he puts my feet in the stocks and watches all my paths.’
Elihu's opening reply to Job does not start with his own argument. It starts with Job's. He repeats back the charge that God has locked his feet in wooden stocks and tracks his every step. Can a suffering man be trusted to read his own situation? And what does it mean when God watches a life that closely?
Quoting the sufferer's own words
Elihu does not attack Job's record. He builds his case on statements Job had made out loud in front of witnesses.
Leslie M. GrantThough speaking kindly to Job, Elihu must also speak faithfully. He does not question how Job had lived, but deals rather with what Job had clearly spoken. Job's friends had heard this, and Elihu also. He therefore faithfully quotes what Job had said... Of course Job could not deny that he had said this, so Elihu had a firm basis for his message to Job.
The words are not a loose summary. Job had said them before, and one writer points to the earlier speech they come from.
Samuel RidoutSo the insult against divine majesty becomes glaring — Job is pure, but God treats him as impure! "He puts my feet in the stocks; He marks all my paths" (Job 33:11). This is a word-for-word quotation — "You put my feet also in the stocks, and look closely at all my paths" (Job 13:27).
The contradiction inside the complaint
Job said two things at once. He was clean and free of sin — and God had shackled his feet and was guarding his every path.
C. H. MackintoshAlthough he was so clean, so innocent, so free from iniquity, he still says of God, "He finds occasions, He counts me for His enemy. He puts my feet in the stocks, He marks all my paths." Here is an obvious contradiction. How could a holy, just, and righteous Being count a pure and innocent man His enemy? Impossible. Either Job was self-deceived, or God was unrighteous. Elihu, speaking for the truth, is not long in giving his verdict and telling us which is which... If God is greater than man, then He, and not man, must be the Judge of what is right.
Words spoken about God
Elihu's objection is not only that Job thought too well of himself. It is how Job talked about God — and that he never took the question to God.
William KellyElihu then puts clearly before him that he had spoken wrongfully of God, as well as too highly of himself... Elihu justly complained of such language. A saint should be reverent... Is it possible that a godly man should let his lips accuse God of injustice?... Not only was Job judging God, he was also not subject to Him. There was insubmission of heart. If God was dealing with him, why did he not ask God about it, instead of murmuring?
Marked paths read as mercy
The older wording in these quotations says God "marks" all Job's paths, where the ESV says He "watches" them. Job hears it as an enemy's spying. But stopping a man is not the same as hating him.
W. T. P. WolstonBut Job says, "He puts my feet in the stocks, He marks all my paths." Well, do you not think it is a good thing for God to mark the paths of a man who is going farther and farther from Him — to mark his paths, and stop him? Elihu says, I will tell you the truth about God, show you how unjust your thoughts of Him are... If I come to the cross, what an answer to the thought that God is my enemy. Why, He has bruised His own Son that He might deliver me.
Gentleness toward the sufferer
Elihu corrects Job's words. Behind those words is a suffering man, and one writer weighs what hurt him most.
Samuel RidoutHere is the part of his suffering that was probably sharper than the physical side. It was the sense that God's wrath was on him... that gave his grief its sharpness. We know this was a mistake, and that it was only another proof of the love of God that His poor servant was being chastened in this way. But he did not know it, and we should not be harsh with someone who felt that the Lord was dealing bitterly with him.
Summary
- Quoted. Elihu's case rests on Job's own words, repeated from an earlier speech. Job cannot deny saying them.
- Contradicted. A righteous God does not count a clean man His enemy. So either Job was deceiving himself or God was unjust — and Elihu says which.
- Corrected. Elihu faults not Job's past life but his speech about God, and his refusal to submit and ask Him.
- Reinterpreted. Marked paths can be God stopping a man who is drifting away from Him. The cross answers the thought that God is an enemy.
- Comforted. A sense of God's anger can be wrong and still be agony. Correct the words, but do not be harsh with the sufferer.