Job 33
Butler13,14. Without respect of persons and without flattery, but with a single regard to the judgment of his Maker, he will hold an even balance between the friends and Job. He proposes to put the matter on an entirely new basis, one altogether different from that on which it had been placed by the friends, and against which Job had successfully aimed his arguments. W. H. G.
15-22. Turning from the three friends Elihu seems to speak in soliloquy and present to his own mind the singular situation: the three friends are discomfited before Job and reduced to silence; this should not be; therefore he will express his convictions. His breast is filled with thoughts and emotions that will not be repressed; he must speak that he may find relief. And he will speak fearlessly and in sincerity, not regarding the person of any man. A. B. D.
So far we have a vigorous and lively, but surely not presumptuous introduction to the discourses, which henceforth will be addressed exclusively to Job. Cook.
1. HOWBEIT, Job, I pray thee, hear my speech, And hearken to all my words.
2. Behold now, I have opened my mouth, My tongue hath spoken in my mouth.
3. My words shall utter the uprightness of my heart: And that which my lips know they shall speak sincerely.
4. The spirit of God hath made me. And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life.
5. If thou canst, answer thou me; Set thy words in order before me, stand forth.
6. Behold, I am toward God even as thou art: I also am formed out of the clay.
7. Behold, my terror shall not make thee afraid, Neither shall my pressure be heavy upon thee.
8. Surely thou hast spoken in mine hearing, And I have heard the voice of thy words, saying,
9. I am clean, without transgression; I am innocent, neither is there iniquity in me
10. Behold, he findeth occasions against me, He counteth me for his enemy;
11. He putteth my feet in the stocks, He marketh all my paths.
12. Behold, I will answer thee, in this thou art not just; For God is greater than man.
13. Why dost thou strive against him? For he giveth not account of any of his matters.
14. For God speaketh once, Yea twice, though man regardeth it not.
15. In a dream, in a vision of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men, In slumberings upon the bed;
16. Then he openeth the ears of men, And sealeth their instruction,
17. That he may withdraw man from his purpose, And hide pride from man;
18. He keepeth back his soul from the pit, And his life from perishing by the sword.
19. He is chastened also with pain upon his bed, And with continual strife in his bones:
20. So that his life abhorreth bread, And his soul dainty meat.
21. His flesh is consumed away, that it cannot be seen; And his bones that were not seen stick out.
22. Yea, his soul draweth near unto the pit, And his life to the destroyers.
23. If there be with him a messenger, An interpreter, one among a thousand, To shew unto man what is right for him;
24. Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit, I have found a ransom.
25. His flesh shall be fresher than a child’s; He returneth to the days of his youth:
26. He prayeth unto God, and he is favourable unto him; So that he seeth his face with joy: And he restoreth unto man his righteousness.
27. He singeth before men, and saith, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, And it profited me not: 28 He hath redeemed my soul from going into the pit, And my life shall behold the light. 29 Lo, all these things doth God work, Twice, yea thrice, with a man, 30 To bring back his soul from the pit,
THE following may be taken as an outline of the chapter: First (vs. 1-7), Elihu in some introductory words bespeaks Job’s attention. He addresses Job by name, and, full of confidence in his ability to answer his complaints, invites him to attend to his words (vs. 1, 2), and assures him of his sincerity (vs. 3, 4). He desires Job to reply to him, for he is a man like himself, and has no imposing authority or presence to overpower Job, who had often complained that God’s power overawed him and prevented him from justifying himself (vs. 5-7). Second (vs. 8-13), Elihu then refers to Job’s complaint against God, reproducing passages from his speeches in which he said that God afflicted him unjustly though he was innocent; that He displayed an arbitrary hostility to him, and refused to hear any appeal. Elihu refutes these charges by the general consideration (a favorite one with him) that to act in such a way is unworthy of God, who is greater than men and whose ways are unlike theirs. Third (vs. 13-28), taking up more formally Job’s complaint that God refuses to answer man, Elihu replies that God does speak to man in many ways: first (vs. 14-18) in dreams, to instruct him and turn him away from pride and from sin that might end in death; and second (vs. 19-28) by messengers in the midst of afflictions, who show to man what is right. If the sinner thus warned takes his instruction to heart he is restored to health and prosperity, and in his thankfulness shows publicly to men God’s mercy, who hath not rewarded him according to his work. Finally (vs. 29-33), Elihu sums up the general lesson of his teaching regarding God in the preceding verses, and invites Job to reply to it, or if he cannot to listen in silence to further instruction. A. B. D.
