The Unsolicited Defense Attorney Text: Job 36:1-4
Introduction: When The Kids Table Speaks Up
We have been sitting in the ashes with Job for a good long while now. We have listened to the miserable comforters, Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, as they have taken turns beating Job about the head and shoulders with their tidy, Deuteronomic syllogisms. They operate on a simple, and yet profoundly mistaken, principle: God is just, you are suffering, therefore you must have sinned grievously. They are defending God, or so they think, but they are doing it with all the finesse of a blacksmith performing brain surgery. They get the major premise right, God is just, but their application is a car wreck. Job, for his part, has been defending himself, but in the process has come perilously close to accusing God of injustice.
And so the debate has ground to a stalemate. The three friends have run out of arguments, and Job has exhausted his complaints. The whole affair is a theological cul-de-sac. And into this silence steps a new character, a young man named Elihu. He has been sitting off to the side, listening to his elders, biting his tongue out of deference to their gray hairs. But he can't take it anymore. He is angry with the three friends because they condemned Job without refuting him, and he is angry with Job because he justified himself rather than God. Elihu is the young intern who has been watching the senior partners bungle a major case, and he finally stands up and says, "Let me take a crack at it."
Now, we have a tendency to lump Elihu in with the other three stooges, but that is a mistake. The text distinguishes him, and most importantly, when God finally shows up to rebuke the others, Elihu is not mentioned. He is not rebuked. This does not mean everything he says is gospel truth, but it does mean we should pay closer attention. Elihu's speeches serve as the overture to the grand symphony of God's own appearance. He is not the main event, but he is setting the stage. He is the warm-up act for the whirlwind.
In these first four verses of chapter 36, Elihu is clearing his throat. This is his final speech, and he begins by demanding their attention for one last go. He is making a bold claim: that he is about to speak on God's behalf, that he has a knowledge that is both far-reaching and true, and that he will succeed where the others have failed in ascribing righteousness to our Maker. It is a confident, almost cocky, introduction. But it is a necessary one. The whole debate has been about God's character, and Elihu is stepping into the ring as God's unsolicited defense attorney. And his opening statement is that the problem is not with the defendant, but with the distorted arguments of both the prosecution and the defense.
The Text
Then Elihu continued and said,
"Wait for me a little, and I will show you That there is yet more to be said in God’s behalf.
I will take up my knowledge from afar, And I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker.
For truly my words are not a lie; One who is perfect in knowledge is with you."
(Job 36:1-4 LSB)
A Word for the Defense (v. 1-2)
We begin with Elihu's plea for a hearing.
"Then Elihu continued and said, 'Wait for me a little, and I will show you That there is yet more to be said in God’s behalf.'" (Job 36:1-2)
Elihu is asking for patience. "Bear with me," he says. He knows he is young, and he knows the others are weary of words. Job has already said, "How long will you torment my soul and break me in pieces with words?" (Job 19:2). The air is thick with useless talk. But Elihu insists he has something new to add. And notice the grounds of his appeal. He is not asking them to listen for his own sake, but "in God's behalf."
This is the central issue, and Elihu gets it right. The three friends thought they were defending God, but they were really defending their rigid, mechanical, and ultimately false system of retribution. Job thought he was defending his own integrity, but in doing so, he impugned God's. Elihu correctly identifies that the central character trait under assault here is the righteousness of God Himself. He sees that both sides have, in their own way, misrepresented the Almighty. The friends have made God into a cosmic accountant who pays out suffering for sin with no remainder. Job has made God into an arbitrary tyrant who afflicts without cause.
Elihu's claim is that there is "yet more to be said." The arguments so far have been insufficient. The picture of God they have painted is a caricature. This is a crucial lesson for all theological debate. It is not enough to be on God's side. We must represent Him accurately. Defending God with lies or with faulty logic is not a defense at all; it is a friendly fire incident. Elihu is promising to bring a better word, a truer word, a word that actually vindicates God's character, not a distorted version of it.
Knowledge from Afar (v. 3)
Next, Elihu states his sources and his thesis.
"I will take up my knowledge from afar, And I will ascribe righteousness to my Maker." (Job 36:3)
When he says he will take up his knowledge "from afar," he is not claiming to be a world traveler. He means his knowledge is not derived from the immediate, provincial assumptions that have governed this debate. The three friends got their "knowledge" from tradition and simplistic observation. "Have you not asked the wayfarers, and do you not recognize their signs?" (Job 21:29). They were trafficking in folk wisdom and proverbs. Elihu is claiming a higher perspective, a more transcendent viewpoint. He is trying to get them to lift their eyes from the ashes and the boils and consider God on His own terms.
