The moral reasoning of Job’s culture operates on multiple levels simultaneously. There simply is nothing to parallel this in Western Civilization. Job and the trio were guilty of contextual confusion in their debates. To be more precise, Job’s friends were highly confused about the contextual boundaries and Job should have known better, but allowed them to pull him off course. Job was right in what he said, but put things in the wrong context.
Elihu points this out. It’s one thing to address God as Lord, but you cannot take literally the symbolism of His lordship, as if He were some earthly potentate. God’s Person is rooted outside this universe. Job said he stood blameless before God. In the context of what the trio were arguing, this much was true. Job had not sinned in the way they insisted he must have. But then Job carried this across into another context by suggesting that God was somehow supposed to answer his complaint.
Thus, Job’s complaint intimated that there was no point in such righteousness. It was as if God owed him something. Elihu wants to know if Job is talking about the same God, the one who resides in another dimension of existence altogether. There is a sense in which our sins and our righteousness have no effect on Him. Elihu does not suggest God ignores us or that we cannot touch His heart, but that we cannot affect His divine being. You cannot leverage anything against God either way where He resides in Heaven.
On the other hand, you can sin on a human level and it will most certainly affect other humans. So does righteousness also affect others, as do words that are appropriate or inappropriate to the context.
Lots of people complain loudly about human injustice. Oppression is the scourge of human existence in this fallen world. What’s new? Where do we see people crying out to God simply because He is God? No, we see them crying out to Him so they can leverage His action on behalf of a better life. That misses the whole point of knowing about God, which is knowing God Himself. The one moral capacity of mankind not granted to any other creatures is richly celebrated in the poetic phrase: “My Creator who gives me songs in the night.”
Most people have no clue; they just call on God for themselves. Such noise does not rise to God’s throne. Surely He is aware of it, but entertains none of it in His divine authority. How much less would He pay attention to Job’s demand for a hearing in the flesh? Worst of all, Job suggests that his suffering serves no purpose at all. That’s just too obviously wrong.
