Context No. 741 of 4322 · Job
Context · Reflection
Job 37:17-24: in context
17You whose clothing is warm when the earth is still by reason of the south wind? 18Can you, with him, spread out the sky, which is strong as a cast metal mirror? 19Teach us what we will tell him, for we can’t make our case by reason of darkness. 20Will it be told him that I would speak? Or should a man wish that he were swallowed up? 21Now men don’t see the light which is bright in the skies, but the wind passes, and clears them. 22Out of the north comes golden splendor. With God is awesome majesty. 23We can’t reach the Almighty. He is exalted in power. In justice and great righteousness, he will not oppress. 24Therefore men revere him. He doesn’t regard any who are wise of heart.”
Elihu is the last of Job's friends to speak, and just before God himself answers out of the storm, Elihu points up at the sky. Can you spread out the heavens with him, he asks, hard and bright as a mirror of cast metal? We cannot even order our words to argue with him in the dark. Out of the north comes a golden splendor; around God is a fearful majesty. He is building toward a single conclusion about the God whose weather is gathering overhead: we cannot reach the Almighty.
But Elihu does not stop at unreachable. He puts two things together that fearful people tend to pull apart. The Almighty is beyond us, exalted in power, and, in the same breath, great in justice and righteousness, and he will not oppress. A God that vast could be a bully, and Elihu insists he is not; his greatness and his justice are one thing. That is why he is to be revered, and why, Elihu adds, he pays no special attention to those who are wise in their own eyes. Cleverness buys no standing with him. What he asks is not a winning argument but reverence, from people who trust that a God this great is also this good.
Elihu held together that God is beyond our reach and that he will not oppress. Do I secretly assume that a God this strong must also be unfair, or can I trust that his greatness and his goodness are the same thing?
Sources
- Job 38:1: God answering Job out of the whirlwind, the storm Elihu describes arriving right after
- Job 37:23: in justice and great righteousness he will not oppress, Elihu's key claim about God
- 1 Corinthians 1:19-27: God choosing the foolish over the self-wise, echoing he does not regard the wise of heart