"_If they obey and serve God, They shall spend their days in prosperity And their years in pleasures. But if they obey not They shall perish by the sword, And they shall die without knowledge._" Elihu thinks over much of kings and exaltation beside them and of years of prosperity and pleasure, and his own view of human character and merit follows the judgment of those who have honours to bestow and love the servile pliant mind. In the dark hours of sorrow and pain, says Elihu, men have the choice to begin life anew in lowly obedience or else to harden their hearts against the providence of God. Instruction has been offered, and they must either embrace it or trample it under foot. And passing to the case of Job, who, it is plain, is afflicted because he needs chastisement, not having attained to Elihu's perfectness in the art of life, the speaker cautiously offers a promise and gives an emphatic warning. "_He delivereth the afflicted by his affliction And openeth their ear in oppression. Yea, He would allure thee out of the mouth of thy distress Into a broad place where is no straitness; And that which is set on thy table shall be full of fatness. But if thou art full of the judgment of the wicked, Judgment and justice shall keep hold on thee. For beware lest wrath lead thee away to mockery, And let not the greatness of the ransom turn thee aside. Will thy riches suffice that are without stint? Or all the forces of thy strength? Choose not that night, When the peoples are cut off in their place: Take heed thou turn not to iniquity, For this thou hast chosen rather than affliction._" A side reference here shows that the original writer dealing with his hero has been replaced by another who does not realise the circumstances of Job with the same dramatic skill. His appeal is forcible, however, in its place. There was danger that one long and grievously afflicted might be led away by wrath and turn to mockery or scornfulness, so forfeiting the possibility of redemption. Job might also say in bitterness of soul that he had paid a great price to God in losing all his riches. The warning has point, although Job never betrayed the least disposition to think the loss of property a ransom exacted of him by God. Elihu's suggestion to this effect is by no means evangelical; it springs from a worldly conception of what is valuable to man and of great account with the Almighty. Observe, however, the reminiscences of national disaster. The picture of the night of a people's calamity had force for Elihu's generation, but here it is singularly inappropriate. Job's night had come to himself alone. If his afflictions had been shared by others, a different complexion would have been given to them. The final thrust, that the sufferer had chosen iniquity rather than profitable chastisement, has no point whatsoever.