2. Opened my mouth. The phrase so used always denotes careful, deliberate utterances on solemn occasions. In my mouth, or, palate; i.e., each word is as it were tasted; carefully examined and approved before it is uttered by the tongue. The palate represents to the Hebrew the judgment of a sound mind,
That he may be enlightened with the light of the living.
31. Mark well, O Job, hearken unto me: Hold thy peace, and I will speak. 32 If thou hast any thing to say, answer me: Speak, for I desire to justify thee. 33 If not, hearken thou unto me: Hold thy peace, and I will teach thee wisdom.
which examines a thought impartially and thoroughly before it allows it to pass the tongue. This is the first reason why Job should hearken.
3. Two additional reasons, honesty of intention and simple, straightforward earnestness of language. The latter clause should be rendered, My lips shall speak out what I know with sincerity. 4. The chief reason of all, because the Spirit to whose creative act all wisdom must be ascribed, the breath of the Almighty, which made man a living soul, now quickeneth Elihu, i.e., gives such life and power to his conviction that he is constrained to speak. Cook.
The Spirit of God hath made me. At the first the soul of man was not produced by heaven or earth, but was breathed immediately from God; so that the ways and proceedings of God with spirits are not included in the laws of heaven and earth; but are reserved to the law of His secret will and grace wherein God worketh still, and resteth not from the work of redemption as He resteth from the work of creation; but continueth working till the end of the world, when that work also shall be accomplished and an eternal Sabbath shall ensue. Bacon.—The words, “God created man in His own image,” cannot mean less than that man was by creation endowed with the faculties requisite to intelligent and morally responsible action; made capable of the conscious sense of duty—of learning what duty is, and of intelligently and voluntarily choosing obedience to its high and God-like behests. In these sublime and momentous elements of his created constitution he was made like God, in God’s own image. Endowed with such capacities, it became possible that his body should be the temple of the Holy Ghost; that he should be filled with the Spirit of God; should be taught of God, comforted of God, replenished of the Spirit unto all holy affections, purposes, activities. So much both Scripture and human experience combine to prove as to the essential affinities of the human soul to the Divine. Man as toward God is inspirable—capable of being inspired with the very thoughts of God, moulded morally by spiritual impulses coming forth from “the Father of our spirits.” Moreover, through the agencies of the Divine Spirit upon the human soul, man is brought to act in full sympathy with God. “Filled with the Spirit,” he may truly say: O God, my heart is with Thee; all its deep, irrepressible desires are toward and after Thee; all centre upon pleasing Thee and doing Thy will most perfectly. H. C.
This blessed influence from above is not of such rare occurrence as some suppose. It is everywhere. It falls upon every soul. Travel far as we may, hide ourselves in whatever dark place of the earth, we cannot go from the Spirit of the Almighty. And who would wish to go, who shall try to shut out the quickening, life-giving breath of the Divine Comforter from the soul? It will soothe in sorrow, it will strengthen in weakness, it will guide in perplexity. It will make the mind clear and the heart pure and the path of life plain. Amid all the troubles and disappointments of the world it will give a peace that passeth all understanding. D. M.
6. The lesson here taught is universally applicable. If this idea were treasured up in men’s faith, it would restrain them from wronging, despising, or slandering one another. If they verily believe that their fellow-men are all and equally the subjects of God’s love in Christ there would be an all-bounding charity among men. Brentius.
