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Job 32

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Elihu's anger

1 So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes. 2 Then the anger of Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram, burned against Job; his anger burned because he justified himself rather than Elohim. 3 His anger also burned against his three friends, because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job. 4 Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were older than he in days. 5 But when Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of the three men, his anger burned.

Elihu speaks: the spirit in man

6 Then Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said: I am young in years, and you are very old; therefore I held back, and was afraid to declare my opinion to you. 7 I said, "Let days speak, and let many years teach wisdom." 8 But it is a spirit in man, the breath of Shaddai, that gives them understanding. 9 It is not those of many years who are wise, nor the aged who understand what is right. 10 Therefore I say, "Listen to me; I also will declare my opinion."

11 See, I waited for your words; I listened for your reasons, while you searched out what to say. 12 I paid close attention to you, and see, there was no one who refuted Job, none of you who answered his words. 13 Beware of saying, "We have found wisdom; El must defeat him, not man." 14 He has not directed his words against me, and I will not answer him with your speeches.

15 They are dismayed; they answer no more; words have left them. 16 And shall I wait, because they do not speak, because they stand there and answer no more? 17 I also will answer my part; I also will declare my opinion. 18 For I am full of words; the spirit within me compels me. 19 See, my belly is like wine that has no vent; like new wineskins it is ready to burst. 20 I must speak, that I may find relief; I will open my lips and answer. 21 Let me not show partiality to anyone, nor give flattering titles to any man. 22 For I do not know how to give flattering titles; else my Maker would soon take me away.

Notes

  • 32:1 Here a new speaker appears, not mentioned before: Elihu, a younger man who has listened in silence (verses 4-6). His speeches (chapters 32-37) stand between the end of Job's words (31:40) and Yahweh's answer from the storm (38:1). Elihu is named neither in the prologue nor in the epilogue, and when Yahweh rebukes the three friends (42:7-9) He says nothing of Elihu, for or against. So readers differ: some hear in him a wiser voice that prepares the way for Yahweh's answer, since he stresses that El teaches through suffering (33:14-30); others find that he largely repeats the friends' charges against Job (34:7-9, 34:36-37). As with the friends (see the note at 4:1), his words are recorded truly and must be weighed against the whole book.
  • 32:2 Elihu means "He is my El," and Barachel means "El blesses." Buz was the brother of Uz (Genesis 22:21), the name of Job's land (1:1), and Buz appears again among the peoples of the desert east of Israel (Jeremiah 25:23); the family of Ram is not otherwise known. Unlike the three friends, Elihu is introduced with his father and his clan, and four times in verses 2-5 the text says that his anger burned: against Job, who justified himself rather than Elohim, and against the friends, who could not answer him.
  • 32:3 Later Jewish tradition lists this verse among the tiqqune soferim, "corrections of the scribes," places where the scribes are said to have softened an expression that spoke irreverently of God (see also the note at 7:20). Here the earlier wording is said to have been "and so condemned Elohim": by finding no answer to Job, the friends would in effect have left Elohim in the wrong. Scholars differ on whether the tradition preserves an older reading; the TRB follows the Hebrew.
  • 32:8 Elihu grants that age ought to bring wisdom (verse 7; compare Job's words in 12:12 and Eliphaz's in 15:10), but says that understanding comes from the spirit Elohim gives, the breath (neshamah) of Shaddai, the word used of the breath of life in Genesis 2:7; he says the same of his own life in 33:4. Whether this gives his own words special authority, as he seems to claim (verse 18), is part of the debate over Elihu (see the note at verse 1).

Job 31 · Job 33

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