God in the Dock: Elihu's Rebuke Text: Job 34:1-9
Introduction: The Necessary Confrontation
We come now to a pivotal moment in the book of Job. The three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, have exhausted their arguments. Their theological system was simple, tidy, and profoundly wrong. They operated on a rigid retribution principle: God blesses the good and punishes the wicked, therefore Job's immense suffering must be the result of immense, hidden sin. They were wrong, and God Himself will say so later. Job, for his part, has rightly defended his integrity against their false accusations. But in the crucible of his agony, Job has lurched into a different error, one far more serious. He has moved from defending himself before men to accusing God in heaven.
Into this stalemate steps Elihu. He is a young man, and he has waited impatiently while his elders spoke. But his youth does not mean folly. In fact, he is the character who comes closest to the truth before God Himself speaks from the whirlwind. Elihu is not interested in Job's hypothetical secret sins. He is concerned with Job's manifest, public sin. The sin of blasphemy. Job has, in his pain, put the sovereign God in the dock and has presumed to act as His judge. Elihu's task is to vindicate the character of God against the slanders of a suffering saint.
Our modern, therapeutic age has no category for this. We are taught that the suffering have a blank check to say whatever they want. To "speak your truth" is the highest virtue, and to challenge the bitter outbursts of the afflicted is seen as cruel and unfeeling. But Elihu understands something we have forgotten: the character of God is more important than the comfort of man. A right understanding of God is the only true comfort a man can have. To allow a man, even a great man like Job, to slander God's justice is not kindness; it is to abandon him to a universe where God is a cosmic tyrant, a universe without hope. Elihu's intervention is not cruelty; it is the sharp, necessary work of a surgeon cutting out a cancer of rebellion before it metastasizes.
The Text
Then Elihu answered and said, "Hear my speech, you wise men, And give ear to me, you who know. For the ear tests words As the palate tastes food. Let us choose for ourselves what is just; Let us know among ourselves what is good. For Job has said, 'I am righteous, But God has removed my justice; Should I lie concerning my justice? My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.' What man is like Job, Who drinks up mocking like water, But he travels in company with the workers of iniquity, And walks with wicked men? For he has said, 'It is of no use to a man When he is pleased with God.'"
(Job 34:1-9 LSB)
A Call for Theological Discernment (vv. 1-4)
Elihu begins not with a hot-headed rant, but with an appeal to reason and discernment.
"Hear my speech, you wise men, And give ear to me, you who know. For the ear tests words As the palate tastes food. Let us choose for ourselves what is just; Let us know among ourselves what is good." (Job 34:2-4)
Elihu is summoning a jury. He addresses the "wise men," which includes the three friends but also any others who might be listening. He is not asking them to accept his words on his authority, but to engage their minds. "The ear tests words as the palate tastes food." This is a magnificent principle. Theology is not a matter of blind feeling or sentimental loyalty. It is a matter of truth, and truth must be tested. We are to be connoisseurs of doctrine. We must be able to distinguish the tang of truth from the bitter aftertaste of error.
He says, "Let us choose for ourselves what is just." This is not a call for relativistic, subjective truth. He is not saying, "You have your justice, I have mine." He is calling for a corporate, objective evaluation based on a shared standard. That standard, as his subsequent speech makes clear, is the unassailable character of God Himself. Elihu is setting the stage for a trial, but he is correcting the roles. Job is not the judge; Job's words are on trial. God is not the defendant; God is the standard of justice by which all words are to be judged.
This is a direct rebuke to our emotive age. We are told to validate feelings, not to test words. But feelings can be profoundly deceptive, especially in the midst of suffering. The heart is deceitful above all things. Elihu insists that we bring our reason, our knowledge of God, and our faculties of discernment to bear. We must taste and see, not just that the Lord is good, but that the words spoken about Him are true.
The Indictment: Quoting Job's Rebellion (vv. 5-6)
Elihu now lays out the prosecution's case by quoting Job directly. He doesn't need to build a straw man; he uses Job's own words against him.
"For Job has said, 'I am righteous, But God has removed my justice; Should I lie concerning my justice? My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression.'" (Job 34:5-6 LSB)
Here is the charge sheet. Let's break it down. First, Job says, "I am righteous." In one sense, as a man of integrity, this was true compared to other men. But in the context of his debate with God, it has taken on the stench of self-righteousness. He is claiming a righteousness that puts God under obligation.
