Chapter 32 opens a completely new stage in Sefer Iyov. The three friends have concluded their words, and a new figure steps onto the stage - Elihu ben Barachel the Buzite. Before presenting his arguments, he must address two questions: why he remained silent until now, and why he is permitted to speak at present. Embedded within these introductory remarks is an entire philosophy regarding the source of wisdom: is it experience and seniority, or a Divine spirit implanted within man?
וַיַּעַן אֱלִיהוּא בֶן־בַּרַכְאֵל הַבּוּזִי וַיֹּאמַר: צָעִיר אֲנִי לְיָמִים וְאַתֶּם יְשִׁישִׁים, עַל־כֵּן זָחַלְתִּי וָאִירָא מֵחַוֺּת דֵּעִי אֶתְכֶם׃ - And Elihu the son of Barachel the Buzite answered and said: I am young in days and you are aged; therefore I shrank back and was afraid to declare my opinion to you.
Elihu enumerates two distinct reasons for his silence. The first: "I am young in days" - a young person does not yet possess sufficient knowledge and concepts to express an opinion. What have you managed to learn that you should jump ahead of others? The second: "and you are aged" - even someone who is not young ought to remain silent when standing beside those who are very advanced in years. Thus, he had two disadvantages together: he was young, and he stood before the aged.
Corresponding to these two reasons are two expressions: "I shrank back" (zachalti) corresponds to my youth, like a crawler in the dust, like a worm that dares not lift its head upward; "and was afraid" corresponds to your advanced age, a natural awe of speaking before elders. I refrained even from "declaring my opinion" to myself, all the more so "to you" - beside you, facing elders. This is the reason I remained silent until now.
אָמַרְתִּי יָמִים יְדַבֵּרוּ, וְרֹב שָׁנִים יֹדִיעוּ חׇכְמָה׃ - I said: Days should speak, and a multitude of years should teach wisdom.
Until now, Elihu explains, I assumed that wisdom draws its foundations from sensory perception and empirical testing. When a person analyzes a problem, two paths lie before him: one possibility is years of experience and sensory investigation - I examined, I experimented, and therefore I know. The second possibility is Divine inspiration, an idea that flashed into his mind, an intellectual illumination. In fact, many of the greatest discoveries belong to this second category.
If the foundation is empirical testing and experience, a young person has nothing to say. How much have you investigated in your lifetime? How long have you lived? "Days should speak" - one who has a long personal history and rich life experience behind him is the one who can speak. "And a multitude of years should teach wisdom" - wisdom is an orderly system clarified through proofs and evidence, clear and compelling foundations, and for this a brief span of time is insufficient. It turns out that this verse clarifies the previous one: I was silent because I was young, and I was also silent because the insights of the aged surpass those of a youth whose intellect is not yet fully developed.
אָכֵן רוּחַ־הִיא בֶאֱנוֹשׁ, וְנִשְׁמַת שַׁדַּי תְּבִינֵם׃ - Truly, it is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding.
However, I have come to the conclusion that this is not so. In the words of the Malbim: "The perceptions of understanding are hidden within the spirit of man." Wisdom, intellect, and contemplation are concealed within man's spirit, which is a Divine spirit. The Holy One, Blessed is He, embedded wisdom within the human heart by which things can be known.
If so, there is no difference between young and old. If these insights are planted within me by virtue of the soul being implanted, then an elderly person has a soul implanted within him just as a young person has a soul implanted within him - there is no old soul and no young soul. Consequently, a young person can also draw from that same spiritual source and know hidden things, explaining the phenomena of reality. "Indeed, it is a spirit in man" - a spirit emanated from the Holy One, Blessed is He, resting within man, through which he solves problems and grasps intellectual truths. "And the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding" - the soul whose source is from the Almighty, a portion of God from Above, is what brings a person to understand matters in their true depth.
לֹא־רַבִּים יֶחְכָּמוּ, וּזְקֵנִים יָבִינוּ מִשְׁפָּט׃ - It is not the many who are wise, nor do elders always understand justice.
If the foundation of wisdom were sensory perception and experience, then the more investigators we had, the more wisdom we would achieve: we would join researcher to researcher and scientist to scientist, and from all the additions a grand and complete edifice would be built. But if wisdom is a spirit that Hashem implanted within man, one individual in whom Hashem planted that spirit is sufficient to comprehend the truth of matters, far more than a thousand great sages who were not endowed with that spirit.