And what is the conclusion of this transcendent knowledge? It is to "ascribe righteousness to my Maker." This is the thesis statement for his entire speech. To "ascribe" means to assign or attribute a quality to someone. Elihu's goal is to demonstrate that, despite all appearances, despite Job's horrific suffering, God is righteous. Not just powerful, not just sovereign, but righteous. Just. Good.
This is the fundamental task of all true theology. We do not invent God's attributes. We do not project our own desires onto Him. We are called to recognize and declare what is already true of Him. We ascribe righteousness to our Maker because He is, in His very essence, righteous. All His ways are justice. He is a God of truth and without injustice; righteous and upright is He (Deut. 32:4). The problem is not with God's character, but with our shortsightedness. We are like ants on a Persian rug, complaining about a knot of color without being able to see the grand design. Elihu is promising to take them up in a hot air balloon to see the pattern from afar.
A Claim to Truth (v. 4)
Finally, Elihu makes a startlingly bold claim about the nature of his words.
"For truly my words are not a lie; One who is perfect in knowledge is with you." (Job 36:4)
This is where modern ears might start to ring with the alarm of arrogance. He says his words are not false. This is a direct contrast to the speeches of the friends, which, for all their pious language, were fundamentally a lie about God. They were not speaking what was right, as God Himself will later say (Job 42:7). Elihu is claiming to be a truth-teller in a room full of error.
But then he goes even further. "One who is perfect in knowledge is with you." Who is he talking about? Is he claiming to be perfect in knowledge himself? Some commentators think so, and see this as a fatal display of youthful pride. And it is certainly possible that Elihu, in his zeal, overstates his own case. He is not infallible. But there is another way to read this, and I believe it is the better one. He is not claiming perfection for himself, but for the source of his knowledge.
Remember what he said earlier: "But it is the spirit in man, the breath of the Almighty, that makes him understand" (Job 32:8). Elihu is claiming to speak by divine inspiration. He is arguing that the one who truly is "perfect in knowledge", that is, God Himself, is present in this conversation through the truth that Elihu is about to speak. He is not saying, "I am perfect." He is saying, "The truth I am about to speak is perfect, because it comes from the One who is." He is claiming to be a conduit for a divine perspective.
Whether you see this as arrogance or as bold, prophetic confidence, the claim itself forces the issue. Elihu is saying that the human wisdom has failed. The arguments from tradition have failed. The arguments from personal experience have failed. The only thing left is a word from God. And he is positioning himself as the one to deliver it. He is, in effect, saying, "You have all been talking about God. Now, be quiet for a moment and listen to what God has to say about Himself."
Conclusion: Setting the Stage for God
So what do we do with this young man? Elihu serves as a crucial transition in the book of Job. He is a bridge between the failed wisdom of man and the stunning revelation of God. He correctly diagnoses the core problem: everyone has been slandering God's righteousness in one way or another.
Job's friends did it by defending a rigid, unmerciful caricature of God's justice. They made God predictable, and therefore small. They sacrificed His mercy on the altar of their system. Job did it by accusing God of being an unjust adversary. He maintained his own righteousness at the expense of God's. He demanded that God explain Himself in a human court of law.
Elihu comes to shut every mouth. His purpose is to show that God's justice is far more profound, His purposes in suffering far more complex, and His wisdom far more transcendent than anyone in the debate has imagined. He is here to "ascribe righteousness to his Maker," and to do so without the false premises of the friends or the borderline blasphemy of Job.
This is a posture we must all learn to adopt. Our first and highest calling is to vindicate God. It is to justify Him. This does not mean we make excuses for Him. It means we align our thinking with His revelation and declare that He is righteous in all His ways, even when, especially when, we cannot trace His hand. We are so quick to defend ourselves, our reputations, our sense of fairness. Elihu reminds us that the only reputation that ultimately matters is God's.
When we face suffering, the temptation is to put God in the dock. We want to cross-examine Him. We want Him to answer to us. Elihu prepares us for God's actual answer, which is to put us on the witness stand instead. The question is not whether God is righteous. The question is whether we will bow before that righteousness. Elihu is the bailiff, calling the court to order, because the Judge of all the earth is about to enter the room.