Job 34:35

"Men of understanding" or "wise men" would listen to such advice, and realise that Job had spoken of God without knowledge or wisdom (vv.34-35). No wonder Elihu wanted Job tested to the limit, because his answers were like the answers of wicked men (v.36). Job should have known better, for he was not wicked.

Job was sure of his integrity, and he leaned too heavily on what grace had made him for God — and God had to bring that to nothing in his own eyes... Job had dared to speak too carelessly. Eliphaz and the others provoked him by insisting that bad men are always punished, and good men always prosper in this world... Job answered them, but far too hotly, out of an honest hatred of their false rule. He gave the impression not only that he was just, but that God had set that aside unjustly, and that his trial had no purpose at all — words perfectly suited to encourage evil-doers.

Should God repay Job on Job's terms, just because Job did not approve? (v.33). So Elihu tells Job, "You must choose, and not I." Job was the one on trial. Would he choose to criticise God, or to submit to God? So Elihu invited him: "speak what you know." When he criticised God, he did not know what he was talking about. He spoke what he suspected might be the case.

He does not judge by the sight of his eyes. He draws all his thoughts from the God he knows, and so he makes the rightness of his conclusions clear to every upright mind.

"Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?" Some interpreters have blundered badly here. They speak of Elihu's gentle and true words as "a harsh judgment," and say that God rebukes him in this verse. No; God does not rebuke Elihu who had exalted His Name and His works. He rebukes Job. He had darkened counsel by the multitude of his senseless words.

He complains no more, he resents no more, he questions no more. He openly admits, as something now real in his soul, that the LORD can do all things, and that no plan of His can be held back... It was Job who declared his own ignorance, saying that he did not understand — things too wonderful for him, which he did not know. Not a word now about his friends, or their lack of understanding... He judges himself before God. He takes the words God had used about him, the crushing proof of how presumptuous he had been, and uses them as the humble words of a man who felt his need to learn from God.

We only speak rightly when God controls our thoughts. If we think God's thoughts, we will be able to say what is right. But even if we are quick to hear God's thoughts, we will only speak them once we have taken them in and made them our own. We take them in slowly, so we should be slow to speak. A healthy sense of how little of God's mind we have grasped so far will free us from the self-confidence and shallow self-assertion that makes people ready to speak at once on any and every subject.