To illustrate this: had we placed a thousand scientists of Einstein's generation on one side, and Einstein alone on the other - who discovered the atom? The cumulative weight of a thousand minds is vastly greater, and yet they did not attain what he attained. The reason: "It is not the many who are wise." One cannot combine intellects against one who received illumination, a flash of insight, "a spirit in man" and "the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding." He received a revelation, and they did not.
And so it is in the world of Torah: a thousand scholars of lesser stature than the Rambam expressing an opinion against the Rambam - even if you combine them all, their view is not accepted against his. Or in terms of common sense: if a medical professor says that surgery is necessary, and I reply that I conducted a survey in the marketplace and most of the stallholders told me not to do it, is there any substance to that? "A billion people can't be wrong," as the saying goes, but when one person truly understands and all the rest do not, quantity is not what matters.
From here also follows "nor do elders always understand justice" - it is not necessarily the aged person who will understand justice by virtue of his age, experience, and investigation, since the matter does not depend on this, but rather on the spirit that the Holy One, Blessed is He, bestowed upon man. If so, Elihu says, I too may speak: although there are those here who are more numerous than me and older than me, it does not necessarily mean that their words are better than mine, for Hashem has planted within me a special spirit to provide the correct answer to Iyov's question.
לָכֵן אָמַרְתִּי שִׁמְעָה־לִּי, אֲחַוֶּה דֵעִי אַף־אָנִי׃ - Therefore I say: Listen to me; I too will express my opinion.
I do not possess the experience of long life; I have not accumulated vast life experience from which I can say, "I tried this, and this happened, and I reached a conclusion." I am young in days. But "I will express my opinion" - I possess what they lack: true concepts embedded within the human soul, stemming not from testing, experience, or research, but from that which Hashem has bestowed upon me of His spirit.
הֵן הוֹחַלְתִּי לְדִבְרֵיכֶם, אָזִין עַד־תְּבוּנֹתֵיכֶם עַד־תַּחְקְרוּן מִלִּין׃ - Behold, I waited for your words; I gave ear to your reasoning, until you searched out what to say.
In order for a person to evaluate the words of his fellow, he requires three things. First: to hear the premises, propositions, and the conclusions he derived with his intellect - to understand precisely what he is arguing. Second: to trace back to the premises and foundational roots from which he drew these conclusions - to understand the underlying assumption from which the conclusion sprang. Third: to listen to everything from beginning to end, lest in the course of his words he already answered my questions and refutations.
Elihu testifies of himself that he met all three criteria: "I waited for your words" - I listened from beginning to end; "I gave ear to your reasoning" - I listened closely and paid heed down to the very root of the concepts from which you derived your conclusions; "until you searched out what to say" - I waited to see the bottom line you drew from all those premises. Only after all of this is it possible to respond.
And here he touches on one of our great shortcomings. When people listen to someone else, they do not truly listen; rather, they wait for him to finish so they can say their own piece, and it inevitably becomes a dialogue of the deaf. In the laws of roasting, there is a halachic principle: if one roasts liver over meat, even though the liver discharges a great deal of blood, the meat does not absorb it - eidei detarid lemaphlet lo bala, since the meat itself is occupied with expelling, it does not absorb. This is precisely human nature: because a person is preoccupied with what he wants to say, he does not absorb his fellow's words at all. He is merely waiting for you to finish, because what he has to say is, after all, fascinating. And know that the other person feels the exact same way toward you.
One of the greatest virtues in helping others is the ability to listen. Rav Diamant once related, I believe, about a person who left a meeting with him deeply impressed by the help he had received. The Rav said: Truthfully, I did not advise him on anything. I merely listened to him and asked guiding questions - why did you do that, and what happened next? I sat for an hour and let him pour everything out, and he left feeling helped. That is the greatest help: to listen. Not having four solutions ready for someone before he has even had the chance to open his mouth. Every psychologist learns this: listen to the patient, and the moment you have listened, you have resolved fifty to seventy percent of the problem. Someone once noted regarding the English word "understand" - its whole essence is comprehension: "under" meaning below, and "stand" meaning to stand. One who wishes to understand another must stand beneath him.
וְעָדֵיכֶם אֶתְבּוֹנָן, וְהִנֵּה אֵין לְאִיּוֹב מוֹכִיחַ עוֹנֶה אֲמָרָיו מִכֶּם׃ - Yea, I attended to you, and behold, there was none of you who convinced Iyov, or who answered his words.
