Job 34

I debated whether Elihu is the young versus the old. Perhaps youth needed its say. But in this chapter, he forms a thought experiment as fine as any from Einstein or Schrodinger. The commentators are a little unfair to him. For me, he advances the argument and puts uncertainty at the centre of Job's choice and gives him his trial in perpetuity. Elihu is anointed as I suspected.

The full scope of redemption is intimated. Do not be rash - perhaps I have missed every idiom. I do not offer any notes here. I have rendered what I have seen even as אָבִי is 'my father'. (Update: everyone reads around this word in v36 and changes it or renders it as an interjection.) Read slowly for the text is awkward and has strange turns. If I have erred, be pleased to tell me. I have only the joy of learning for my defense. And my only thesis is that I might not prejudge till I have read the text as well as I can at the moment.

And Elihu answered and said
hear you who are wise my speech
and you who have knowledge give ear to me
for an ear scrutinize speeches
and a palate its food tastes

Judgment let us choose for ourselves
let us know among ourselves what is good
for Job said "I am just
and the One has turned away my judgment
against my judgment should I lie
mortal is my arrow and without sin"

who is a warrior like Job
drinking derision like water
who takes a path cobbled together with workers of iniquity
and walks with mortals of wickedness
for he said there is no profit for a mortal
that he find acceptance with God

therefore mortals with heart hear me
a curse on the One from wickedness
and on the Sufficient from iniquity
for the work of a human will be repayed to him
and as a path of a man so let him find

indeed truly the One does not do wickedness
nor the Sufficient subvert judgment
who visits him of earth
and who sets out the whole world?

if he sets on him his heart
his spirit and his breath to him he gathers
all flesh will expire as one
and a human to dust will return

and if understanding, hear this
give ear to the voice of my speech
shall indeed one who hates judgment bind
and one of great justice condemn?
shall he say of the king - without profit
wicked - to nobles?

who does not lift up the faces of chiefs
nor recognize the saved over the faces of the deprived
for the works of his hands are all of them
in a moment they die
and in the middle of the night people quake and pass on
and the mighty are turned away without a hand

for his eyes are on the way of a man
and all his steps he sees
there is no darkness and there is no obscurity
where the workers of iniquity are concealed
for not on a man will he further set
than to walk to the One in the judgment

he will do evil to those with much without a search
and he will stand others instead of them
because he recognizes their service
and he overturns night and they are crushed
under the wicked he slaps them
in the place of those who see
because they turned aside from following him
and all his ways they considered without insight

so the cry of the deprived comes to him
and the cry of the needy he hears
for he quiets and who makes wickedness
and he conceals faces and who sights him
as one whether to nations or to a human
from the rule of a human of hypocrisy
from the ensnaring of a people

for to the One be it said
I have lifted up
I will not bind
not in perpetuity had I discerned
you instruct me
if injustice I have worked I will not continue

How is it with you? Shall he repay her? For you refused?
for you will choose and not I myself.
So what do you know? Speak.

mortal of heart will say to me
and a man of wisdom hears me

Job without knowledge speaks
and his words are not with insight

my father he will be scrutinized in perpetuity
to the turnings in mortals of iniquity
for he continues to add to his sin transgression
among us he claps and he multiplies his words to the One