Hiob 32:11

11 Behold, I waited upon your words, Hearkened to your perceptions, While ye searched out replies. 12 And I attended closely to you, Yet behold: there was no one who refuted Job, Who answered his sentences, from you. 13 Lest ye should say: "We found wisdom, God is able to smite him, not man!" 14 Now he hath not arranged his words against me, And with your sentences I will not reply to him. He has waited for their words, viz., that they might give utterance to such words as should tend to refute and silence Job. In what follows, עד still more emphatically than ל refers this aim to that to which Elihu had paid great attention: I hearkened to your understandings, i.e., explanations of the matter, that, or whether, they came forth, (I hearkened) to see if you searched or found out words, i.e., appropriate words. Such abbreviated forms as אזין = אאזין (comp. מזין = מיזין for מעזין, Pro 17:4, Ges. 68, rem. 1, if it does not signify nutriens, from זוּן) we shall frequently meet with in this Elihu section. In Job 32:12, Job 32:12 evidently is related as an antecedent to what follows: and I paid attention to you (עדיכם contrary to the analogy of the cognate praep. instead of עדיכם, moreover for עליכם, with the accompanying notion: intently, or, according to Aben-Duran: thoroughly, without allowing a word to escape me), and behold, intently as I paid attention: no one came forward to refute Job; there was no one from or among you who answered (met successfully) his assertions. Every unbiassed reader will have an impression of the remarkable expressions and constructions here, similar to that which one has in passing from the book of the Kings to the characteristic sections of the Chronicles. The three, Elihu goes on to say, shall not indeed think that in Job a wisdom has opposed…

The stage is clear, for Job and his three friends have sat down, and neither he nor they have any thing more to say; it is therefore very seasonable for a moderator to interpose, and Elihu is the man. In this chapter we have, I. Some account of him, his parentage, his presence at this dispute, and his sentiments concerning it (Job 32:1-5). II. The apology he made for his bold undertaking to speak to a question which had been so largely and learnedly argued by his seniors. He pleads, 1. That, though he had not the experience of an old man, yet he had the understanding of a man (Job 32:6-10). 2. That he had patiently heard all they had to say (Job 32:11-13). 3. That he had something new to offer (Job 32:14-17). 4. That his mind was full of this matter, and it would be a refreshment to him to give it vent (Job 32:18-20). 5. That he was resolved to speak impartially (Job 32:21, Job 32:22). And he did speak so well to this matter that Job made no reply to him, and God gave him no rebuke when he checked both Job himself and his other three friends.