Job 36:5-12. Part of Elihu's speech to Job. Elihu here says God does not despise anyone, and never withdraws his eyes from the righteous. They will, eventually, be seated with kings forever. God does, though, allow even the righteous to be "caught in the cords of affliction" at times, and when they are, he "declares to them... their transgressions, that they are behaving arrogantly. He opens their ears to instruction and commands that they return from iniquity. If they hearken and serve him, they complete their days in prosperity... But if they do not hearken, they perish by the sword, and die without knowledge."

The Book of Job has been extremely helpful to me lately. Job was a very righteous man who had a wonderful life. At the beginning of the book, Satan says to God that Job is only righteous because he has been so blessed, and if Satan were allowed to test Job, Job would turn from righteousness. God puts everything Job has at Satan's disposal, so that Satan can test his theory. Job, of course, knows nothing of this, but soon after Job loses, in quick succession, all of his children, all of his flocks, his servants, basically everyone he loves and everything he has. Then Job is afflicted with sores all over his body, and he removes himself from society, sitting in the ashes and praying to God.

Eventually, Job's friends come to talk to him and try to help him. The first three tried to convince him that he must have done something terribly wrong for God to have punished him like this, but Job says, rightly, no, I haven't done anything wrong. Elihu is the youngest of the friends, and he keeps silent until they have all had their discussions. When he speaks up, he rebukes the other three for judging Job on the basis of his suffering, but he also rebukes Job for claiming that he is not a sinner.

Elihu has wisdom, it seems to me. He realizes that we cannot know God's ways or why he allows certain people to suffer so much, but we certainly cannot say that those people have done something to deserve it. Job most certainly did not deserve it, and was being tested by the devil. Satan takes great delight in turning the righteous from God, so frequently the more righteous suffer more than others (look at the lives of the saints!). On the other hand, though, Elihu realizes that Job, although very righteous, is a human being, and therefore a sinner. Sometimes, we can find our suffering to be so unfair that we overly protest our goodness. If we did not do anything so wicked as to deserve this level of suffering, then we convince ourselves that we have never been wicked at all. That, obviously, is not true. We are all sinners!

So, here, Elihu says God loves us all, he never takes his eyes from us. But in our suffering, even if it is more than we deserve, we must listen for God. He will use it to help us get closer to him, if we let him. Our suffering opens our ears to instruction, but only if we are willing to listen. Satan will try to make us close our ears, especially by playing on our sense of unfairness in our suffering.

Elihu is so wise in telling Job not to fall into this trap, and Job does not. Interestingly, when God starts speaking directly to Job, later in the book, he rebukes the first three friends, but does not mention Elihu. I think that is because Elihu had it right!