Job32chapter 32

Job 32:1-3

The narrator closes the debate before Elihu speaks a word: these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes, and the wrath that follows is kindled twice over, against Job for justifying himself rather than God, and against Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar for finding no answer while still condemning him. Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite, of the kindred of Ram, enters unannounced by any earlier chapter and unanswered by any later one. Henry reads the double kindling as the narrator's own judgment on the whole debate's failure, standing outside every speech that came before it. Davidson notes that the readings on Elihu himself divide from this entrance onward: many of the bench read him as a preparer sent to press the argument the friends could not close, while others read him as a young man left unanswered by Job and answered only by the Lord's arrival and by the silence that follows it.

Job 32:4-5

Elihu had waited for the three friends to finish because they were elder, a patriarchal courtesy the text records before it explains his silence. His wrath is kindled only when he sees there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, not for lack of trying but for its actual failure to convince Job. Clarke reads verse 4's deference as proof Elihu is not simply an interrupter, but a man who kept the custom of age until the custom produced nothing. Wesley notes the wrath of verse 5 is directed at the outcome, an unanswered case, rather than at any single word the friends had spoken.

Job 32:6-9

I am young, and ye are very old opens Elihu's apology for having waited, and the deference he names, wherefore I was afraid, and durst not shew you mine opinion, is the same courtesy of verse 4 turned into speech. He restates the assumption he was raised on, days should speak, and multitude of years should teach wisdom, only to overturn it: there is a spirit in man, and the inspiration of the Almighty giveth them understanding. Great men are not always wise, neither do the aged understand judgment is the apology's edge, the claim that stands behind everything Elihu says next. Henry reads the line as true in itself and dangerous in Elihu's mouth alike, since it licenses the very speech that follows.

Job 32:10-14

Therefore I said, Hearken to me announces Elihu's opinion after he says he attended unto you and gave ear to your reasons while the three men searched for what to say. His complaint is precise: none of you that convinced Job, or that answered his words, so their failure is not gentleness but weakness, met by their own private conclusion that God thrusteth him down, not man. Elihu marks his distance from that shortcut by refusing it: he hath not directed his words against me, neither will I answer him with your speeches, a claim to a different approach rather than a different conclusion yet. Barnes reads the friends' unspoken verdict in verse 13 as the very move Elihu accuses them of, silencing the question with authority instead of argument.

Job 32:15-17

They were amazed, they answered no more marks the friends' silence as final rather than strategic, and Elihu narrates his own waiting through it, for they spake not, but stood still, and answered no more. He takes their silence as his opening rather than as a stopping point: I will answer also my part, I also will shew mine opinion. Delitzsch reads the repeated waited and shew mine opinion across these verses as Elihu building his own credibility on the debate's exhaustion, a case made stronger by contrast than by content so far.

Job 32:18-22

For I am full of matter, the spirit within me constraineth me gives Elihu's own account of why he must speak, pictured next as wine that hath no vent, ready to burst like new bottles. He commits himself against partiality in the same breath he claims urgency: let me not accept any man's person, neither let me give flattering titles unto man. Gill reads the refusal of flattering titles as Elihu's promise to speak plainly to Job as he has not spoken plainly against the friends' error, and his closing line makes the promise a matter of conscience rather than manner, in so doing my maker would soon take me away. Clarke notes the verse anticipates Elihu's own directness in the chapters that follow, for better or worse depending on which reading of the man a reader holds.