Elihu’s final speech turns away from Job’s specific case entirely and toward the sky itself — thunder, lightning, snow, the turning of the storm — building an argument from nature’s own unsearchable complexity. By the time he finishes, an actual storm seems to have gathered while he was speaking, because the very next verse is God answering Job out of the whirlwind.
A study in Job 36-37 · Arthur Baldwin · StandUp4Jesus.Org · 12 min read
Behold, God Is Mighty, And Despiseth Not Any
“Suffer me a little, and I will shew thee that I have yet to speak on God’s behalf… Behold, God is mighty, and despiseth not any: he is mighty in strength and wisdom. He preserveth not the life of the wicked: but giveth right to the poor.”
Job 36:2, 5-6
Elihu’s fourth speech returns to a gentler tone, opening with a summary of God’s character that neither exalts power over goodness nor the reverse — strength paired explicitly with a refusal to despise anyone, even (the implication is clear) a man in Job’s current condition.
He Delivereth The Poor In His Affliction
“He delivereth the poor in his affliction, and openeth their ears in oppression. Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness… But thou hast fulfilled the judgment of the wicked: judgment and justice take hold on thee.”
Job 36:15-17
Elihu suggests, gently but unmistakably, that Job’s own bitterness may now be standing in the way of the very relief God intends — a genuinely different accusation than “you sinned before this began.” The charge here is about Job’s response to the trial, not its original cause.
God Is Great, And We Know Him Not
“Behold, God exalteth by his power: who teacheth like him? Who hath enjoined him his way? or who can say, Thou hast wrought iniquity?… Behold, God is great, and we know him not, neither can the number of his years be searched out.”
Job 36:22-23, 26
Elihu’s argument turns from Job’s specific case toward God’s sheer incomprehensibility as an argument in itself — a pivot the rest of this speech will follow all the way to the storm clouds overhead. If God cannot even be fully known, Elihu implies, how much less can He be fully cross-examined.
Hear Attentively The Noise Of His Voice
“At this also my heart trembleth, and is moved out of his place. Hear attentively the noise of his voice, and the sound that goeth out of his mouth. He directeth it under the whole heaven, and his lightning unto the ends of the earth.”
Job 37:1-3
Something shifts here — Elihu is no longer merely discussing thunder as an abstract example but appears to be reacting to an actual storm visibly building as he speaks, his own heart pounding at the sound of it. The distance between illustration and event is closing fast.
He Sealeth Up The Hand Of Every Man
“For he saith to the snow, Be thou on the earth… He sealeth up the hand of every man; that all men may know his work… Out of the south cometh the whirlwind: and cold out of the north.”
Job 37:6-9
Weather itself becomes Elihu’s final exhibit — snow, rain, wind, all responding instantly to a spoken command no meteorologist could issue. And “whirlwind” is not a throwaway word here; it is the exact term the next chapter will use for how God Himself finally speaks.
Stand Still, And Consider The Wondrous Works Of God
“Hearken unto this, O Job: stand still, and consider the wondrous works of God. Dost thou know when God disposed them, and caused the light of his cloud to shine?”
Job 37:14-15
Elihu’s counsel is simple and, in the moment, exactly right — stop arguing, and pay attention. It is nearly identical to the instruction the whirlwind itself is about to give Job directly, one chapter later, in far greater and more overwhelming detail.
Touching The Almighty, We Cannot Find Him Out
“Fair weather cometh out of the north: with God is terrible majesty. Touching the Almighty, we cannot find him out: he is excellent in power, and in judgment, and in plenty of justice: he will not afflict.”
Job 37:22-23
Elihu’s closing line is his best and most honest — an admission of genuine limits rather than another confident formula. This same verse would resurface, essentially unchanged, in one of Ellen White’s own extended meditations on the natural world centuries later.
“Touching the Almighty, we cannot find Him out: He is excellent in power; And in justice and plenteous righteousness… Men do therefore fear Him.”
Ellen G. White · The Ministry of Healing, p. 435
White places Elihu’s exact words inside her own long survey of nature’s testimony to God’s greatness — storms, clouds, the whole created order as ongoing evidence of a power no human study fully exhausts. Elihu built his entire final speech on this same principle. It is the last thing any human speaker says in this book before God speaks for Himself.
