Scripture Daily

Context No. 1518 of 4322 · Job

Context · Reflection

Job 34:1-16: in context

1Moreover Elihu answered, 2“Hear my words, you wise men. Give ear to me, you who have knowledge. 3For the ear tries words, as the palate tastes food. 4Let us choose for us that which is right. Let us know among ourselves what is good. 5For Job has said, ‘I am righteous, God has taken away my right. 6Notwithstanding my right I am considered a liar. My wound is incurable, though I am without disobedience.’ 7What man is like Job, who drinks scorn like water, 8who goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men? 9For he has said, ‘It profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.’ 10“Therefore listen to me, you men of understanding: far be it from God, that he should do wickedness, from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity. 11For the work of a man he will give to him, and cause every man to find according to his ways. 12Yes surely, God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert justice. 13Who put him in charge of the earth? Or who has appointed him over the whole world? 14If he set his heart on himself, if he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath, 15all flesh would perish together, and man would turn again to dust. 16“If now you have understanding, hear this. Listen to the voice of my words.

Elihu continues his speeches, taking up the defense of God's justice against Job's complaint that God has denied him his right. Far be it from God to do wickedness, Elihu says, and from the Almighty to do wrong; surely God will not act wickedly, nor will the Almighty pervert justice. He repays a person according to their conduct; and who put him in charge of the earth? If God were to gather back to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together and return to dust.

The bedrock conviction Elihu states is worth holding, even granting that his application to Job is not always fair: far be it from God to do wrong; the Almighty will not pervert justice. Whatever else is uncertain, this is a fixed point: God does not and will not do wickedness. It is a truth to cling to precisely when God's dealings seem unjust to us, when, like Job, we feel wronged, when what happens to us or around us looks like a miscarriage of justice we cannot square with a good God. In those moments the temptation is to conclude that God has been unjust; Elihu insists on the opposite, that God will not pervert justice, whatever it looks like from where we stand. This is not a denial of the mystery; Job's suffering was real and unexplained, and Elihu does not fully understand it either. But it plants a stake in the ground: God is just, and will not do wrong, even when we cannot see how. To hold that conviction through the dark is itself an act of faith. And Elihu adds a humbling reminder of our dependence: if God withdrew his breath, all flesh would perish and return to dust. The very life by which we question God's justice is his gift, sustained moment by moment by his breath. We are in no position to judge our Maker, on whose breath our own existence hangs. The fixed point remains: far be it from God to do wrong; hold to his justice even in the dark.

When God's dealings seem unjust to me and I am tempted, like Job, to conclude he has wronged me, can I hold to the fixed point Elihu states, that far be it from God to do wrong or pervert justice, trusting his justice through the dark I cannot see through?

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