9-11. Elihu is justified in these statements; but he does little justice to Job’s real inward conviction and frequent declarations, that he is conscious of natural sinfulness and many transgressions. Cook.—It was true that Job was a perfect and an upright man, and not such a one as his friends had represented him; but he ought not to have insisted so much upon it as if God had therefore done him wrong in afflicting him. Yet, it should seem, Elihu did not deal fairly in charging Job with saying that he was clean and innocent from all transgression, when he only pleaded that he was upright and innocent from the great transgression. But those that speak passionately and unwarily must thank themselves if they be misunderstood; they should have taken more care.
12. There is enough in this one plain, unquestionable truth, That God is greater than man, if duly improved, forever to put to silence and to shame all our complaints of His providence, and our exceptions against His dealings with us. He is not only more wise and powerful than we are, and therefore it is to no purpose to contend with Him, who will be too hard for us, but more holy, just, and good, for these are the transcendent glories and excellencies of the Divine nature; in these God is greater than man, and therefore it is absurd and unreasonable to find fault with Him, for He is certainly in the right. H.
13,14. Knowing himself to be righteous, and still considering himself treated as an enemy by God, Job has frequently inquired, Why, then, does He treat me thus with enmity, and why has He brought me into being to be the mark of His attack? Job has longed for God’s answer to these questions; and because God has veiled Himself in silence he has fallen into complaint against Him, as a ruler who governs according to His own sovereign, arbitrary will. Of all those things which are so mysterious in His rule He answers not, gives no account of them. Yet no; God does really speak with men, although not as Job desires when challenged in his own defence. D.
14. God speaketh. God has not left Himself without witness among us. In volume after volume He has spoken to us. In voice after voice He has made known His will—by His works which are all around us in the universe wherein we live; by His Word which He inspired into holy men of old; by that conscience which is the lamp lit by the Spirit in every soul of man; by history, which is the record of His dealing with nations; by experience, which is the pattern woven by His own hand in the web of our little lives. By these we all may know Him. Farrar.
God speaks distinctly, and, if necessary, repeatedly by His judgments, though men fail to understand their import. 15. The first process by which God makes His will known. He wakens the conscience by inward communications in the dead silence of night, when man communes with his heart alone with God. 16. Then God opens or uncovers their ears, i.e., opens their minds to spiritual truth; and sealeth their instruction or chastisement. “To seal” in scriptural language means to complete, or to appropriate, or to declare an appropriation. Here it means that God makes the man feel from Whom and for what purpose chastisement is sent. 17. The real object is one of love, not of wrath, as Job and his opponents had throughout assumed. The chastisement is intended to make a man give up some wrong purpose and to put away all pride.
19-22. Elihu takes a second case: that of a man heavily afflicted, one suffering like Job himself, and shows that here also the object is a loving one. Cook.
That which chiefly distressed Job was that God seemed to be treating him as an enemy. He had dwelt most pathetically upon this aspect of his case, which was so unaccountable to him and so dreadful. It is to the disabusing of his mind on this point, which was his radical error, that Elihu mainly addresses himself. Affliction, he tells him, is not a token of God’s displeasure, but one of the measures of His grace. He sends sickness and suffering to recall men to the path of uprightness. And then if the sufferer recognizes this merciful intent of his sorrows, and yields himself up to it, his pains will be removed. Their whole design will be accomplished, and they will be needed no more. This is an entirely new doctrine, and exhibits the matter under a totally different aspect. The friends had seen in suffering nothing but the punishment of sin and the Divine displeasure against it. To Job’s mind it was an arbitrary infliction, irrespective of men’s deserts. But the idea of a gracious purpose in earthly distresses, the idea that they betoken the Divine benignity and love, and are meant to accomplish a kindly end, had not dawned upon either of them. W. H. G.
24. Then He is gracious unto him. God mercifully accepts his repentance, and saith, “Deliver him”—that is, he shall be delivered, “from going down to the pit.” Scott.—A ransom. The word so interpreted means that which covers sin and saves the sinner from its penalty; hence a ransom or atonement. Elihu evidently speaks of a propitiatory offering; in whatever form that may be provided, he is sure that the reconciliation must be effected. We have a true, though it may be an undeveloped, anticipation of the truth afterward revealed. Cook.
