Companion: Deep Study
A condensed companion to the full study. For each section of the expanded outline: key insights, applications, and the application questions for discussion.
Section 1 — Elihu Speaks on God’s Behalf (Job 36:1–4)
Key Insights
- Elihu begins his fourth and last speech as an advocate with more to say on God’s behalf (v. 2).
- He fetches his knowledge from far off in order to “ascribe righteousness to my Maker” (v. 3).
- His claim to perfect knowledge (v. 4) is read by most of Elihu himself, by some of God, and may mean sincerity rather than boasting.
- Interpreters are divided over Elihu, and God’s verdict on the friends is silent about him (42:7).
- Only Christ speaks on God’s behalf with perfect knowledge, for the only Son has made the Father known (John 1:18).
Applications
- Speak for God humbly, briefly and from Scripture, never from theories about a particular trial.
- Ascribe righteousness to God in the dark without denying the darkness.
- Warning: no counselor may claim to know why God has sent a particular trial to another person.
Application Questions
- When I speak to a suffering friend about God, am I more concerned to defend His honor and serve my friend, or to prove my own view right?
- When my circumstances seem to argue against God’s goodness, do I still ascribe righteousness to my Maker?
Section 2 — The Mighty God Who Despises None (Job 36:5–7)
Key Insights
- God is mighty (Hebrew kabbir), and because He is mighty He despises no one (v. 5).
- Spurgeon put it memorably: God is too great to be contemptuous.
- God does not preserve the wicked but gives the afflicted justice (v. 6).
- His eyes never leave the righteous, and their exaltation is certain, though it often awaits the age to come (v. 7).
- Christ, gentle and lowly, welcomes sinners and shares His throne with those who overcome (Revelation 3:21).
Applications
- Your smallness is no barrier to God’s attention; bring Him every burden.
- Since God despises none, His people must despise none: learn names, welcome the overlooked.
- Warning: verse 7 does not promise earthly power or prosperity to the righteous in this life.
Application Questions
- Do I secretly believe that I am too small or too ordinary for God to notice?
- Whom do I tend to despise or overlook, and how does God’s character call me to change?
Section 3 — The Cords of Affliction and the Opened Ear (Job 36:8–12)
Key Insights
- When the righteous are bound by affliction, God shows them their pride (v. 9).
- He “opens their ears to instruction” (v. 10), and the Hebrew musar means discipline.
- Elihu sees suffering as disciplinary and restorative, not merely penal, an advance on the three friends.
- Verse 11 describes a general pattern, not a formula, as the book of Job itself proves.
- Christ learned obedience through suffering, and in Him believers are disciplined as sons for their holiness (Hebrews 12:10).
Applications
- In trials, ask not only how to escape but what your Father is teaching you.
- Search your heart with Scripture and seek a mature friend’s help to listen well.
- Crucial warning: verse 11 is not a prosperity formula, and continued suffering is no proof of failure.
Application Questions
- In my present trials, am I asking only how to escape them, or also what God may be teaching me through them?
- Has prosperity ever made me proud or careless, so that I needed God’s discipline to bring me back?
Section 4 — The Godless Heart and the Afflicted Delivered (Job 36:13–15)
Key Insights
- The godless in heart “cherish anger; they do not cry for help when he binds them” (v. 13).
- Their end is shame and early death, not because of affliction itself but because they will not be taught (v. 14).
- God “delivers the afflicted by their affliction and opens their ear by adversity” (v. 15).
- The Hebrew wordplay makes the trouble itself the instrument of rescue.
- Christ’s affliction on the cross is the supreme case of God delivering through suffering (1 Peter 3:18).
Applications
- Bring anger to God in honest lament rather than nursing it in silence.
- Remember and share how God has worked through past trials.
- Crucial warning: never treat another’s suffering as proof of sin, for Jesus refused to do so (John 9:3).
Application Questions
- When trouble binds me, do I cry out to God, or do I nurse anger and withdraw from prayer?
- Can I name ways God has delivered me through a past affliction, not merely out of it?
Section 5 — Elihu’s Warning to Job (Job 36:16–21)
Key Insights
- Elihu insists that God meant to bring Job out of distress into a broad place and a full table (v. 16).
- He warns Job not to let anger lead him into scoffing (v. 18).
- The ransom (Hebrew kopher) is read as humble submission or as the price no one can pay (v. 18).
- Elihu’s charge that Job chose iniquity goes beyond the evidence, and God later says Job spoke rightly (42:7).
- Christ gave His life as the ransom no sufferer could pay (Mark 10:45).
Applications
- Refuse to escape suffering through sin, which only adds guilt to sorrow.
- Warn struggling friends gently as a fellow sinner, not as a judge of their hearts.
- Warning: Elihu’s rebuke is not a script for rebuking sufferers.
Application Questions
- When suffering presses on me, am I tempted to escape it through some form of sin rather than endure it with God?
- When I warn a struggling friend, do I distinguish between a loving caution and an unfounded accusation?
Section 6 — Who Is a Teacher Like Him? (Job 36:22–26)
Key Insights
- God is exalted in power and is the incomparable Teacher (Hebrew moreh) (v. 22).
- No one prescribes God’s way or rightly accuses Him of wrong (v. 23).
- The right response to His works is to extol them in praise (v. 24).
- God is great beyond our knowing and eternal, known truly but never exhaustively (v. 26).
- Christ is the one Teacher and the eternal Son whose years have no end (Hebrews 1:12).
Applications
- Come to God as a learner with honest questions, not as a critic grading His work.
- Practice praise deliberately by naming God’s works before making requests.
- Warning: God’s greatness is no excuse for vagueness, since He has spoken clearly in His Word.
Application Questions
- When I cannot understand what God is doing, do I come to Him as a learner or sit over Him as a critic?
- Do I regularly remember to extol God’s works, or do my prayers consist mostly of requests and complaints?
Section 7 — The Lord of Rain and Thunder (Job 36:27–33)
Key Insights
- God draws up the water and distills the rain for mankind (v. 27).
- The storm cloud is His pavilion, and the thunder sounds from it (v. 29).
- He aims the lightning like a sure marksman (v. 32).
- The hymn prepares for the LORD’s answer “out of the whirlwind” (38:1).
- Christ is the Lord of the storm whom the wind and the sea obey (Mark 4:41).
Applications
- Receive rain and harvest as daily gifts of God’s providence.
- Trust that every storm of life is under the command of your Father.
- Crucial warning: no storm or disaster may be read as God’s verdict on those it strikes.
Application Questions
- Do I receive rain, harvest and ordinary weather as gifts from God’s hand, or take them for granted?
- When the storms of life come, do I remember that they are under the command of the One who loves me?
The mighty God who despises none has come near in Jesus Christ, who teaches us through affliction, ransoms us by His own suffering, and rules every storm for our good.
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