Second, the direct accusation: "But God has removed my justice." This is the heart of the blasphemy. Job is not saying, "I don't understand my circumstances." He is saying, "God is unjust." He is claiming to know what justice is, and he is declaring that God has failed to meet that standard. This is the creature grading the Creator's paper and giving Him a failing mark. This is the clay telling the potter his design is flawed. It is an inversion of the entire created order.
Third, he doubles down: "My wound is incurable, though I am without transgression." Job declares himself sinless in this matter and portrays God as arbitrary and cruel. He is essentially claiming the moral high ground over the Almighty. He sees himself as an innocent victim of a capricious deity. This is the primal sin of Eden, the desire to be like God, knowing, defining, good and evil for oneself. Job, in his torment, has stumbled into this ancient and deadly pride.
The Diagnosis: A Habit of Mockery (vv. 7-8)
Having stated the charge, Elihu now offers his diagnosis of Job's spiritual condition.
"What man is like Job, Who drinks up mocking like water, But he travels in company with the workers of iniquity, And walks with wicked men?" (Job 34:7-8 LSB)
The imagery is stunning. Job "drinks up mocking like water." Mocking, or scorn, has become his sustenance. It is as natural and necessary to him now as drinking water. This is what happens when suffering is not met with faith. Grief curdles into grievance. Lament sours into libel. Job has developed an appetite for scorn, a reflexive habit of speaking against God's government of the world. He finds a perverse satisfaction in it.
And what is the result of this attitude? He "travels in company with the workers of iniquity." Elihu is not saying that Job has literally joined a gang of criminals. This is a theological, not a sociological, observation. The point is that Job's arguments are now indistinguishable from the arguments of the wicked. The ungodly have always charged God with injustice. The scoffers have always said that it does not pay to be righteous. By adopting their premise, Job has joined their company. He is on their team in this cosmic debate. Bad theology makes for bad companions, even if you never leave your own ash heap.
The Root Error: A Man-Centered Universe (v. 9)
Finally, Elihu drills down to the foundational, philosophical error that undergirds all of Job's complaints.
"For he has said, 'It is of no use to a man When he is pleased with God.'" (Job 34:9 LSB)
This is the bottom line. This is the rotten root. Job's entire argument rests on a utilitarian, man-centered view of religion. He has treated his relationship with God as a transaction. He has been "pleased with God," which is to say, he has been obedient and faithful. In return, he expected a certain "use" or "profit," namely prosperity, health, and peace. When those things were taken away, he concluded that the entire enterprise was useless. The covenant, in his view, had failed.
This is the essence of what we might call celestial capitalism. It views God as a business partner or a service provider. But this is a profound misunderstanding of reality. The "profit" of delighting in God is God Himself. The chief end of man is to glorify God and enjoy Him forever. The enjoyment is the end, not the means to another end. To say there is "no use" in being pleased with God is to confess that you never saw God as the treasure in the first place. You saw Him as the map to the treasure. When the map seemed to lead to a dragon's lair instead of a treasure chest, you cursed the mapmaker.
Elihu rightly identifies this as the core of Job's sin. Job has forgotten the Creator/creature distinction. He has forgotten that we exist for God's glory, not the other way around. Our obedience does not put God in our debt. It is simply our reasonable service. The blessing is that we get to have God at all.
Conclusion: The True and Better Job
Elihu's rebuke is sharp, but it is a grace. He is calling Job back to reality. He is reminding him that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and that God's justice is the foundation of the universe, not a subject for our review.
And in Job's terrible dilemma, we see our own. We see a man who tried to stand on his own righteousness and found it insufficient. We see a man who suffered unjustly and buckled under the weight of it. Job is a signpost pointing to the one who would not buckle.
There was another man, a truly righteous man, who was without transgression. He suffered a wound that was, for a time, incurable. God did, in a very real sense, remove His justice from Him as He hung on the cross, treating Him as He deserved not. But this man, Jesus Christ, did not drink up mocking like water. He drank the cup of the Father's wrath. He did not say, "It is of no use to be pleased with God." In the garden, He said, "Not my will, but yours, be done." He did not walk in the company of the wicked, but was crucified between them, taking their sin upon Himself.
Because of the true and better Job, we do not have to defend our own righteousness. We can confess our sin, including the sin of railing against God in our suffering, and we can be clothed in His perfect righteousness. The gospel does not give us a detailed blueprint explaining every instance of our pain. What it gives us is something infinitely better: a Savior who entered into that pain and a God whose justice has been perfectly satisfied and vindicated at the cross. Therefore, we can trust Him, even when we cannot trace Him.