Elihu—Defender of Jehovah God

The name Elihu refers to three persons mentioned in several books of the Bible (for example, 1 Samuel 1:1and 1 Chronicles 12:20). The most well-known of these is Elihu “the son of Barachel the Buzite of the family of Ram,” from the Bible book of Job (32:2). It is ironically the case, however, since from the story of Elihu in the book of Job it does not appear to have ever been Elihu’s intention to become a figure of such renown. As we will see, he is compelled into his role for a very important reason.  

Before giving attention to the actions of Elihu and thereby becoming better acquainted with him I will provide some of the story’s context so we can better understand Elihu and the things he says. As the characters to this story are introduced it should become immediately apparent just how serious a context it was in which Elihu was forced to act. 

The Book of Job, the date and authorship of which is uncertain, tells the history of a man named Job from the “land of Uz” (1:1). The exact location of Uz is unknown, though the Watchtower Society’s Bible encyclopedia Insight on the Scriptures, volume 2, page 1145, under “Uz,” gives a reasonable explanation for thinking that Uz was “E[ast] of the Promised Land and near Edom, somewhere in N[orth] Arabia.”  

Job was a man whom Satan (a being who appeared before God together with God’s “sons” [1:6]) ‘set his heart upon’ because Job was “blameless and upright, fearing God and turning aside from bad” (Job 1:7, 8). It appears from the story that Job’s righteous character presented Satan with an opportunity to challenge the basis for Job’s integrity and loyalty to God. Indeed, after God referred to the good character of Job, Satan spoke to Jehovah and said, “For a change, thrust out your hand, please, and touch everything he has [and see] whether he will not curse you to your very face.”  

It appears, then, that Satan saw in the person of Job a chance to make a point that ultimately must have had something to do with Satan’s view of man and those who serve God. Jehovah must have seen something in Satan’s challenge that was important enough in the greater scheme of things at that time to let the proposed test take place. But Jehovah himself refused to be the one responsible for such wicked treatment of his servant. Yet, because of the heavenly order put in place by Jehovah and perhaps also because of man’s ability since Adam’s and Eve’s sins to know good from bad (Genesis 3:22) this level of testing was permitted before God and before his “sons.”  

After receiving authority from Jehovah to test Job against everything but “him himself,” Satan proceeds to “touch everything” Job had, from the lives of his attendants (1:15, 16, 17), to his cattle, she-asses, sheep, and camels (1:13-17), even to the lives of his sons and his daughters (1:18). Satan took all of them away and then waited to see what Job would think of Jehovah as a result of what Satan had actually done. 

When these losses were not enough to cause Job to ‘curse God to his very face,’ Satan extended the challenge further to that which Jehovah had previously denied him, that is, against the person of Job himself. Satan contended that Job’s love for his own life would cause him to curse Jehovah. Though Jehovah again refused to let Satan put Job’s life in danger, he did allow Satan to touch Job as far as his “bone and his flesh” (2:5-6). Satan then “struck Job with a malignant boil from the sole of his foot to the crown of his head” (Job 2:7).  

After all his losses, and now after having been struck himself, Job proceeded to take a “fragment of earthenware with which to scrape himself” and he sat “among the ashes” (2:8). But Job refused to “curse God and die,” as even his own wife admonished him to do (2:9-10). Job would not go that far, though he could not rightly understand what was happening to him and he mistakenly believed that Jehovah was the cause of all his sufferings (16:11). 

Eventually others heard of what had befallen Job, and three of his “friends” (Hebrew: rea‘) came to visit him (2:11). Eliphaz the Temanite, and Bildad the Shuhite, and Zophar the Naamathite came to ‘sympathize and comfort’ Job. But ‘they did not recognize him’ because of what Satan had done (2:11-12). Nevertheless, like good friends “they kept sitting with [Job] on the earth seven days and seven nights, and there was no one speaking a word to him, for they saw that the pain was very great” (2:13).  

But unlike true friends their initial sympathy and comfort could not endure Job’s attempts to explain his great losses and affliction. Instead of turning aside only from Job’s self-righteousness (32:1) Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar ‘did not speak what was truthful concerning Jehovah’ (42:7-8). It is in this context where Job struggles with his great affliction and self-righteousness and where his three friends speak what is not truthful about Jehovah in responding to Job, that Elihu speaks out.  

Realizing that Job had “declared his own soul righteous rather than God” (32:2) and that his three friends “had not found an answer but [instead] proceeded to pronounce God wicked” (32:3), Elihu begins: 

*** NWT Job 32:6-10 ***

Young I am in days and YOU men are aged. That is why I drew back and was afraid to declare my knowledge to YOU men. I said, ‘Days themselves should speak, and a multitude of years are what should make wisdom known. ’Surely it is the spirit in mortal men and the breath of the Almighty [that] gives them understanding. It is not those merely abundant in days that prove wise, nor those just old that understand judgment. Therefore I said, ‘Do listen to me. I shall declare my knowledge, even I.’

