Job 36:5 - Meaning and Application

Elihu is speaking for God here, and especially showing that his Maker always acts with righteousness. He says that God’s rule over the world follows not only his eternal plan, but also his perfect standards of fairness. God acts like a righteous ruler.

First, God does not think it beneath him to notice the lowest people. Poverty or obscurity does not put anyone too far away from his favor. Human rulers often look down on people who have no rank or fame, but God is mighty, and yet he despises no one (Job 36:5). He lowers himself to care about the affairs of the least important people, to do them justice and to show them kindness. Job felt ignored because God had not stepped in for him at once, but Elihu says that God despises no one. That is a strong reason for us to honor all people.

God is mighty in strength and wisdom, but he does not treat people with contempt just because they are weak. If they mean honestly, their lack of power or learning does not keep him from caring about them. In fact, because his strength and wisdom are boundless, his kindness does not reduce him in any way. Wise and good people should also avoid scorn and pride toward others.

Second, God gives no support to the greatest people if they are wicked (Job 36:6). He does not preserve the life of the wicked as a special mark of favor. Their lives may be prolonged, but only under God’s common care, not under his approving protection. Job had said that wicked people often live long lives and grow powerful, but Elihu says God does not usually let them grow old in peace. Even when their life continues, it is often only a delay before judgment, a reserve for the day of wrath (Romans 2:5).

Third, God is always ready to defend those who are wronged and to plead their cause (Job 36:6). He gives justice to the poor, avenges them against those who mistreat them, and makes oppressors restore what they have taken. If men will not right the injured poor, God will.

Fourth, God takes special care of his faithful people (Job 36:7). He does not only look at them, he keeps looking on them. He never withdraws his eyes from the righteous. They may sometimes seem forgotten, as if Providence had overlooked them, but their heavenly Father never loses sight of them. If our eyes are fixed on God in duty, his eyes will be fixed on us in mercy. Even at our lowest point, he will not overlook us.

Sometimes God raises good people to places of honor and trust (Job 36:7). They may sit with kings on the throne, and people submit to them. When righteous people are advanced, it is a mercy to them, because God’s grace in them will guard them against the temptations that come with power and help them use their position for good. It is also a mercy to the people under them, because when the righteous rule, the city rejoices. If the righteous are lifted up, they are firmly established. People who keep a good conscience in honor stand on solid ground, and high places are not as slippery for them as they are for others.

Since we do not often see good people made great in this world, this may also point to the honor the righteous will receive when their Redeemer stands on the earth at the last day. Then they will be lifted up forever and made secure forever. Then they will shine like the sun and be made kings and priests to our God.

If God brings his people into affliction, he does it for the good of their souls (Job 36:8-10). Some good people are honored, but others suffer. Elihu says that if they are bound in chains, like Joseph was, or held fast by any trouble, the suffering may last a long time. They may be confined by pain and sickness, held back by poverty, or trapped in confused plans and efforts that go nowhere. This was Job’s own case, as he was caught fast in the cords of anguish.

God has a purpose in these troubles, and that purpose should help us bear them better. He uses affliction to uncover old sins and bring them back to mind. He shows people what they have done. Sin is our own work, while any good in us is God’s work. So we should be willing to see what kind of work we have made by sin. He also shows the fault of sin, revealing how they have broken his law and how deeply sinful they have been. True repenters do not excuse themselves. They put the weight of their sins on themselves and admit that they have gone beyond measure. Sometimes affliction matches the sin in some way, but even when it does not, it still wakes the conscience and leads people to think seriously.

God also uses affliction to make us ready to hear his instruction (Job 36:10). Those whom God corrects, he teaches (Psalm 94:12). Trouble softens the heart so it can receive his word, like wax that can take a seal. Yet this does not happen by trouble alone. It happens because God works through it. He opens the ear, and he opens the heart. He holds the key of David.

Finally, affliction is meant to turn us away from sin in the future. It is a command to return from wrongdoing, to have nothing more to do with sin, to turn from it with hatred of it and a firm resolve never to go back to it again (Hosea 14:8).

