance.  As for Elihu, believing that you’re right doesn’t necessarily make you right, as Paul found out in a truly and spectacularly painful way.

So I would have to say that one of the main take-aways for me from Elihu’s wordy speech is that we should always do a whole, whole lot more thinking about our words and a whole, whole lot less opinion sharing if the only reason we’re sharing is because we simply need to get something off our chest.  You just never know when your single-minded devotion to your own relief might be beating someone else into the ground with a gigantic hammer.  Which is not to say in any way that dialogue and the sharing of opinions is always a bad thing.  Some of my best thoughts have come as the result of what we’ve shared with each other.  But as we’ve talked about before, considered words are almost always better than words that fly out of our mouths before we’ve had a chance to examine them.

Charity, I feel confident in saying that you know me well enough now to recognize that I am more than aware of my own shortcomings and failures, and I fully realize that I am in no way immune to what I just wrote about.  As aware as I am, though, I also know that I am often so blind to the things I do and deaf to the things I say and how those things are affecting people.  I know that your road remains a dark one at the moment and while I deeply and desperately pray that I haven’t been one to add to your pain, if I have, I implore you to let me know.  Ever since you first contacted me I wanted ours to be a friendship that was based on truth not social niceties because we both need that in a very big way.  I’m a talker by nature and I can really get going, as you know.  But I never want to talk over you or make you feel like I’m not listening or seeing you.  Especially not right now.  And yeah, the nature of technological communication lends itself to one-sided conversations, but I hope you know what I mean.

Thank you for trusting your heart to me.  I continue striving to do everything in my power to be worthy of your trust.

With Compassion and Love,

Beth