Job 32 Bible study: A spirit in man

"Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were older than he" (32:4). In Hebrew older is zeqenim, followed by leyamim, "in days". Elihu's first words have the same leyamim after young: "I am young, and you are very old" (32:6) (tap young). And his next words have the same word for days: "Days should speak" (32:7).

Job 32:4 · Job 32:6-7

The first five verses aren't a speech. They are the book's own words, telling what happened: "So these three men ceased to answer Job, because he was righteous in his own eyes" (32:1) (tap answer, righteous). Then a new man is named: "Then the wrath of Elihu the son of Barachel, the Buzite, of the family of Ram, was kindled against Job" (32:2) (tap kindled). The book names no father for Job or for any of his three friends (1:1, 2:11); Elihu's father is named twice (32:2, 32:6). The verses give the reasons for Elihu's anger. Against Job: "His wrath was kindled because he justified himself rather than God" (32:2) (tap justified). Against the friends: "because they had found no answer, and yet had condemned Job" (32:3) (tap condemned). "Now Elihu had waited to speak to Job, because they were older than he" (32:4) (tap waited), and "When Elihu saw that there was no answer in the mouth of these three men, his wrath was kindled" (32:5). Wrath was kindled comes four times in these five verses. The verses report what Elihu was angry about; they don't say whether he was right to be. Only then comes his heading: "Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered" (32:6).

Job 32:21→leads toJohn 5:44

Elihu says, "Please don’t let me respect any man’s person, neither will I give flattering titles to any man" (32:21), and "For I don’t know how to give flattering titles, or else my Maker would soon take me away" (32:22). Jesus said, "How can you believe, who receive glory from one another, and you don’t seek the glory that comes from the only God?" (John 5:44). John doesn't name Job or Elihu, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, honour that people give one another set beside what comes from God, and not on a shared word. Some hear that subject in both: Elihu speaks of flattering titles given to men and of his Maker (32:21-22), and Jesus of glory received from one another and the glory that comes from the only God (John 5:44). Others read each in its own setting: Elihu is saying how he himself means to speak (32:20-22); Jesus was answering those who sought to kill him (John 5:18), who would not come to him (John 5:40), and said nothing of Job. Neither reading says whether Elihu kept to what he said or whether he is right, and neither makes Elihu a picture of Jesus.

נְשָׁמָהneshamahsay ne-sha-MAH

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "breath". Strong's: "a puff, i.e. wind, angry or vital breath". In "the Spirit of the Almighty gives them understanding" (32:8), Spirit is this word and the Almighty is Shaddai; the verse's first spirit, "a spirit in man", is another word, ruach. Elihu uses the same two words, nishmat Shaddai, in the next chapter, where the WEB gives them as "the breath of the Almighty gives me life" (33:4). It comes seven times in the Hebrew of Job. Its first use in the Hebrew Bible is Genesis 2:7, where the LORD God "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (Genesis 2:7).