It was not enough that I examined and probed your words to understand them thoroughly; rather, "I attended to you" - I contemplated what he is claiming and what you are responding to him. For sometimes two debaters start from two completely different fundamental premises, and as a result they will never reach common ground. For example, if someone asks why yeshivah students do not enlist in the army, and I explain the supreme value of Torah and a young man dedicating his life to it - if from your perspective the Torah is an anachronistic concept written by mortals, there is no point in explaining how much effort they invest in it. "I attended to you" means examining which premise you started from, and whether it is accepted by the opposing side.
And after all this contemplation, I saw: "There was none of you who convinced Iyov" - there is not enough in your words to prove to Iyov and establish the opposite of his claims; "or who answered his words" - not one of you even managed to answer him. There are two distinct stages here: refuting your opponent's words is one thing, and proving your own words is another. A refutation is easier than a proof, yet here - you achieved neither.
פֶּן־תֹּאמְרוּ מָצָאנוּ חׇכְמָה, אֵל יִדְּפֶנּוּ לֹא־אִישׁ׃ - Lest you say: "We have found wisdom: God thrusts him away, not man."
Can you really say of what you answered him, "We have found wisdom"? Yidfeinu is an expression of thrusting or driving away, as in the phrase "like chaff which the wind drives away." The crux of your argument was that the One thrusting Iyov down is God and not man: with the Holy One, Blessed is He, there is no lack of will, no lack of wisdom, and no lack of ability, nor does jealousy or hatred apply to Him. So too Tzofar argued that we cannot comprehend God's providence and His wisdom; so too the claim that a person cannot be vindicated before God, as Eliphaz argued: "How can man be righteous?" - for man's obligation of service is so vast that he can never say, "I have purified my heart and completed my task." All of your claims are rooted in a single premise: the One contending with you is God, not man, so do not judge Him the way you would judge a human being, and do not seek to debate Him with arguments used against mortals, for the Holy One, Blessed is He, is exalted above all. Elihu tells them: Is there wisdom in this kind of argument? Is this how you expect to prevail over Iyov?
וְלֹא־עָרַךְ אֵלַי מִלִּין, וּבְאִמְרֵיכֶם לֹא אֲשִׁיבֶנּוּ׃ - "He has not directed his words against me, nor will I answer him with your speeches."
"He has not directed his words against me" - everything Iyov argued is not set against me. My approach is entirely different, and all of his claims do not refute what I am about to say. "Nor will I answer him with your speeches" - my view also departs from yours, and I will not reply to him with your arguments. I come with a new approach: it is not yours, and it does not collapse before Iyov's refutations.
חַתּוּ לֹא־עָנוּ עוֹד, הֶעְתִּיקוּ מֵהֶם מִלִּים׃ - "They are dismayed, they answer no more; words have departed from them."
And how could I duplicate arguments that have already been made? After all, I see that the companions "are dismayed" (chattu) - from the language of being broken. Tzofar did not reply at all in the third round, dropping out early: "they answered no more." And among them are those from whom "words have departed" - this is Bildad, who spoke so briefly in the third round, as if the words had been stripped from his mouth and exhausted. If so, shall I go and recycle worn-out arguments that have already fallen and been refuted by Iyov? I will put forward new arguments and speak of things that have not been uttered until now.
וְהוֹחַלְתִּי כִּי־לֹא יְדַבֵּרוּ, כִּי עָמְדוּ לֹא־עָנוּ עוֹד׃ - "And I waited, for they did not speak, for they stood still and answered no more."
Even so, I did not rush to answer. When I saw their arguments dwindling, I did not leap in immediately; rather, I waited and remained silent, thinking perhaps that after they rested and gathered strength, they would come forward with new arguments. And how did I know they had no further response? Throughout the debate they sat on the ground with him, and as long as they were sitting, one could say they were still weighing arguments, processing Iyov's words, and preparing a reply. But "for they stood still" - once they rose to their feet, it was a sign that the debate had ended and they had nothing left to argue.
אַעֲנֶה אַף־אֲנִי חֶלְקִי, אֲחַוֶּה דֵעִי אַף־אָנִי׃ - "I too will answer my part; I too will declare my knowledge."
