The subject turns to prayer. This is part of Elihu’s answer as to why God doesn’t have a policy of dealing with sin immediately.
He who truly approaches God calls on God as his Creator, and as one who can transform the gloomiest situation. He is deeply concerned for the honour of God in all that he says. A song is the overflowing of joy from the heart and it cannot come forth unless there is genuine happiness and victory within. But the night is a time when fears oppress men, whether that night be metaphorical or literal. Yet so powerful is the help of God that he can cause us to cast away our fears and to triumph over all evil even when it is at its strongest. Job is behaving like an unbeliever. Someone who is suffering pain on a bed of sickness, can pray because God has power to give songs and happiness even in sickness – ‘in the night’. He gives songs in the night. But sadly man won’t respond to the consequences of his own sin, to God who alone could answer.
God permits even these things, for he brings this rebel human race under trials that result from the fall. He does not take away the consequences of sin is immediately, and therefore man is under pressure to cry out for help. It is in man’s interest that God does not take away all the effects of sin immediately. We would be like spoiled children, and never ask why our fellowship with the Lord has been fractured. God permits trouble so that the human race experiences the consequences of sin: the lawless, the violent, and the wicked continue to operate, and so man feels the consequences of rebellion, and this should lead to men crying out to God for help. This is a tender approach. God is kind in explaining things, and answers Job’s questions (through Elihu) before he deals with Job’s sin. Of course we lose communion if sole reason we pray is that we are hurt. Some churches evangelised by ministering to people’s hurt.