I have found a ransom, says the Father; one fit to redeem man, a kinsman, one of that very same stock, the Son of man; one able to redeem man by satisfying Me, and fulfilling all I lay upon Him; My Son, My only begotten Son, in whom My soul delighteth. L.—Jesus Christ is that Ransom, for He is both the Purchaser and the Price, the Priest and the Sacrifice; so high was the value put upon souls, that nothing less would redeem them, and so great the injury done by sin, that nothing less would atone for it than the blood of the Son of God, who gave His life a ransom for many. This is a ransom of God’s finding, a contrivance of infinite wisdom; we could never have found it ourselves, and the angels themselves could never have found it; it is the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom; and such an invention as is and will be the everlasting wonder of those principalities and powers that desire to look into it. Observe how God glories in the invention here, “I have found, I have found, the Ransom, I, even I, am He that has done it.” II.—The Ransom came into the sinner’s place that he might not perish, but live. And then the ransomed one belongs to the Ransomer. Thou art not thine own, but bought with a price; therefore glorify God in thy body and in thy spirit, which are God’s. J. Duncan.
26. He prayeth unto God. The cure is given in answer to the sufferer’s own prayer, and with restoration of health comes also the sense of God’s favor. The restoration of his righteousness indicates the restoration of the afflicted one to God’s favor; the whole passage is remarkable as anticipating the peculiar doctrine of justification by faith as specially taught in the New Testament. Curry.
27. A blessing or benefit is here promised on God’s part, which is deliverance from the ill consequences and punishment of sin. But there is a condition required on our part: “If any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not.” In which words are contained, first, a penitent confession of our sins to God; secondly, a true contrition for our sin, not only for fear of the pernicious consequences and punishment that will follow it, but from a just sense of the evil nature of sin and the fault and offence of it against God. Thus a true and perfect contrition for our sins is made a necessary condition of our deliverance from the punishment due to them. Archbishop Tillotson.
Three heads of a long story of a sinful life. Mark the correctness of the man’s view of sin. It is given in three particulars: 1. “I have sinned.” I have transgressed the law, the commandment of Him who is my liege Lord, and to whom I belong. 2. There is a recognition, not only that the law is authoritative, but that the law is right: “I have perverted that which was right.” Law, considered simply as law, is the will of a superior; but God’s law is moral law, founded on the will of God, but having a ground in the nature of God. The law is the expression of God’s moral perfections. 3. “And it profited me not.” Sin is an unnatural, suicidal thing. It is contrary to the constitution and nature of man as it proceeded from the hands of God. J. Duncan.
29,30. This is God’s way of dealing with men, coming often to them, and though it may be in chastisement, yet always with gracious designs. This was the lesson that both Job and the friends needed to learn, and Elihu is made their teacher instead of God, not to defend the Almighty, but to teach men that God is always righteous, though in many things His ways are past finding out. The “things” here referred to are those that have been enumerated in the preceding parts of Elihu’s discourse, in which Job’s confidence is rebuked, and God’s judgments are shown to be both just and merciful. Curry.
The doctrine of Elihu is perfectly consistent with Job’s true character as affirmed by God Himself; and it quite disarms Job, by showing that he has been neither unkindly nor unjustly dealt with. God is not treating him as a criminal nor as a foe, as he supposed, but is showing a solicitous regard for his highest good. Elihu’s doctrine, that suffering was sent with a gracious design, and that it enclosed a real benefit, is not hampered by the rigid and inflexible rule of exact retributive justice maintained by the friends; nor does it conflict, as that did, with the general facts of Providence or with the consciousness of Job. Job’s arguments and protests against the friends do not lie against it. It is not only consistent with, but gives a satisfactory account of the inequalities of human condition. This doctrine likewise supplies the hitherto undiscovered key to the enigma of Job’s sufferings. No reflection is cast upon his integrity or the genuineness of his piety. His afflictions are neither an indication of the Lord’s displeasure nor of His wanton hostility. A gracious God is by this severity of discipline purging away the dross which still adhered to His faithful servant, and refining the gold to a higher measure of purity. Accordingly, when Elihu pauses in his discourse to afford Job an opportunity for reply, he has nothing to say in opposition to what he has heard. It harmonizes his convictions respecting God with what has hitherto been inexplicable in His providence. It makes all plain in his own case, which has thus far been so dark and impenetrable. God has not been impeaching his integrity by the terrible sufferings which He has permitted. There is no hostile intent on the part of God; all has been done in kindness and love. W. H. G.
