Elihu Describes an Impartial Judge of Rulers and Peoples

The Judge of judges cannot be placed in the dock like a local tyrant

If there is understanding, hear this. Shall even he that hates right govern? Will you condemn him that is most just? Is it fit to say to a king, You are wicked, and to princes, You are ungodly? How much less to him who does not regard the rich more than the poor, for they are all the work of his hands.

In a moment they die. The people are troubled at midnight and pass away. The mighty are taken without hand. God's eyes are on the ways of man. He sees all his goings. There is no darkness or shadow of death where workers of iniquity may hide.

He breaks the mighty without needing a human inquiry, and he hears the cry of the afflicted

God does not need to examine a man further so that he should go before God in judgment. He breaks in pieces mighty men without number and sets others in their place. Therefore he knows their works, overturns them in the night, and they are destroyed. He strikes them as wicked men in the open sight of others, because they turned back from him and would not consider any of his ways, so that they cause the cry of the poor to come to him. He hears the cry of the afflicted. When he gives quietness, who then can make trouble? When he hides his face, who then can behold him, whether it be done against a nation or a man only? The hypocrite should not reign, lest the people be ensnared.

The portrait wants an impartial God who sees through office and wealth. That norm is morally serious. It still does not prove that every public outcome is already that impartiality made visible, and it does not tell human courts they may skip evidence because God does not need a hearing. Job asked for a hearing. Elihu says God does not need one.