Elihu was forced to speak out against the words of Job and against his friends even though “they were older than he was in days” (32:4). Elihu was compelled to ‘open his lips in answer’ and defend Jehovah against those who, whether unknowingly or not, spoke untruthfully about God. Critical to being able to do so was Elihu’s ability and desire to remain impartial, to not show favor to any man regardless of position or titles:

*** NWT Job 32:21-22 ***

Let me not, please, show partiality to a man; and on an earthling man I shall not bestow a title; for I certainly do not know how I can bestow a title; easily my Maker would carry me away.

While it is understandable that we look to those accomplished in a particular field of study for insight on a matter, to rely entirely on “scholars” or to show partiality to men or women just because of their “title” is a mistake. 

In considering Elihu’s role in this story I personally would say it is also a mistake to let those who have received or ‘bestowed upon themselves a title’ in a religious sense, such as “Dr.,” “Pastor,” or anything but “brother” (Matthew 23:8), be exalted above anyone else. It is also not appropriate to call yourself “faithful and discreet” because it is a cause for self-righteousness and a block to those seeking to be impartial.

Specific to Jehovah’s Witnesses, to whom many IN MEDIO articles and Elihu Books’ publications refer, it is best to let the judgment of who is a “faithful slave” and who is an “evil slave” remain with the one qualified to make it, Jesus Christ. The Bible says clearly that Christ will indeed make this judgment “when he comes” (Matthew 24:46; Greek: elthon). It would be wrong for anyone to make that judgment for him and it would be self-righteous for anyone to consider themselves “faithful and discreet” in any permanent way, similar to the self-righteousness of Job.

This is the very trap Elihu sought to avoid by choosing to defend Job only where he was in fact right before God and by not allowing Job’s self-righteousness to take away from Jehovah’s greatness, at all.

What matters most is not our “title” or position relative to others or how we think of our selves. Instead we should all the time speak to others in the light of what can reasonably be shown to be true based on the best type and quality of reasons available. This is essentially what Paul had in mind, I think, when he wrote: “For if anyone thinks he is something when he is nothing, he is deceiving his own mind. But let each one prove what his own work is” (Galatians 6:3, 4).

Elihu had a similar disposition. Thus, he invited a response to his words knowing that he was no better than those to whom he was about to speak:

*** NWT Job 33:5-7 *** 

If you are able, make reply to me, array [words] before me; do take your station. Look! I am to the [true] God just what you are; from the clay I was shaped, I too. Look! No frightfulness in me will terrify you, and no pressure by me will be heavy upon you. 

In speaking this way Elihu was able to take the attention away from himself so that whatever he said only served to highlight the righteousness and justice of Jehovah. Like Elihu, then, those who know and love Jehovah should not put “pressure” or a heavy burden on the shoulders of anyone looking for answers. We are all “from the clay.”

But Job’s three friends only added to Job’s burden by further arguing that God was the cause, even rightly so, for the evils that had befallen Job. So also today many people in positions of responsibility have created burdens and put “pressure” on others, refusing to have open discussion like Elihu about questions of genuine concern. This has in many instances led some to ‘set aside the commandment of God in order to retain their tradition’ (Mark 7:9).

Often those who act this way do so because they perceive that they have a privileged position before God, appointed by him as his special messengers or representatives. Elihu knew that God has his messengers. And he knew that those truly speaking for Jehovah would do so knowing that God had rescued them “from going down into the pit” (Job 33:24). Elihu knew what the attitude of any such messenger should be: 

*** NWT Job 33:23-24, 27-28 *** 

If there exists for him a messenger, a spokesman, one out of a thousand, to tell to man his uprightness, then he favors him and says, ‘Let him off from going down into the pit! I have found a ransom! . . . He will sing to men and say, ‘I have sinned; and what is upright I have perverted, and it certainly was not the proper thing for me. He has redeemed my soul from passing into the pit, and my life itself will see the light.’  

Keeping that perspective will prevent anyone from thinking more of him- or herself than they ever should, especially if such thoughts occur to anyone during their service to God. For the turning back of man or woman from their sins and any enlightenment they receive thereafter is by God alone, not of ourselves, as Elihu told Job:

*** NWT Job 33:29-30 ***

Look! All these things God performs, two times, three times, in the case of an able-bodied man, to turn his soul back from the pit, that he may be enlightened with the light of those living.

The resulting enlightenment should never cause such persons to forget how close they came to “the pit,” and it should moderate a person’s view of him- or herself in order to keep them from becoming self-righteous.