Verses 14-30. It is a feature of Job that while the whole book is a poem, there can be lifted out of it every here and there a passage which is a small poem complete in itself. And in this thirty-third chapter there is (vs. 14-30) a hymn of experience which might have been to the Old Testament Church what “Rock of Ages” or “I once was a stranger” is to us. In v. 14 it commences, “For God speaketh once, yea twice;” and then, in twelve verses, the most vivid description is given of three ways in which God spoke or dealt with the spirits of men, four verses being devoted to each. The three ways are dreams, illness, and testimony.
I. Dreams or visions. This mode of dealing with the soul is described in vs. 15-18. In any collection of experiences you would be surprised to find in how many instances a dream or vision had played a decisive part; and this has been the case in the lives of not a few, who even in recent times have occupied prominent places in the building up of the kingdom of God. Stalker.—The history of the Church, from Origen down, is full of conversions through the instrumentality of dreams; and many of the best Christians have traced their better life to their leading. Bunyan tells us in his “Grace Abounding” how, at the time when it was his delight to be led captive by the devil, at his will, and he was so rooted in evil that it was a second nature to him, yet the Lord did not wholly desert him, but “did scare and frighten him with fearful visions.” It was apparently through the influence of a dream that Elizabeth Fry was rescued from the indecision and doubt into which she fell after her conversion. John Newton’s remarkable dream of the precious ring intrusted to him, heedlessly cast away, and restored and preserved for him by a stranger, is quite of the same character. He did not himself doubt that it was from God. We may further cite the case of Alexander Duff’s dream of judgment, which threw him into earnest prayer for pardon, and was followed by what he long after described as something like the assurance of acceptance through the atoning blood of his Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Warfield.
The state of the human mind in sleep is one of the great mysteries of existence. Many of those who have pondered on it most deeply have been led to the opinion that the mind never sleeps. There are few who cannot tell of some valuable impression which first visited them in sleep, and was worked out in their waking hours. Now why, among such impressions, should not religious ones have a place? We know that the forces of temptation are not idle while we sleep; for evil dreams, which pollute the mind and lodge images in the memory that return in waking hours, are among the worst distresses of many a man who is striving to purify his soul. If, then, the powers of evil have access to the mind in sleep, to make impressions which do not end with sleep, why should not the Spirit of God have access to it at the same time, to touch it to fine and noble issues? Of course it would be easy to press this too far. If every religious notion or spectacle which may present itself to us in the dreaming state were to be regarded as an inspiration of the Spirit of God, the region of religious belief would be invaded by a destroying host of fancies and caprices. But there is a plain rule by which, if we observe it, we shall be guarded from such error. Nothing of a religious nature occurring to us in dreams has any weight or value if it be not in harmony with the Word of God. This rule will save us from everything like fanaticism. But if an impression which reaches us in dreams makes any truth or fact of God’s Word more vivid and real to us, and disposes us to act in accordance with it, then we are justified in believing that there may be in our dream or vision a Divine intention and a leading of the Spirit.
