33
📚“Therefore, Job, please hear what I have to say, and listen to all my words. 2 📚See, now I open my mouth, the tongue in my mouth speaks. 3 📚My words come from the uprightness of my heart, and my lips speak knowledge clearly. 4 📚The Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty has given me life.5 📚If you can answer me, set your words in order in front of me; take your stand. 6 📚See, just like you, I belong to God 📖. I too have been formed out of clay. 7 📚Look, no fear of me should terrify you; nor will my hand be heavy on you.
33:5-7 In Job 9:32-35 Job expressed a wish for someone to act as a mediator. He wanted to argue his case before God, but because of the pain and disasters that came to him he experienced much fear (Job 13:20-22). Elihu seems to be saying here that he will act as this mediator. Job can present his case fully to him without fear.⚜
8 📚“You have certainly spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words, saying, 9 📚‘I am pure, without transgression. I am innocent. No iniquity is in me.
10 📚See, God finds occasions against me; he counts me as his enemy.
11 📚He puts my feet in the stocks; he watches all my paths.’
33:8-11 Elihu is certain Job has said some wrong things and now calls them to his attention. In the last part of v 10 and in v 11 he quotes Job’s words (Job 13:24, 27). In v 9 he gives what he thinks is the meaning of some of Job’s remarks (Job 9:21; 10:7; 16:16; 23:10; 27:5). However, Job has never said he was holy and pure. He knew otherwise (Job 13:26; 14:4, 16, 17; 31:33). Elihu, by attributing to Job’s words a meaning Job never intended, shows he will not be able to answer him. But Elihu has put his finger on the point of Job’s biggest failing in the argument with his friends – Job had spoken of God as becoming his enemy and unjustly acting as a persecutor and jailer.⚜
12 📚“Look, in this you are not being just. I will answer you that God is greater than man.
13 📚Why do you struggle against him? For he does not give an account of any of his deeds.
33:12-13 Elihu is correct in this matter. God is far greater than any man and more just in His dealings than any man could ever be. God does not need to give to men an account of His behavior.⚜
14 📚For God speaks once, yes, twice, but man does not perceive it.
15 📚In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, while they slumber on the bed,
16 📚Then he opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction,
17 📚So that he may turn a man from his evil behaviour and keep a man from pride.
18 📚He keeps back his soul from the pit 📖, and his life from perishing by the sword 📖.
19 📚A man is also chastened by pain on his bed, by anguish in his many bones.
20 📚So that his whole being loathes bread, and his soul the choicest food.
21 📚His flesh wastes away from sight, and his bones, which were not seen, stick out.
22 📚Yes, his soul draws near the grave, and his life to the destroyers.
23 📚If there is a messenger for him, a mediator, one in a thousand, to show man God’s uprightness, 24 📚Then he is gracious to him and says, ‘Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom.’
25 📚Then his flesh will become fresher than a child’s; he will return to the days of his youth.
26 📚He will pray to God, and God will show him favour. And he will see God’s face with joy; for God will restore to man his righteousness.
27 📚He looks at men and if anyone says, ‘I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it was not repaid to me in equal measure’,
28 📚He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life will see the light.
29 📚“See, God does all these things. Twice, thrice he does them to a man.
30 📚To bring his soul back from the pit, that the light of life may enlighten him.
33:14-30 In these verses we have Elihu’s solution to the problem that has come up about Job’s sufferings. He says that although God does not give an account of His actions He does speak to men. He speaks in dreams, especially fearful dreams, and visions (vs 15,16. See note at Num 12:6). God also speaks through chastisements and pains (vs 19-22). Eliphaz also, in his first speech, had referred to both of these (Job 4:12-16; 5:17-18). But Elihu deals with these matters much more clearly and fully than Eliphaz. Job spoke of the fearful dreams and visions which had come to him (Job 7:13-14), of his ceaseless pain (Job 30:16-17), his lack of hunger (Job 3:24), and his emaciated condition (Job 16:8; 19:20).
Elihu uses similar language about dreams and sufferings. In other words, he wants Job to apply to himself all that he says. He tells Job what he thinks is the purpose of it all. Terrifying dreams and fearful pains are God’s messengers, he says, and God sends them for three very good reasons. God wants to turn men from evil, break their pride, and save them from destruction (vs 17,18,29,30). Evidently Elihu is sure that Job is guilty of wrongdoing and pride and needs to be saved from destruction. That is, in some measure at least, he is in agreement with the three friends. In general what Elihu says here is excellent and suitable to the condition of many people. But it did not fit Job’s case and did not solve the problem of Job’s sufferings.⚜
33:23-30 Elihu describes a way which God may use to restore the suffering, chastised man. The language of vs 23,24 in Hebrew is difficult and obscure. We cannot be sure whether the messenger is an angel or a man, whether he is a very exceptional individual – one in a thousand, or one of many – one together with a thousand others. And we do not know to what the referred “ransom” means. Some scholars think Elihu regarded himself as the messenger; others think he means an angel from heaven; others think Elihu was unknowingly uttering a prophecy about Christ Who would come as God’s messenger to men, the one Mediator between God and men, Who gave Himself as a ransom to redeem men. In any case, Elihu is holding out hope to Job – if only Job listens to what God is saying to him he will regain his health, joy, and righteousness, and God’s fellowship (vs 25,26). Elihu thinks that then Job will speak like the man in vs 27,28.⚜
31 📚Pay attention, Job; listen to me. Keep silent and I will speak.
32 📚If you have anything to say, answer me. Speak, for I want to justify you.
33 📚If not, listen to me. Keep silent, and I will teach you wisdom”.
33:31-33 Elihu now gives Job an opportunity to answer if he wishes. Job remains silent – perhaps because he wants Elihu to continue, or perhaps because he sees Elihu has said nothing very new and that he has already given an answer to such ideas. Elihu’s confidence in his own wisdom (v 33) causes us again to doubt his humility.⚜