Job 32:22

Elihu is conscious of sincerity; it is not in his nature to flatter. His fear of God also and sense of His rectitude would deter him from such a thing; comp. Job's language, ch. Job 13:7 seq.

These last words and many other things which Elihu says enable us to judge rightly of the part which the author intends him to play. There are some things in his manner of introducing himself and in the way in which he speaks of his own arguments, which seem to offend against modesty and almost shock our sense of decorum. We must not, however, apply Western standards of taste to the East. There was nothing further from the intention of the author of these Chapter s than to make Elihu play a ridiculous part. This speaker is meant to offer what the writer judged a weighty contribution to the discussion, and to the vindication of the ways of God to man. It is just this fact, however, that Elihu is a serious speaker and yet so characterized by mannerisms that raises the question whether the author of such a character possessed the severe taste and high dramatic genius which so conspicuously belong to the author of the other characters; in other words, the question whether these Chapter s are not the composition of a different writer (see the Introduction).