TEXT [Commentary]

  B.   The Words of Correction (33:14-33)

14 For God speaks again and again,

though people do not recognize it.

15 He speaks in dreams, in visions of the night,

when deep sleep falls on people

as they lie in their beds.

16 He whispers in their ears

and terrifies them with warnings.

17 He makes them turn from doing wrong;

he keeps them from pride.

18 He protects them from the grave,

from crossing over the river of death.

19 “Or God disciplines people with pain on their sickbeds,

with ceaseless aching in their bones.

20 They lose their appetite

for even the most delicious food.

21 Their flesh wastes away,

and their bones stick out.

22 They are at death’s door;

the angels of death wait for them.

23 “But if an angel from heaven appears—

a special messenger to intercede for a person

and declare that he is upright—

24 he will be gracious and say,

‘Rescue him from the grave,

for I have found a ransom for his life.’

25 Then his body will become as healthy as a child’s,

firm and youthful again.

26 When he prays to God,

he will be accepted.

And God will receive him with joy

and restore him to good standing.

27 He will declare to his friends,

‘I sinned and twisted the truth,

but it was not worth it.[*]

28 God rescued me from the grave,

and now my life is filled with light.’

29 “Yes, God does these things

again and again for people.

30 He rescues them from the grave

so they may enjoy the light of life.

31 Mark this well, Job. Listen to me,

for I have more to say.

32 But if you have anything to say, go ahead.

Speak, for I am anxious to see you justified.

33 But if not, then listen to me.

Keep silent and I will teach you wisdom!”

NOTES

33:14 again and again. The verse is an enumeration often used in poetic style (Steinmann 1995:294): “God speaks one way, even two ways.” Elihu began his response to the charges Job had made by naming two ways that God speaks: dreams and illness.

33:16 terrifies them with warnings. “[He] sealeth their instruction” (KJV) is not the sense required here, though it is a possible rendering of the Heb. “Frightens him with apparitions” (NJB) is based on the LXX. The translation commonly adopted (NLT, RSV, NIV, REB) requires only the revocalization of the MT.

33:17 makes them turn from doing wrong. The line says that the warning “turns one away from a deed,” which in context must mean “evil deed” or “evil work.” Usually, the phrase is emended to specify that God will “turn man aside from his deed” (RSV)—that is, the particular intended action of an individual, which was averted before it could actually take place.

33:18 crossing over the river of death. The translation “perishing by the sword” (KJV, RSV, NIV) is a common meaning of the word shelakh [TH7973, ZH8939] but is a poor parallel in this verse. A parallel expression later in the chapter (33:28) makes it clear that a crossing into the place of death is meant. The word shelakh is also a water canal used in ancient Semitic writings to speak about the river of the netherworld (Tsevat 1954:43-45), which properly complements “grave” earlier in this verse.

33:23 angel from heaven . . . special messenger. These two Heb. terms refer to one intermediary. The first is simply “messenger,” sometimes designating a heavenly messenger as in the expression “the angel of the LORD.” The second term may refer to an interpreter (Gen 42:23), a mediator (Isa 43:27), or an ambassador (2 Chr 32:31). Only on this occasion in the Heb. Bible does it refer to a heavenly being said to be “one in a thousand.” On the basis of Semitic usage, the significance of “one in a thousand” can be established to be one from a numerous body of heavenly intermediaries (Gevirtz 1990:147-153) who act as advocates or agents for humans.

33:26 God will receive him with joy. The Gr. has an excellent paraphrase of the Heb. idiom (Orlinsky 1959:160-161) that says the person who has found mercy will appear before God to worship with joy. Though the expression is often used of appearing at the Temple, the sense here is only that of being alive in God’s favor.

restore him to good standing. Since the person has already been described as accepted before God, it seems unnecessary to say he has been restored. Some translations omit this line (REB, NAB), and others connect it to the following verse as a confession of restored salvation (RSV, NJB). If the word “restore” is given the sense of “pay tribute” (Gordis 1978:378-379), it forms a pleasing poetic parallel with the following line.

33:27 it was not worth it. The precise meaning of the Heb. idiom is uncertain. “It was of no worth to me” is a common later idiom (Jastrow 1532), which is suitable here. Other translations say the penalty was not inflicted as deserved (RSV, NIV, NRSV, NJB).

33:29 again and again. Lit. “two, even three times.” See note on 33:14.

