Job 33:17

That he may withdraw a man [from his] purpose,.... Or "work" (m), his wicked work, as the Targum; either which he has begun upon, or which he designed to do.

That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. Purpose - margin, 'work.' So. Job 36:9. So 'business' in a bad sense (1 Samuel 20:19). Elihu alludes to Job's words (Job 17:11).

That he, i.e. God, who was expressed , and designed by this pronoun he both in the foregoing and following verses. From his purpose, i.e. from the execution of his purpose. Heb. from his work, i.e. from his evil work as the Chaldee and LXX. understand it; from sin, which is truly and fitly called man’ s work, because it hath its rise in and from him, and is his own proper work, and very agreeable to his nature in his present corrupt estate; as, on the contrary, all the good that is in man is God’ s proper and peculiar work, and is generally ascribed to him in Scripture. So this is noted as the design of God’ s giving man this warning, to keep him from executing that evil work which possibly he had designed to do; of which see examples, ,6 31:24. Hide pride, i.e. either, 1. To take it away, as God is said to hide sin, when he quite removes and forgives it, ; and sorrow is said to be hid, , when it never is nor was; and understanding is said to be hid when it perisheth, . And pride is here mentioned as the root of those evil purposes or works last mentioned; which for the most part proceed from haughtiness of spirit, whereby men scorn to submit themselves and their wills and actions to God’ s authority, and presume to advance themselves above God, and resolve to follow their own wills and lusts in spite of God, and with contempt of him. Or pride may be here put for all matter or occasion of pride. And God by this means is said to hide pride from man, because by these glorious and terrible representations of his Divine majesty to a man, he takes him off from the contemplation and admiration of his own excellency, which men are generally very prone to reflect upon, and brings him to a sight of his own nothingness and weakness, and to a sense of his dependence upon God, and to a humble and ready submission to his will and pleasure.

Job 33:17 That he may withdraw man [from his] purpose, and hide pride from man.Ver. 17. That he may withdraw man from his purpose] Or, rather, practice. Heb. work, that is, evil work, called a man’ s own work, Hebrews 4:10; for when we do evil we work de nostro, et secundum hominem, 1 Corinthians 3:3, as when the devil speaketh a lie he speaketh of his own, John 8:44. Now from such bad work God taketb men off, by dreams sometimes, as he did Abimelech, Genesis 20:3, and Laban, Genesis 31:24 but more frequently by corrections of instruction, which are the way of life, Proverbs 6:23 : Christianornm Theologia, as Luther calleth it; Virtutum officina, as Ambrose; Bonorum omnium thesaurus, as Brentius upon this text. And hide pride from man] Which else, as a master pock, will break out in his forehead and testify to his face. By pride we may understand all other sins, which God both covereth and cureth in his penitent people; but pride is fitly instanced, because it was one of the first sins, and is still the root and source of all other sins. God therefore humbleth all under his mighty hand, and preserveth them from the perilous pinnacle of self exaltation; as he dealt with Paul, both when he met him on the way to Damascus, and unhorsed him, as also when by that thorn in the flesh he let out the swollen matter of pride out of his heart, which might else have broken forth into odious and loathsome practices.

(17) From his purpose.—Rather, That He may witharaw man from carrying out his evil actions, and may remove that pride from man which he secretly cherishes. This is the main point of Elihu’s teaching: that the purposes of God are disciplinary, to keep man from the sin which otherwise he would be prone to commit. In this way Job might have been a righteous man, and yet be justly chastened lest he should prove unrighteous.

13–28. When Elihu gives the general answer to Job’s charges against God that “God is greater than man” he means that the moral loftiness of God’s nature made it impossible that He should act in the arbitrary, hostile manner charged against Him by Job (comp. ch. Job 36:5). It was but another form of the same charge of arbitrary hostility to man when Job affirmed that God was deaf to all appeal and refused to speak to man; comp. ch. Job 19:7, Job 30:20, and often. To this general form of the charge Elihu directs his attention and replies that God speaks to man in many ways, though He may not answer when challenged as Job had challenged Him; comp. ch. Job 35:14. He speaks to man in ways becoming His greatness, ways that shew that His goodness is over all His works. Job 33:13 probably reads Why dost thou contend against him That he giveth not account of any of his matters? that is, Job’s contention or plea against God is that He deals arbitrarily and refuses all account of His dealing.

That he may withdraw man from his purpose - Margin, “work.” The sense is plain. God designs to warn him of the consequences of executing a plan of iniquity.

17. Purpose — îòùׂ ?ä, deed; used, like the Latin facinus, in the sense of evil deed. Of the two words employed for man, the second, geber, expresses might, and thus forms an antithesis.