The Righteousness of the Accused Text: Job 34:31-37
Introduction: The Young Man's Zeal
We come now to the speeches of Elihu. The three friends, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, have been silenced. They have shot their bolts and have nothing left to say. Job has withstood their counsel, which was a mixture of profound truth, misapplied piety, and disastrous pastoral advice. They operated on a tidy, Deuteronomic principle that they had wrenched from its covenantal context: if you are suffering this badly, you must have sinned this badly. Confess, and all will be well. Job, to his credit, refused this spiritual blackmail because he knew it wasn't true. But in his refusal, he has veered perilously close to accusing God of injustice, of mismanagement, of being his personal enemy.
Into this stalemate steps a young man named Elihu. He is angry. He is angry at Job for justifying himself rather than God, and he is angry at the three friends for failing to refute Job. Elihu is not one of the original counselors, and it is significant that God does not condemn him at the end of the book along with the other three. This means we must listen carefully to what he says. He is not entirely wrong. In fact, much of what he says about the majesty, justice, and sovereignty of God is magnificent and true. But truth spoken without humility can be a hammer, and Elihu, for all his theological correctness, wields it with the unsubtle zeal of a young man who has all the answers.
Elihu's speeches are a necessary part of the argument. He shifts the focus. The friends said, "You are suffering because you sinned." Elihu says, "You are sinning because you are suffering." Your response to this trial, Job, has now become the issue. Your words have become rebellious. You are justifying yourself at God's expense. This is a crucial distinction. And in our text today, Elihu lays out what he believes is the proper posture for a man under divine chastisement. He constructs a hypothetical, ideal confession for Job and then condemns Job for failing to offer it. He puts words in Job's mouth that Job ought to say, and in so doing, reveals the central problem of all human religion: the attempt to manage God and put Him on our terms.
The Text
"For has anyone said to God, ‘I have borne chastisement; I will not work destructively anymore; Instruct me what I do not behold; If I have done injustice, I will not do it again’? Shall He repay on your terms, because you have rejected it? For you must choose, and not I; Therefore say what you know. Men with a heart of wisdom will say to me, And a wise man who hears me, ‘Job speaks without knowledge, And his words are without insight. Job ought to be tested to the limit Because he answers like wicked men. For he adds transgression to his sin; He strikes his hands together among us, And multiplies his words against God.’"
(Job 34:31-37 LSB)
Elihu's Ideal Repentance (vv. 31-32)
Elihu begins by crafting a model prayer, a script for what a truly repentant man would say to God. He is essentially asking, "Has Job said anything like this? No? Then there's your problem."
"For has anyone said to God, ‘I have borne chastisement; I will not work destructively anymore; Instruct me what I do not behold; If I have done injustice, I will not do it again’?" (Job 34:31-32)
On the surface, this sounds wonderfully pious. It has all the right elements. First, there is an acceptance of the situation: "I have borne chastisement." This is a submission to the rod. The man acknowledges that what is happening to him is from God's hand and is a form of discipline. Second, there is a promise of future obedience: "I will not work destructively anymore." This is a commitment to change course. Third, there is a plea for divine instruction: "Instruct me what I do not behold." This is a posture of humility, acknowledging blind spots and asking for God's revelation. Finally, there is a conditional confession: "If I have done injustice, I will not do it again." The man is willing to repent of any sin God reveals.
Now, what could be wrong with this? It sounds like a prayer straight out of a manual on piety. But we must see it from Elihu's perspective and in the context of his argument. Elihu is not offering this as a general guide to prayer. He is using it as a legal indictment against Job. He is saying that because Job has not prayed this specific prayer, he is unrepentant. The problem is that Elihu's script assumes the very thing Job has been contesting: that this suffering is a direct, one-to-one chastisement for a specific, hidden sin.
Furthermore, there is a subtle but profound works-righteousness embedded here. The structure is transactional. "I will do X and Y, God, so that you will do Z." It is an attempt to get a handle on the situation, to manage the affliction by following a formula. "If I say the right words, God will stop." But true repentance is not about presenting God with a series of well-crafted resolutions. True repentance is an unconditional surrender. It is casting oneself entirely on the mercy of God, not presenting Him with a resume of future good behavior. Elihu's ideal prayer is still man-centered; it is about what "I will" and "I will not" do. It is a negotiation. And God does not negotiate with sinners on their terms.
God's Terms, Not Yours (v. 33)
Elihu then drives his point home, exposing what he sees as Job's central arrogance. Job wants God to operate according to Job's understanding of justice.
"Shall He repay on your terms, because you have rejected it? For you must choose, and not I; Therefore say what you know." (Job 34:33 LSB)
This is the sharpest and truest point Elihu makes. "Shall He repay on your terms?" This question cuts to the very heart of human rebellion. Do you, a creature of dust, get to set the terms of engagement with the Almighty? Do you get to define justice for the Judge of all the earth? Job, in his agony, has demanded a court date. He has demanded that God show up and explain Himself, to justify His actions according to Job's sense of right and wrong. Elihu rightly identifies this as a profound rejection of God's sovereignty.
