Biblion Bible Commentary
Read the introduction to Job · About this commentary
Elihu: God Speaks Once and Twice
Job 33:1-18
1 “However, Job, please hear my speech, and listen to all my words. · WEB
Elihu answers Job's demand for a hearing by claiming that God has been speaking all along, in dreams and warnings, to keep a man back from the pit.
He begins by making himself safe to argue with. Behold, I am toward God even as you are. I am also formed out of the clay. Behold, my terror will not make you afraid, neither will my pressure be heavy on you Job 33:6–7.
That is a direct answer to Job's complaint. Job had said the trouble with taking his case to God was that the parties were not the same kind of thing, and had asked for someone who could lay his hand on us both Job 9:32–33. Elihu offers himself as a man of the same clay who can be answered without terror. He is not the mediator Job asked for, and he is the first person in the book to understand what was being asked.
He also quotes Job accurately, which none of the friends managed. I am clean, without disobedience... he finds occasions against me. He counts me for his enemy Job 33:9–10 — Job did say these things Job 13:24 Job 10:7. Elihu argues with the actual position.
His charge is narrow and he states it in one clause: in this you are not just Job 33:12. Not that Job sinned to deserve his losses. That in defending his own righteousness, Job has put God in the wrong, and a man cannot clear himself at that price.
Then the question that names Job's real grievance: why do you strive against him, because he doesn't give account of any of his matters? Job 33:13.
That is precisely the complaint. Job has demanded an indictment, a hearing, a reply. Elihu's answer is that the silence is not what it seems.
For God speaks once, yes twice, though man pays no attention Job 33:14.
The claim is that God has been speaking and has not been heard. And the first channel he names is the one Eliphaz claimed for himself: a dream, a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men Job 33:15 — the same words Eliphaz used Job 4:13. What Elihu says such a warning is for is different, though, and it is entirely constructive.
God opens the ears of men, and seals their instruction, that he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man. He keeps back his soul from the pit Job 33:16–18.
The purpose is preventive. The night warning is not a threat or a judgment; it is a hand on the shoulder of a man walking toward something, and the aim is to keep him alive. That is a better account of God's dealings than anything the three friends produced, and it is the first thing said in this book that treats suffering as forward-looking rather than as payment for the past.
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