COMMENTARY [Text]

God speaks three ways to people in order to rescue their lives from death. The first two are ordinary; God speaks through dreams (33:14-18) and God speaks through illness (33:19-22). The third means is supernatural; it happens through a divine messenger who intervenes and saves guilty persons from the punishment of the grave (33:23-24) so that their health is restored and they are saved from death (33:25-28). God continually does these things to spare people from “the pit.” It will be observed that the reference to the grave or the pit occurs five times in this section as Elihu explains the ways in which God responds to suffering. In conclusion, Elihu challenged Job to answer him if he could (33:31-33).

Night is often the time for reflections that are otherwise preempted by the busyness of the day. These reflections stay within our subconscious throughout the day and then surface later during sleep. Elihu maintained that sometimes these thoughts are a divine warning about the way in which people are prone to choose their own path rather than the way God has chosen. The decisions that Elihu has in mind are moral issues, matters of right conduct. Moral failure is a matter of pride, for it assumes we know better than God about what is right or at least that we can escape the harm that comes from such actions. Every sin in some sense has its origin in the hubris of humans who think that they can be their own god. The original temptation (Gen 3:4-5) was the promise of human autonomy, the thought that humans can do as they please without accountability. This kind of arrogance leads to death, but God intervenes to warn against this destructive thinking (33:16). God turns people from their arrogant ways before they can follow through on their ideas of independence. As expressed in a Hasidic proverb (Gordis 1978:375), it is better to be a sinner who knows that he is a sinner than to be a saint who knows that he is a saint. No doubt, Elihu had in mind the days when Job was a revered and powerful man and was reminding him that God warns such people in their thoughts about their proper position before him.

Sometimes God speaks to people through pain (33:19). Pain can be tormenting and seemingly endless. Pain robs sufferers of appetite; they can become so emaciated that their bones protrude, so they are unsightly. Illness may take them right to the door of death where the emissaries of the world beyond “the river” await to bear the dead across. Yet even this can be a correction. God has not abandoned such individuals; they may be restored to health. Job was convinced that only the grave was left for him, but Elihu did not believe this was so.

Elihu believed that God has his intermediaries, thousands of them, who may intervene and spare a person from death. A belief in such messengers is common in other ancient writings, but there is little reference to them in Scripture. Elihu did not have in mind the divinities that belonged to the pantheons of other religions, nor does he mean the “angels of death” (33:22), who have quite a different function. It is true that the Greek translation has linked the “death-bearers” with the “advocates,” but it is quite periphrastic at this point. The Greek translator was not necessarily assuming there was no positive function for angels as mediators (Gammie 1985:5-6), but he may have linked these intermediaries to the death-bearing function of the Accuser in the prologue. The “special messenger” (NLT) is certainly to be distinguished from the “angels of death” in the text (Mach 1992:107-108), and the dark view of angels that threaten harm was not determinative for the later concept of fallen angels as demons. Elihu was not thinking about the kind of messenger seen in the prologue because he considered these to be advocates rather than accusers. They will declare that a person is upright (33:23, NLT, NRSV). It is not that they will declare to a person what is right (NIV, RSV, REB, NAB, NJB); Elihu is not talking about moral rehabilitation but about physical rehabilitation, the restoration of the sick. The heavenly advocate will declare the upright state of those threatened by death, and they will be spared. They will find favor with God and will give him praise in the great assembly, as is often affirmed in the Psalms (e.g., Ps 22:19-24). They will make confession of the destructive power of their sin, recognizing that their decisions were of no worth. Their life will come to be enlightened as they experience again the blessing of God.

God does these two and three things continuously to protect his people from slipping into the grave, where they can no longer praise him. These “two and three” things are a poetic technique to create parallel lines, not a precise tabulation (see note on 33:29). Though three actions may be distinguished, it is obvious that at least the last two relate to each other. The correction that comes through illness is achieved through the mediation of God’s grace and may be considered two aspects of the same thing.

God desires that the lives of people be filled with light, a point that is repeated (33:28, 30). God does not design a punishing illness simply to bring one to death. Elihu was confident that Job could not refute this argument, though he would give Job opportunity to defend his charge that God had made him an enemy and consigned him to death. Ironically, Elihu says that he wants to show that Job is right; this is a way of saying that he was not trying to win an argument for argument’s sake. Elihu simply wanted truth to prevail. Though he invited Job to speak, he was so confident that Job could have nothing more to say that he immediately asked for silence so he could make his next point.