ELIU (Heb. 'Elīhā, Septuagint 'Elīhā). - An interlocutor of Job (Job 32-37), who speaks after the three friends Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar.

To prove his innocence, Job calls for a proper trial in which he proposes to confront God, whom he believes to be angered against him, and to refute the three friends, who have become his implacable accusers (Job 13:18; 31:35b-37); he therefore desires an arbiter, an advocate to take up his defense: "Oh, that there were an arbiter between us..." (Job 9:33); "Who will give me someone to hear me?" (ibid., 31:35a). This arbiter is E., who intervenes in a wholly special tone: Job must not say that God persecutes him; He sends evils not only to punish but also to preserve and purify. Thus, having vindicated Job's innocence, he enlightens him concerning the purpose of his trials and preludes the final intervention in his favor. In this way E.'s discourses have an essential place in the framework and in the doctrine of the entire book (v. GIOBDE).

Bibliography4 works

BIBL.: P. Dhorme, Le livre de Job, Paris 1926, pp. XLIV-XLVI, LXXVII-LXXVIII, 430-523; P. Szczygiel, Das Buch Job übersetzt und erklärt, Bonn 1931; W. A. Irwin, The Elitha speeches in the book of Job, in The Journal of Religion, 17 (1937), pp. 37-47; L. Dennefeld, Les discours d'Elihau (Job 32-37), in Revue biblique, 48 (1939), pp. 163-80, with exhaustive bibliography.

[Francesco Spadafora

@incollection{ec5_eliu_ebr_eliha_settanta_eliha, author = {Spadafora, Francesco}, title = {Eliu (Ebr. 'ElĪHĀ, settanta 'elīhā)}, booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica}, volume = {V}, pages = {255}, note = {Cited by column}, publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico}, address = {Città del Vaticano}, year = {1950}, url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/eliu-ebr-eliha-settanta-eliha} }

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