The Book of Job

Word Study

"righteous," Hebrew tzadaqta (צָדַקְתָּ), be righteous. Job had complained that it profits nothing to be righteous (v3). Elihu takes up the very word and asks what such righteousness does for God: "If thou be righteous, what givest thou him?" Our goodness benefits other people, "thy righteousness may profit the son of man" (v8), and our sin harms them, but God Himself stands in need of nothing.

"givest," titten (תִּתֶּן), give. The language is deliberately commercial, and that exposes a subtle error in Job's complaint: he spoke as if righteousness were a transaction, a way to hand something over to God and get something back, and when the payment didn't come, he felt cheated.

"receiveth," yiqqach (יִקַּח), take, receive. The answering side of the transaction, and the answer is nothing. God is infinitely self-sufficient; He does not need our righteousness, and our sin does not diminish Him: "If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him?" (v6). We cannot add to God or subtract from Him. This is the great truth of God's self-existence and self-sufficiency: "God that made the world and all things therein... is Lord of heaven and earth," and "Neither is worshipped with men's hands, as though he needed any thing" (Acts 17:24-25). We do not serve God to enrich Him or to earn from Him as an equal; we serve Him because He is God and worthy. Our obedience is His due, not a favor we do Him. This humbling truth guards us from a mercenary religion and points us to serve God for His own sake.

Explanation

Job complained that righteousness profits nothing; Elihu answers by pointing to God's greatness: "If thou be righteous, what givest thou him?" God is infinitely self-sufficient; our sin does not diminish Him, nor our righteousness enrich Him. Our goodness benefits other people, and our sin harms them, but God needs nothing (Acts 17:24-25). This corrects a subtle error: Job spoke as if righteousness were a transaction to get something from God. But we serve God because He is worthy, not to enrich Him. Our obedience is His due, not a favor we do Him.

Gospel Focus

"If thou be righteous, what givest thou him?", the self-sufficiency of God, that He needs nothing from us, is the very soil in which the Gospel of grace grows. Because God needs nothing, everything He gives us is pure gift, not a repayment. "Who hath first given to him, and it shall be recompensed unto him again? For of him, and through him, and to him, are all things" (Romans 11:35-36). We can never put God in our debt; salvation is entirely of grace, "not of works, lest any man should boast" (Ephesians 2:9). And this exposes the folly of trying to earn from God: our best righteousness adds nothing to Him and cannot buy our salvation. But here is the wonder, the God who needs nothing gave everything: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son" (John 3:16). The self-sufficient One stooped to serve us, "the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many" (Matthew 20:28). We bring nothing God needs, yet He lavishes on us all the riches of Christ. So we serve Him not to enrich Him or earn from Him, but out of grateful love, having freely received. "Freely ye have received, freely give" (Matthew 10:8). The God who receives nothing from our hand has filled our empty hands with grace, and our obedience is now the glad response of the redeemed, not the wage-claim of hirelings. Serve the all-sufficient God for His own sake, for He has already given you His Son.

Word Study

"my maker," Hebrew osai (עֹשָׂי), the One who made me. Elihu observes that in their troubles, people cry out under oppression but do not seek God rightly: "None saith, Where is God my maker." The title is personal, the God who formed this very sufferer, and that is the God the oppressed fail to ask after. The tragedy Elihu names is that people in trouble cry out in despair but do not seek Him.

"songs," zemiroth (זְמִרוֹת), songs, psalms of praise. Not merely relief but music, and praise-music at that. Here shines one of the most beautiful phrases in all Scripture. God is able to give the oppressed joy and praise even in the darkest hour. "In the night his song shall be with me" (Psalm 42:8).

"in the night," ballaylah (בַּלָּיְלָה). The timing is everything. God does not merely rescue us out of the night; He can put a song in our hearts while the night still lasts. This is the distinctive miracle of true faith: not the absence of darkness, but the presence of song within it. "Weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning" (Psalm 30:5), yet God does more, He gives songs during the night itself. Paul and Silas, beaten and chained in the inner prison at midnight, "prayed, and sang praises unto God" (Acts 16:25), songs in the night in the most literal sense. The God who made us can fill the darkest night with music, if we will turn to Him and ask, "Where is God my maker?"

