Job 34:7 Commentary and Bible Study

‘Drinking up scorn like water’ – this is a figure. To Elihu, Job is behaving just like the wicked. His words resemble most of all the words of wicked men, whom all would agree were workers of iniquity. This was an extraordinary state of affairs. Elihu was not suggesting that Job actually was wicked and deserved all the harsh criticism that the friends had dealt out to him, but he nonetheless, how foolish Job was being! If anyone asked who Job most resembled, Elihu would have been forced to admit that he resembled gross sinners in the way he spoke. They too accuse God of being unjust and unreasonable in his dealings with the men. They too boast rashly of what they would say in the presence of God, were they given an audience. Had it come to such a pass? He says this to shock Job into reconsidering his words. He needed to take a fresh look at them and start seeing himself more objectively. He had got locked into this mode of complaining and needed a violent shock to get him out of it and what could be more shocking than for him to realise that he had come to resemble those whom he most wished to eschew? Job did not of course go literally in company with wicked men and he would have been horrified to find himself among them, but his language placed him with them.