Elihu knew that no matter how righteous Job was before Satan’s tests that Job was indeed now headed toward “the pit,” because he was “certainly on his way to companionship with practicers of what is hurtful” (34:8). As a result of his condition Job had come to believe that it was ‘not profitable to take pleasure in God’ (34:9). Elihu corrected him and rejected any suggestion that Jehovah would “act wickedly” or “unjustly” (34:10).

Elihu lets the reasons for Job’s sufferings remain entirely with the higher ways of God, without giving any direct cause. Elihu knew that Job’s new perspective resulting from his great sufferings, one where he now asked, “What benefit do I have more than by my sinning?” (35:3) was wrong no matter how bad things had gotten:

*** NWT Job 35:5-7 *** 

Look up to heaven and see, and behold the clouds, [that] they are indeed higher than you. If you actually sin, what do you accomplish against him? And [if] your revolts actually increase, what do you do to him? If you are really in the right, what do you give him, or what does he receive from your own hand?

If we choose to sin then the results of it come back upon us. If we do righteousness then it, too, returns to us. To think of either act as affecting God in any enduring way is foolish. He loves us, but his love and his ways are higher than ours.

On the other hand, Job’s and our responses to Satan’s challenges apparently have a significant impact on his credibility and either blunt or further his intentions in some respect realized in a greater sense in the “realms above” (John 8:23). There is no doubt more going on than any of us realize.

Again, the account of Job shows us in part that it is Satan who challenges the basis for serving God perhaps to justify, ultimately, his own desire not to do so. The account of Job further shows that there is a tendency on the part of man to blame God for what we do not understand. But in allowing Satan to bring forth wickedness Jehovah provides an opportunity for each of us to show who we truly are, even imperfectly, in a legal case before God involving our faith in the ‘ransom God has found’ for us in Jesus Christ (Job 33:24; Acts 10:43). Every such trial from Job, to Christ Jesus, to you and me, and to any “legal case with his people” (Micah 6:2) takes place before Jehovah:

*** NWT Job 35:14-15 *** 

The legal case is before him, and so you should wait anxiously for him. And now because his anger has not called for an accounting, he has also not taken note of the extreme rashness.

There is always time to turn back from our wickedness. There is always an opportunity to give up committing wrongs in Jehovah’s name. Those who cannot allow for a change of heart will themselves not be allowed one (Matthew 7:1-2). For those bearing Jehovah’s name it is imperative that we seek him alone, not our own wisdom and righteousness. Job sought his own righteousness, but he was also a prized servant of God. He simply lost sight of what matters most: Jehovah.

Elihu never lost sight of this. He was outraged at Job’s conduct and at the words of Job’s “friends.” All of them were either too caught up in their own self-righteousness (Job) or they were unable to speak truthfully about God (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar). 

Given their ‘wisdom in years’ these four should have been the ones who spoke rightly about Jehovah. Instead it fell to the younger Elihu to speak truthfully about God and convince Job in particular that it was not God who “takes [us] for an enemy of his” (33:10); it is not Jehovah who “puts [our] feet in the stocks” (33:11). But God does ‘let the testing go to the limit’ (34:36), apparently so the judgment cannot be questioned.

Elihu finished his words to Job by speaking about Jehovah’s “justice and abundance of righteousness” (37:23) and about the fact that he “does not regard any who are wise in [their own] heart” (37:24). After this, Elihu is not mentioned again and for good reason. After he finishes Jehovah himself speaks to Job.

Though Job had been faithful to Jehovah in an extraordinary way before his testing revealed his limitations, after his “own eye” saw Jehovah in the windstorm Job ‘made a retraction’ and he ‘repented in dust and ashes” (42:6). Job then prayed on behalf of his friends who spoke falsely about Jehovah, and as a result Jehovah blessed Job and did not punish Eliphaz, Bildad, or Zophar:

*** NWT Job 42:10 *** 

And Jehovah himself turned back the captive condition of Job when he prayed in behalf of his companions, and Jehovah began to give in addition all that had been Job’s, in double amount.

Elihu Books was founded in part on the spirit of Elihu. It was founded on the principle that Jehovah should be defended above all else: above ourselves, above those with titles, and even above Jehovah’s own people. For who are they, without Jehovah? Who was Job, without Jehovah?

If Jehovah is spoken of falsely because of any of God’s servants should they themselves not be spoken of truthfully so that others do not behold their condition and say, ‘We have found wisdom and it is God that drives [them] away, not a man?’ (32:13).

Defending Jehovah above all else as Elihu did will keep us from thinking more of ourselves than we should. Defending his people ‘in whose righteousness we take delight’ (Job 33:32) should only be done if it does not ‘declare their or our own soul righteous rather than God.’—Job 32:2.

Greg Stafford
September 1, 2006