When Elihu says, "because you have rejected it," he means Job has rejected God's discipline, God's verdict, God's terms. And this is the choice every man faces. You either submit to God's world as He made it and His justice as He defines it, or you reject it and try to build your own. There is no third way. Elihu then throws the gauntlet down: "For you must choose, and not I; Therefore say what you know." He is saying, "The choice is yours, Job. You can either accept God's reality or you can stick with your own. So go ahead, defend your position. Tell us what you know that God apparently doesn't." It is a sharp, sarcastic challenge, and it is meant to expose the absurdity of a creature cross-examining his Creator.
This is the essence of the Creator/creature distinction. God is God, and we are not. He sets the rules. He defines reality. Our job is not to advise Him, but to trust Him. Our wisdom consists in recognizing our utter lack of it apart from Him. The moment we think we can call Him to account, we have forgotten who He is and who we are. That is the primordial sin of the Garden: "You will be like God, knowing good and evil." You will be the one to define it.
The Verdict of the Wise (vv. 34-37)
Having made his case, Elihu now summons a jury of his peers, the "men with a heart of wisdom," to deliver their verdict on Job. Of course, this jury is composed of men who think just like Elihu.
"Men with a heart of wisdom will say to me, And a wise man who hears me, ‘Job speaks without knowledge, And his words are without insight. Job ought to be tested to the limit Because he answers like wicked men. For he adds transgression to his sin; He strikes his hands together among us, And multiplies his words against God.’" (Job 34:34-37 LSB)
The verdict is damning. First, Job's words are dismissed as ignorant and foolish: "Job speaks without knowledge, And his words are without insight." In their view, his entire defense is empty air precisely because it contradicts their neat theological system. If suffering is for sin, and Job denies the sin, then Job must be an idiot.
Second, they call for an increase in his suffering: "Job ought to be tested to the limit." This is a chilling statement. They are essentially saying that Job's response has been so wicked that his current level of suffering is insufficient. He needs more, not less, until he breaks. Why? "Because he answers like wicked men." Job has been lumped in with the ungodly. His protestations of integrity, his cries for justice, are interpreted not as the anguish of a righteous sufferer, but as the defiant speech of a rebel.
Finally, Elihu stacks up the charges. Job "adds transgression to his sin." The original sin, whatever it was, is now compounded by the sin of rebellion in the face of discipline. He "strikes his hands together among us," a gesture of contempt and mockery. And he "multiplies his words against God." Job's problem is not just that he has sinned, but that he will not shut up about his supposed innocence. He just keeps talking, digging himself deeper and deeper into blasphemy.
Here we see the danger of a theology that has no category for mysterious suffering. Elihu has truth on his side. God is just. Man should not question Him. But he misapplies this truth with a brutal lack of charity. He cannot conceive of a scenario where a man could be righteous and suffer this way. Because his system has no room for the prologue of Job, for the conversation between God and Satan, he is forced to conclude that Job is a monstrous sinner. He is a prosecutor, not a physician. He diagnoses the disease correctly, the disease of human pride, but his prescribed cure is poison.
The Terms of the Gospel
Elihu was right about one thing: God does not repay on our terms. This is true of His justice in affliction, and it is profoundly true of His justice in salvation. The entire project of human religion is an attempt to get God to save us on our terms. It is man's attempt to say to God, "I will not work destructively anymore; if I have done injustice, I will not do it again, so now you must accept me." It is an effort to strike a deal, to present God with a righteousness of our own making.
But the Gospel announces that God repays on His terms, and His terms are utterly alien to our way of thinking. His terms are that the righteous One, Jesus Christ, would be "tested to the limit." His terms were that the Son of God would be treated as one who "answers like wicked men." His terms were that the innocent one would have transgression added to Him, our transgression, and that He would be afflicted not for His rebellion, but for ours.
God's terms are not that we promise to do better, but that we confess we can do nothing. God's terms are not that we offer a conditional repentance, but that we receive an unconditional pardon, bought by the blood of His Son. Elihu tells Job he must choose to accept God's terms of justice. The Gospel tells us that in Christ, we can, because Christ has already satisfied those terms on our behalf.
The prayer that God desires is not Elihu's carefully constructed script of self-improvement. It is the prayer of the publican: "God, be merciful to me, a sinner." It is not a negotiation. It is a surrender. It is not about multiplying our words against God, but about ceasing our words altogether and listening to His Word to us, the Word that says, "It is finished."
Job was in an impossible position. He was a righteous man who could not explain his suffering. We are in a far better position. We are unrighteous people who can explain our salvation. It is not on our terms. It is not because of our wisdom or our insight. It is because God, in His infinite mercy, chose to repay our sin not on our terms, but on His, by placing it all on His Son. Therefore, we do not come striking our hands in contempt, but with open hands to receive a grace we did not earn and could never deserve.