Job · chapter 33 of 42
Updated on
In Job 33 Elihu addresses Job by name and asks him to listen. He reminds him that God speaks in ways man does not understand: in dreams and night visions and through pain on a sickbed. If there is a mediating messenger to declare what is right, God will rescue Job from the pit by a ransom and restore him, so that he sings and says he has seen the light again.
In his first speech, Elihu speaks directly to Job, something the three friends barely did. Job 33 presents an idea different from theirs: suffering is not only punishment for a specific sin but also a way God warns and saves. It is a valuable nuance, though it does not explain Job's case, as the end of the book will show.
Elihu asks Job to listen to his words. He says his mouth is ready to speak and that his reasons spring from an upright heart. The Spirit of God made him and the breath of the Almighty keeps him alive. He invites Job to refute him if he can, for he too was formed from clay, and there is no reason to fear him (vv. 1-7).
Then he quotes Job: Job said he was clean, without transgression, and that God finds occasions against him and treats him as an enemy, putting his feet in the stocks. Elihu answers that God is greater than man and asks why Job contends with him, claiming that God answers none of man's words (vv. 8-13). God speaks in one way and in two, though man does not perceive it: in dreams and night visions he opens the ears of men and seals their instruction, to turn man from his deed and keep him from pride, and to spare his soul from the pit (vv. 14-18).
He also speaks through pain: a man is chastened on his bed, loses his appetite and his flesh wastes away. If there is an angel as mediator, one of a thousand, to declare to man what is right, God will be gracious and say: deliver him from going down into the pit, I have found a ransom. His flesh will be renewed like a child's. He will pray to God, see his face with joy and sing before men that he sinned and that God did not repay him as he deserved. God does all this twice, three times, to bring back his soul from the pit and to let him see the light of life. Elihu ends by asking Job to listen and to speak if he has anything to say, for he wishes to justify him (vv. 19-33).
References follow ESV book names and verse numbers. Read each verse in your Bible before the explanation.
Elihu declares that the Spirit of God made him and the breath of the Almighty gives him life. He reminds Job that both are creatures of God, so Elihu speaks not from a place of superiority but from the same human condition.
Elihu teaches that God speaks in one way and in two, though man does not perceive it: in dreams and night visions. His aim is to turn man from pride and keep his soul from the pit. God speaks to save, not only to punish.
If there is a mediating messenger, one of a thousand, to declare what is right to man, God will say to deliver him from the pit because he has found a ransom. It is a picture of intercession and rescue that Christians see fully fulfilled in Christ, the mediator between God and men.
Elihu says God does all this twice and three times with man, to bring back his soul from the pit and light it with the light of life. It is a message of mercy, though applying it to Job wrongly assumes his suffering is a warning for sin.
6 questions with answers and references, ready for Sunday school, small group or a Bible quiz night.
Answer: He calls him by name and asks him to listen to his words. — Job 33:1
Answer: He was formed from clay. — Job 33:6
Answer: That he is clean and without sin, and that God treats him as an enemy. — Job 33:9-10
Answer: In dreams and night visions, and through pain on a sickbed. — Job 33:14-19
Answer: He declares to man what is right, and God says to deliver him from the pit because he has found a ransom. — Job 33:23-24
Answer: He brings back his soul from the pit so that he may see the light of life. — Job 33:29-30
Job 33 teaches us that God can speak in ways we do not expect, even in pain. In a small group, this chapter can open a conversation about how God has used trials, dreams or circumstances to call us, without concluding that all suffering is a message for the one living it.
Elihu is right about the picture of a mediator who ransoms; for the Christian, that picture points to Christ, the one mediator between God and men. But he errs in applying his rule to Job without knowing. When we accompany someone who suffers, let us do it humbly: God may be speaking, but it is not our place to decide what he says.
Job 33 ends with Elihu inviting Job to respond, and Job is silent. In chapter 34 Elihu will address the wise and defend God's justice against Job's complaints.
The text does not identify him: he may be an angel or an interpreter who declares what is right to man. Christians see in that figure a shadow of Christ, though Elihu does not frame it that way. For the New Testament, Christ is the only mediator between God and men (1 Timothy 2:5).
The Bible shows God speaking in dreams to people like Joseph or Daniel, but it is not the ordinary means and does not guarantee that every dream comes from God. Any message must be tested by Scripture. Elihu mentions it as one of several ways.
It is a poetic image of death or of Sheol, the place of the dead. Elihu says God uses warnings and suffering to keep man from going down to the pit, that is, from spiritual ruin or premature death.