If the affliction does its work, and carries out what God sent it to do, then he will comfort them again, in the same measure as he afflicted them (Job 36:11). If they obey and serve him, meaning that they accept his purpose in their suffering, keep the same good spirit after the pain is lifted, and live in obedience to his commands, especially in his worship and service, then they will spend their days in prosperity and their years in true pleasures. Godliness is the only sure path to lasting prosperity and joy. This is certain truth, though few are willing to believe it.

If we faithfully serve God, we have the promise of outward prosperity, that is, the life we live now and its comforts, as far as these help God’s glory and our good. And who would want them for any other purpose? We also have inward joy, the comfort of fellowship with God and a clear conscience, along with the great peace that belongs to those who love God’s law.

If we do not rejoice in the Lord always, and in hope of eternal life, that is our own fault. What better pleasures could we spend our years in? If affliction does not do its work, then people must expect the furnace to be heated seven times hotter until they are consumed (Job 36:12). If they do not obey, if they are not improved by their troubles, and if they are not brought back and reformed, they will perish by the sword of God’s wrath.

Those whom his rod does not heal, his sword will kill. The fire that destroys will prevail if the refining fire does not. When God judges, he will overcome. If Ahaz, the king of Judah, in his distress, keeps sinning against the Lord even more, then that is the king marked for ruin (2 Chronicles 28:22; Jeremiah 6:29-30). God wanted to teach them through their troubles, but they would not learn. They would not take the warning given to them.

So they will die without knowledge, before they are aware, with no more warning given. Or they will die because they remained without knowledge, even though they had means of learning. Those who die without knowledge die without grace, and they are lost forever.

Elihu then speaks of the ruin God brings on hypocrites, the secret enemies of his kingdom, the kind of people he described in Job 36:12. They may be counted among the righteous, yet they do not obey God. They are children of disobedience and darkness, and so become children of wrath and destruction. These are the hypocrites in heart, who heap up wrath (Job 36:13).

This shows what hypocrisy is. It lives in the heart, where a person is set on the world and the flesh, even while the outside looks religious and devoted to God. Many people are saints in appearance and saints in words, yet hypocrites in heart. That source is corrupt, and evil is stored there.

It also shows how harmful hypocrisy is. Hypocrites heap up wrath. Every day they do things that anger God, and they will be called to account for all of it at the great day. They store up wrath for the day of wrath (Romans 2:5). Their sins are kept in God’s storehouse among his treasures (Deuteronomy 32:34). Compare James 5:3.

As vapors rise and then fall as rain, so sin, if it is not repented of, will come down as wrath. People think they are piling up wealth or even merit, but when the treasures are opened, it will be seen that they were piling up wrath.

Notice what they do to heap up wrath. What is so provoking? They do not cry out when he binds them, that is, when they are under affliction and tied up with trouble. Their hearts stay hard, they remain stubborn and unbroken, and they will not cry to God or seek him. They are dull and numb, like stones, and they despise the Lord’s correction.

Notice also the result of that wrath. They die young, and their life ends among the unclean, or among the worst sinners, Job 36:14. This is the portion of hypocrites, against whom Christ spoke many warnings. If they stay unrepentant, they will die suddenly, die in youth, when death is most unexpected. And death, meaning what comes after it, is always a surprise to hypocrites. Like people who die young after hoping to live longer, hypocrites at death go to hell when they had hoped to go to heaven. When a wicked man dies, all his hopes die with him.

They will also die the second death. Their life after death, as the verse means here, is among the unclean, among immoral people, as some explain it, among the worst and most vile sinners, in spite of their outward and impressive profession. It is among the Sodomites, as the margin says, those filthy people who went after strange flesh and were made an example by suffering the punishment of eternal fire (Jude 1:7). The souls of the wicked live after death, but they live among the unclean spirits, the devil and his angels, forever shut out from the new Jerusalem, where nothing unclean will ever enter.