II. Illness. What is said about this second mode of the Spirit’s dealing (vs. 19-22) is remarkable for extraordinarily graphic touches. There is not, perhaps, in the whole compass of literature a more vivid description of illness. In v. 19 the phrase “the multitude of his bones” describes severe illness to the very life. In good health we scarcely know that we have bones; or at all events, we have no sense of the complexity of the osseous structure, for hidden under its comfortable coverings it does its work unfelt and as a whole. But in rheumatic fever and other maladies this wholeness is broken; we are conscious of every bone in our body, for there is a racking pain in every one of them, and we know what Job means by “the multitude of his bones.” In v. 20 another feature of severe illness is given with equal vividness: “His life abhorreth bread, and his soul dainty meat.” Who that has experienced a prostrating illness does not remember this aversion to food? In v. 21 the aspect of the sick man is described at a later stage, as gaunt and deathlike, he raises himself up in bed, with sunken cheeks, hollow eyes, thin arms; or as, when he is not able for even this, he draws up his shrunken knees, and they look as if they would almost pierce the bedclothes. As v. 22 says, “His soul draweth nigh unto the grave, and his life to the destroyers.”
In those ancient days it was sometimes by bringing a man into this condition that God spoke to him; and here, at any rate, there is nothing antiquated, for this is still a common way in which the Spirit of God deals with the spirit of man. To lay him down on a bed of trouble is often the only way in which God can get a man to think. There are many so involved in the rush and excitement of business that they have no time for serious thought, and others are so engrossed with the pursuit of the gayeties and follies of the world that though they have time enough for meditation, they have no taste for it. Is it not merciful if God lays such a man down in trouble? He is sequestered from company and forced to face his inner self, and he sees that it is mean, squalid, and unfurnished. Though he may have been becoming rich in worldly means, it has been at the expense of inner poverty. He sees all that he has been laboriously acquiring on the point of passing away from him, while he, divested of everything, is about to enter into the presence of God and give in his account. Or it may be in another form that the shadow of death appears in the home. Illness may fall on one who is near and dear; death may carry off the pride of a man’s heart and the light of his eyes; and as he gazes after that which has been taken from him into the pale kingdom of death, and hears the mighty waters breaking far off on the shore of eternity, folly dies in him, and he turns round to estimate the prizes of life with sane and altered eyes. It is often in the vast silence which falls on the heart bereaved that the voice of God is heard; the body of one has to die that the soul of another may live; and thus on many a grave in the churchyard there bloom flowers of immortality.
III. Testimony. The third way in which the Spirit of God dealt in those ancient times with the spirit of man was through the testimony of one who, having been brought to God Himself, came to deal in God’s name with those who were far from Him (vs. 23-26). Such a one is very remarkably described here. First, he is called “a messenger.” He who deals with others about sin and God must be sent of God and bear a Divine message. If a preacher, for example, has not been with God before he comes forth to deal with man, he had better not come at all. Unless there be on his countenance a ray of that Divine light which is caught from intercourse with God, and in his heart a spark of that love which brought Christ Himself down from heaven to seek and save the lost, he had better keep out of such work altogether.
But the messenger of God receives a still pro-
founder name; he is called “an interpreter.” God speaks to men, but they understand Him not. In His providence He speaks, and in His Word; but the message rolls over the heads of those to whom it comes, till some one who knows the language draws their attention to it and tells them what it means. Even in illness the Divine voice is often not heard till an interpreter comes into the sick-room and says, This is what your suffering signifies. Indeed, this is supposed in this chapter itself; for the interpreter comes on the scene because the two preceding voices of God have not been understood. The true interpreter hears the voice of God, and renders it in such a way as to win the attention and sympathy of the common man. This is, however, no common gift; as the passage says, the interpreter is “one among a thousand.” Those who try to carry God’s message to sin-
ners are few and scattered. How many, even of professing Christians, are there who have any real passion for the salvation of the souls of men, or put forth any kind of sympathetic and original effort on their behalf? Is the proportion greatly larger than one in a thousand? Of the thousands of people whom any of us have met with in our journey through life, how few have seemed to be really concerned about our salvation, or have authentically interpreted God’s voices to us? Yet the testimony of man to man is still the most effective means which the Spirit of God employs for doing His work in the human soul.