37:19Meaning
A request for instruction amid “darkness” Elihu says, “Teach us what we shall tell him.” The implied problem is that they do not know the right words for addressing God. He explains why: “we can’t make our case by reason of darkness.” The “darkness” (Hebrew darkness) points to obscurity—humans are not seeing clearly enough to build a coherent argument.
Unit 2 (v. 20a): Should the desire to speak even be reported?
Elihu asks whether it should be “told him” that “I would speak.” The question suggests caution: even stating the intention to speak to God may be inappropriate or reckless, given the distance between God’s understanding and human understanding.
Unit 3 (v. 20b): Speaking rashly as self-endangerment
He adds another question: should a person “wish that he were swallowed up?” The image raises the stakes. It frames presumptuous speech as potentially ruinous, as if asking for one’s own destruction by insisting on confronting God verbally.