BibleProject | One Story That Leads to JesusSample

Talk about irreconcilable differences. Job’s three friends insist Job deserves his agony: He must have sinned. Job says that’s not the case, appealing to his innocence. The friends haven’t swayed Job. He hasn’t swayed them. Everyone falls silent.

But the debate isn’t over. A young man named Elihu has been watching from the sidelines. Indignant at his elders’ failure to talk sense into Job, he takes his turn in the ring.

Unlike the friends, Elihu does not conclude that Job’s suffering is a result of past sin. The way he sees it, suffering is like a tool that God uses to strengthen a person’s character. “God does all these things to a person—twice, even three times—to turn them back from the pit, that the light of life may shine on them.” Notice the goal is to help people back into the light of life.

Elihu may disagree with the three friends about why God allows suffering, but he shares their core conviction about how God runs the universe. He believes that when the proud puff themselves up, God knocks them back down. When the poor cry out for help, God steps in to rescue them—an important motif in the biblical story, as today’s video explains. When tyrants scheme to get ahead, God topples them from their thrones.

For Elihu, suffering must fit into a simple formula. But did God build the world this way?

Reflection Questions

• Notice that the first verse of today’s reading describes Job as “righteous in his own eyes.” Where else in the biblical story have you seen characters do what is right or good in their own eyes? (If you need a hint, try Genesis 3.) What happened? What does this hyperlink reveal about Job’s relationship to God’s wisdom at this point in the story?
• Compare Job 34:8-9 to Psalm 1:1. What do you notice? What might the biblical authors be trying to say through this hyperlink?