CHAPTER 36 Dec. 27 
Elihu Speaks Up for God 
Elihu also continued and said, 2Bear with me a little, and I will show you; for I still have something to say on God’s behalf. 3I will get my knowledge from afar, and will ascribe righteousness to my Maker. 4For truly my words are not false. One who is perfect in knowledge is with you. 5Behold, God is mighty, and doesn’t despise anyone. He is mighty in strength of understanding. 6He doesn’t preserve the life of the wicked, but gives to the afflicted their right. 7He doesn’t withdraw His eyes from the righteous, but with kings on the throne, He sets them forever, and they are exalted. 8If they are bound in fetters, and are taken in the cords of afflictions, 9then He shows them their work, and their transgressions, that they have behaved themselves proudly. 10He also opens their ears to instruction, and commands that they return from iniquity. 11If they listen and serve Him, they shall spend their days in prosperity, and their years in pleasures. 12But if they don’t listen, they shall perish by the sword; they shall die without knowledge. 13But those who are Godless in heart lay up anger. They don’t cry for help when He binds them. 14They die in youth. Their life perishes among the unclean. 15He delivers the afflicted by their affliction, and opens their ear in oppression. 16Yes, He would have allured you out of distress, into a broad place, where there is no restriction. That which is set on your table would be full of fatness. 17But you are full of the judgment of the wicked. Judgment and justice take hold of you. 18Don’t let riches entice you to wrath, neither let the great size of a bribe turn you aside. 19Would your wealth sustain you in distress, or all the might of your strength? 20Don’t desire the night, when people are cut off in their place. 21Take heed, don’t regard iniquity; for you have chosen this rather than affliction. 22Behold, God is exalted in His power. Who is a teacher like Him? 23Who has prescribed His way for Him? Or who can say, ‘You have committed unrighteousness?’. 24Remember that you magnify His work, whereof men have sung. 25All men have looked thereon. Man sees it afar off. 26Behold, God is great, and we don’t know Him. The number of His years is unsearchable. 27For He draws up the drops of water, which distil in rain from His vapour, 28which the skies pour down and which drop on man abundantly. 29Yes, can any understand the spreading of the clouds, and the thunderings of His pavilion? 30Behold, He spreads His light around Him. He covers the bottom of the sea. 31For by these He judges the people. He gives food in abundance. 32He covers His hands with the lightning, and commands it to strike the mark. 33Its noise tells about Him, and the livestock also concerning the storm that comes up. 

Commentary

36:15 He opens their ear in oppression- Our sensitivity to and understanding of God’s word is heightened during times of trial. Sadly we are such empirical learners that we have to suffer many things to make us open our ear to His word; and we needn’t suffer them if we accepted with full meaning the simple foundation truth that the Bible is indeed God’s word speaking to us. The wonder of the very existence of God’s inspired word ought to of itself make us open our ears in sensitivity to it. But because we fail to believe it as we ought to in practice, we are sent tribulation to make us sensitive to it.
36:30,31 He covers the bottom of the sea. For by these He judges the people- The sea was seen by ancient peoples as the abode of ‘satan’ type gods of evil. God is showing that He is in full control of the sea, and any beings there which people might imagine would be in any case under His total control and not hidden from Him.
36:33 The storm that comes up- A thunderstorm was brewing as Elihu spoke. Lightning and thunderstorms were seen as the wrath of supposed gods of evil, who were similar to the ‘satan’ being many believe in today. The point of the thunderstorm was to demonstrate that it was God in control, it was from Him, and not from the ‘satan’ entities people generally believed in at that time. See on 37:2,15.