Each person has a share in the debate. You have already stated your share, and now I will answer mine. And what is "I will declare my knowledge" (achaveh de'i)? This is my approach: man possesses an innate knowledge implanted in him by God, engraved within his soul and spirit - not by virtue of syllogisms and deductions, not by intellectual inquiry and research, not by virtue of advanced age, and not by the consensus of the multitude.
כִּי מָלֵתִי מִלִּים, הֱצִיקַתְנִי רוּחַ בִּטְנִי׃ - For I am full of words; the spirit within my belly constrains me.
For a long time I have been storing up within me what I have to say. Like a person who has a "bellyful" against someone - against his boss or regarding domestic matters - brooding over it within himself and waiting for the moment the dam bursts. "I am full of words" - the words already fill me to the point that "the spirit within my belly constrains me": the spirit of understanding from which speech emerges, the ruach memalela (the speaking spirit), is already pressing upon me from within because of how desperately it wants to come out.
הִנֵּה־בִטְנִי כְּיַיִן לֹא־יִפָּתֵחַ, כְּאֹבוֹת חֲדָשִׁים יִבָּקֵעַ׃ - Behold, my belly is like wine that has no vent; like new wineskins it is ready to burst.
The wine is fermenting and seeking an outlet. An old wineskin that has aged and seasoned can contain the wine despite the fermentation, but a new skin is prone to tearing - just as a new earthenware vessel breaks easily, whereas an older one is less affected by shifts in temperature. Elihu says: I am not yet accustomed to holding back my words, and therefore my words will burst forth like new wineskins that cannot hold the fermenting wine, like a bottle of champagne that sprays in all directions the moment it is opened.
אֲדַבְּרָה וְיִרְוַח־לִי, אֶפְתַּח שְׂפָתַי וְאֶעֱנֶה׃ - I will speak, that I may find relief; I will open my lips and answer.
I will speak so that I may find relief from the spirit pressing within me. "I will open my lips and answer" - until now I clamped down and bit my lips, but the moment I merely part them, the words will pour out on their own, like a new wineskin that bursts, releasing the entire torrent all at once.
אַל־נָא אֶשָּׂא פְנֵי־אִישׁ, וְאֶל־אָדָם לֹא אֲכַנֶּה׃ - Let me not, I pray you, show partiality to anyone, nor bestow flattering titles upon any man.
Know, says Elihu, that I show no favoritism in my arguments - neither to Job nor to his companions. I make no calculations; I will state my arguments exactly as I think and know them to be. "Nor bestow flattering titles upon any man" - I will not hold back my words out of a desire to show deference to anyone or shower him with honorific titles, and thereby refrain from saying what must be said. Without hesitation, I will say everything I have to say.
כִּי לֹא יָדַעְתִּי אֲכַנֶּה, כִּמְעַט יִשָּׂאֵנִי עֹשֵׂנִי׃ - For I do not know how to flatter; otherwise, my Maker would soon take me away.
The verse can be understood as structured thus: For I do not know how to flatter my Maker, lest He soon take me away. Even the Holy One, blessed be He, the Maker of man, I do not know how to address with excessive titles beyond what is fitting; and if I were to flatter Him even slightly - that is, add titles that are unwarranted - I know that my Maker would take me away, removing me from this world. In simple terms: I do not flatter even the Creator of the universe. I describe Him only with the titles that are written in Scripture and by which He is known, for Hashem loves truth and hates falsehood and flattery. How much more so when I come to answer flesh and blood - I will not offer words of falsehood and flattery, nor will I calculate my speech, but I will speak everything Hashem has revealed in my soul and spirit, to the very end.
In his opening words, Elihu lays the foundation for his entire response: he remained silent until now because he was young and stood before elders, believing that wisdom is acquired through experience and sensory observation and comes with an abundance of years. Yet it became clear to him that "indeed, there is a spirit in man, and the breath of the Almighty gives them understanding" - true understanding is rooted in the Divine spirit within man, and therefore "it is not the great who are wise": wisdom is determined neither by quantity nor by seniority of years. Having fulfilled all the conditions of debate - listening from beginning to end, delving into the roots of their premises, and examining their conclusions - and seeing that they were able neither to refute nor to answer, and that their sole claim, "God will thrust him away, not man," contains no wisdom, he decided to present his share through a new approach that is not theirs and does not fall before Iyov's challenges. His words fill his inner being like fermenting wine in new wineskins, and he declares that he will speak without partiality and without flattery - neither toward man nor even toward Heaven.