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Job 35:11
11 Who teacheth ['alph] us more than the beasts [bahemah] of the earth ['erets], and maketh us wiser [chakam] than the fowls [`owph] of heaven [shamayim]? KJV-Interlinear
11 Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, And makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?' NASB
We know that there are but two opinions in this universe - Gods and everything else. We know that there are only two views in this universe - Gods and everyone else's.
It only stands to reason that there are only two sources of learning in this universe - from God and from everything else.
Elihu recognizes that man learns from nature, from weather, from the seasons and such. We know that we learn from scientific discoveries, from which innovation comes, from philosophy or man invented ideas and so forth.
This latter source of learning, or learning from the world, whether from the telescope, the microscope, or from social interactions are all sources for mans learning from his environment, his physical environment.
The universe is extremely complicated as far as we are concerned. We have only recently begun to discover its complex secrets in genetics, in psychology, in economics, in science, in virtually everything you can think of.
But all of these subjects are sources from our environment of the world or universe around us.
Elihu proposes a question. Is there any additional or better source of learning?
For those who want to learn the truth of life, then there is God, Christ, doctrine and their spiritual life. That is the ultimate source of learning.
For those who reject God, then there is everything in our environment which serves as a source of learning, but inherently points to God and His involvement in every aspect of life.
And as creatures of higher learning and reasoning capabilities, one would think that man would be far smarter than the animals of the world. Smarter than geese, ants whales, bears, whatever. These seem to know the basics of life, the seasons at the very least, and they seen to be able to have survived throughout history without knowledge in the higher sciences and theories of humanity.
Even in our present day, why is it that humanity has been able to survive for many centuries without the aid of modern agriculture, manufacturing, marketing, and such? When all they had was there physical labor, seed, and the weather.
But despite our modern technologies, man still lacks knowledge in the spiritual realm while pursuing more and more knowledge in the physical realm, but never able to solve any of his basic problems - poverty, hunger, employment, prosperity for all, sickness and so forth. And man keeps on ignoring the spiritual side of life.
