23. Elihu refers to himself as the divinely-sent
(Job 32:8; 33:6)
"messenger," the "interpreter" to explain to Job and vindicate God's
righteousness; such a one Eliphaz had denied that Job could look for
(Job 5:1),
and Job
(Job 9:33)
had wished for such a "daysman" or umpire between him and God. The
"messenger" of good is antithetical to the "destroyers"
(Job 33:23).
with him--if there be vouchsafed to the sufferer. The office of
the interpreter is stated "to show unto man God's uprightness" in His
dealings; or, as UMBREIT,
"man's upright course towards God"
(Pr 14:2).
The former is better; Job maintained his own "uprightness"
(Job 16:17; 27:5, 6);
Elihu on the contrary maintains God's, and that man's true uprightness
lies in submission to God. "One among a thousand" is a man rarely to be
found. So Jesus Christ
(So 5:10).
Elihu, the God-sent mediator of a temporal deliverance, is a type
of the God-man Jesus Christ the Mediator of eternal deliverance:
"the messenger of the covenant"
(Mal 3:1).
This is the wonderful work of the Holy Ghost, that persons and events
move in their own sphere in such a way as unconsciously to shadow forth
Him, whose "testimony is the Spirit of prophecy"; as the same point may
be center of a small and of a vastly larger concentric circle.
JFB.
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