Job 36:1-12, Did Elihu Understand Job’s Situation?

Recently (July 29-31, 2026) in our blog we studied the NT words for “understanding,” the idea that someone who is able to pull together all relevant truths is able to understand a situation.  I want to give an illustration of this from the story of Job.  Job 1-2 tells us what God was doing in the situation with Job.  This information is not known by Job, his three “friends,” and Elihu, the young man who speaks later in the story (Ch. 32-37). 

Often I have heard fellow believers say they liked the words of Elihu, and that he was as close to sounding like the Lord in Ch. 38-41.  A careful reading, however, shows that Elihu had the same thought that Job and the friends had, that Job’s suffering was connected to sin in Job’s life.  Elihu, in his wrath (32:2), does reprove Job for questioning God’s righteousness. 

But there is a problem, and we can see it in Elihu’s 6 uses of the Hebrew dea.  It comes from the root yada which is the basic term for knowledge in the OT.  Here are those uses, as taken from the NKJV.

·       32:6: Elihu did not declare his opinion until the elders had spoken.

·       32:10: Now he calls Job to Listen to me, I also will declare my opinion.

·       32:17: Again, I also will answer my part, I too will declare my opinion.

·       36:3: Here he declares that his knowledge is from afar, and in the process will ascribe righteousness to his Maker.  In other words, unlike the elders, he will indict Job without indicting God at the same time.

·       36:4: In this, Elihu claims to be perfect in knowledge.  As in the NT, “perfect” has the idea of maturity, completeness.  This phrase describes one who has “understanding,” who has it all together. 

·       37:16: Here he speaks of God, who is perfect in knowledge. 

The question is, did Elihu have it all together.  He did not because he was not able to include in his knowledge God’s conversations with Satan and the test that was applied to Job, a man whom God referred to as “blameless.”  What 36:4 and 37:16 are saying is that you can have knowledge without understanding.  Elihu had sound doctrine: a grand picture of God and a reproving picture of Job.  But in the end, like the others, he could only tell Job to repent and God would restore him.

In the Lord’s words (Ch. 38-41), we see One who truly understands, who is perfect in knowledge.  He paints the grandest description of Himself, and leaves it with Job to just trust Him.  That was Job’s sin.  He needed to wait, and rest, and wait, for God’s time.  That is why James (Jas. 5:11) spoke of the perseverance of Job, meaning patience in a time of suffering.  (Our posts July 3-7, 2025 dealt with the two “perseverance” words in the NT.)  Only the LORD had perfect judgments about Job’s situation.  We have a follow-up tomorrow on this tomorrow.