Job 33:7

We have now reached a most important and interesting part of the whole book — the mediatorial address of Elihu. Here he speaks noble words for God, and searching, helpful words for Job. He reminds Job of his own desire for such a person. Job had said, "There is no arbiter between us, who might lay his hand on us both" (Job 9:33). He had also asked "that he would argue the case of a man with God, as a son of man does with his neighbor" (Job 16:21).

"Behold, my terror shall not make you afraid." Job had complained that God acted this way on his soul and body. Was he a land or sea monster, that God should treat him as He did? Job had indeed used very improper words. But should we take no account of how his friends provoked him, or of his extreme agony in soul and body? "Behold, my terror shall not make you afraid, neither shall my hand be heavy upon you." It was God's hand that Job had begged so hard to be free of.

If God had spoken directly here, revealing Himself in majesty and power, as He does in the next part of the book, the change would have been too sudden. Job's fear that His glory would terrify him might then have been justified.

So he wants no place of superiority. He says that he too was "formed out of clay." Job's friends did not think of this when they accused him. They considered their wisdom better than his. Elihu did not want Job to be afraid of him, nor would he terrify Job by dreams, as Eliphaz did (ch. 7:13-15). "Nor will my hand be heavy upon you" (v. 7). This was in contrast to all three of Job's friends.

Here it is that Elihu stands out in vivid contrast. He tells Job the truth; but he lays no heavy hand upon him. Elihu has learnt the mighty, mysterious power of "the still small voice" — the soul-subduing, heart-melting power of grace. Job had given voice to a quantity of false ideas about himself, and those ideas had grown from a root that the sharp axe of "truth" had to cut.

Here we get the essential character of the arbiter: one who "might lay his hand on us both." He could represent God to me, and represent me to God. He could lay one hand on the Almighty and the other hand on a poor worm of the dust like me — a hand not too heavy for me. One side of this was true of Job's arbiter, Elihu… But he could not say, "Whoever believes in me, believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees him who sent me" (John 12:44-45). He was only a faint foreshadowing of the true Mediator, the man Christ Jesus.

The Lord Jesus could say more truly than Elihu, "My terror shall not make you afraid." The sinner of the city, the leper, the thief — these were attracted to Him.