Explanation

Elihu observes that the oppressed cry out in distress but fail to seek the God "who giveth songs in the night." Here shines one of Scripture's loveliest phrases. God does not merely rescue us out of the night; He can put a song in our hearts while the night still lasts. This is the miracle of true faith, not the absence of darkness but the presence of song within it (Psalm 42:8). Paul and Silas sang at midnight in prison (Acts 16:25). The tragedy is that people cry in despair but do not turn to the God who fills the darkest night with music.

Gospel Focus

"Who giveth songs in the night", the God who gives songs in the darkness has given us, in Christ, the deepest reason to sing even in our hardest hours. The Gospel is a song for the night of a fallen world: because Christ has died and risen, no darkness is without hope, and the believer can rejoice "though now for a season, if need be, ye are in heaviness through manifold temptations" (1 Peter 1:6). Jesus Himself, on the night He was betrayed, having eaten the last supper, "sung an hymn" and went out to the cross (Matthew 26:30), a song in the darkest night of all. And He teaches His people to sing in every trial: "is any merry? let him sing psalms" (James 5:13); "speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord" (Ephesians 5:19); "rejoice in the Lord alway: and again I say, Rejoice" (Philippians 4:4). The joy of the Lord is not dependent on our circumstances but on our Saviour, "your joy no man taketh from you" (John 16:22). So when the night is long and dark, do not merely cry out in despair like those Elihu describes; turn to God your Maker and Redeemer, and ask Him for a song. He who gave His Son to bring us from darkness to light will put praise in your heart that the darkness cannot silence. The God who giveth songs in the night has given us Christ, the song that no night can ever take away.

Word Study

"see him," Hebrew teshurennu (תְּשׁוּרֶנּוּ), behold, perceive Him. Elihu speaks a tender word of counsel to Job, beginning where Job's own complaint had ended: "Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him." Job had said he could not see God, could not find Him, could not get his case before Him (Job 23:8-9).

"judgment," din (דִּין), justice, judgment, the just handling of a case. Elihu answers that even though Job cannot see God, His justice is not absent: "judgment is before him." The word is a courtroom word, and the point is that Job's cause is not lost; it is before the God who judges rightly.

"trust," techolel (תְּחוֹלֵל), wait for, hope in. And therefore the conclusion: "trust thou in him." The verb carries the sense of waiting, and this is the very counsel the whole book has been driving toward. The proper response to God's felt hiddenness is not despair or complaint but trust, waiting on Him in confidence that His justice is at work even when we cannot see it. It echoes the great calls of Scripture: "Trust in the LORD with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding" (Proverbs 3:5); "commit thy way unto the LORD; trust also in him" (Psalm 37:5). Faith is precisely trusting God when we cannot see Him or trace His hand. Elihu's word to Job is a word to every sufferer: your case is before the just Judge; therefore, though you cannot see Him, trust Him. He has not forgotten your cause; He will do right; wait on Him.

Explanation

Elihu speaks a tender word to Job, who had complained he could not see God: "Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him." Even though you cannot see God, His justice is not absent; your cause is before the God who judges rightly. Therefore, trust Him. This is the counsel the whole book drives toward: the proper response to God's felt hiddenness is not despair but trust (Proverbs 3:5; Psalm 37:5). Faith is trusting God when we cannot see Him or trace His hand.

Gospel Focus

"Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him... therefore trust thou in him", the call to trust the God we cannot see is the very heart of the Christian life. "We walk by faith, not by sight" (2 Corinthians 5:7). "No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son... he hath declared him" (John 1:18); and though we have not seen Christ with our eyes, "whom having not seen, ye love; in whom, though now ye see him not, yet believing, ye rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory" (1 Peter 1:8). Jesus blessed this very faith: "blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed" (John 20:29). The Gospel gives us every reason to trust the unseen God, for He has made Himself known in Christ, has proven His love at the cross, and has vindicated His justice in the resurrection. Job's cause was before the just Judge though he could not see Him; the believer's cause is settled for ever in Christ, our Advocate, who appears "in the presence of God for us" (Hebrews 9:24). So when God seems hidden and His purposes dark, we do what Elihu counseled and the whole Gospel commands: we trust Him. Not a blind trust, but a trust grounded in the character of God revealed in Jesus, "he that spared not his own Son... how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?" (Romans 8:32). Your case is before the just and loving God; therefore, though you cannot see Him now, trust Him, for the day is coming when faith gives way to sight, and "we shall see him as he is" (1 John 3:2).