Job 33: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Elihu keeps speaking, now addressing Job directly by name. He asks Job to answer him, says he is only a man formed from clay like Job, and quotes Job's claim to be innocent while God treats him as an enemy. Elihu answers that God is greater than man and does speak to people, through dreams and warnings in the night, and through pain and sickness on a sick bed. He describes a messenger who speaks up for the dying man, a ransom found, health restored, and the man confessing his sin and living to see the light; Elihu says God does this repeatedly, then invites Job to reply or else listen.

Claim by Claim

1. 33:1
   • Elihu asks Job to hear his speech
   • Elihu asks Job to listen to all his words
2. 33:2
   • Elihu says he has opened his mouth
   • Elihu says his tongue has spoken in his mouth
3. 33:3
   • Elihu says his words come from the uprightness of his heart
   • Elihu says his lips utter knowledge clearly
4. 33:4
   • The spirit of God made Elihu
   • The breath of the Almighty gives Elihu life
5. 33:5
   • Elihu tells Job to answer him if he can
   • Elihu tells Job to set his words in order before him
   • Elihu tells Job to stand up
6. 33:6
   • Elihu says he stands in God's stead toward Job, according to Job's wish
   • Elihu says he too was formed out of clay
7. 33:7
   • Elihu says his terror will not make Job afraid
   • Elihu says his hand will not be heavy upon Job
8. 33:8
   • Elihu says Job has spoken in his hearing
   • Elihu says he has heard the sound of Job's words
9. 33:9
   • Job said he is clean and without transgression
   • Job said he is innocent
   • Job said there is no iniquity in him
10. 33:10
    • Job said God finds occasions against him
    • Job said God counts him as an enemy
11. 33:11
    • Job said God puts his feet in the stocks
    • Job said God watches all his paths
12. 33:12
    • Elihu says Job is not right in this
    • Elihu says he will answer Job
    • Elihu says God is greater than man
13. 33:13
    • Elihu asks why Job strives against God
    • Elihu says God does not give account of any of his matters
14. 33:14
    • Elihu says God speaks once, and twice
    • Elihu says man does not perceive it
15. 33:15
    • God speaks in a dream
    • God speaks in a vision of the night
    • This happens when deep sleep falls upon men
    • This happens during slumbering upon the bed
16. 33:16
    • God then opens the ears of men
    • God seals their instruction
17. 33:17
    • God does this to withdraw man from his purpose
    • God does this to hide pride from man
18. 33:18
    • God keeps back his soul from the pit
    • God keeps back his life from perishing by the sword
19. 33:19
    • A man is chastened with pain upon his bed
    • The multitude of his bones is chastened with strong pain
20. 33:20
    • His life abhors bread
    • His soul abhors dainty food
21. 33:21
    • His flesh is consumed away so that it cannot be seen
    • His bones that were not seen stick out
22. 33:22
    • His soul draws near to the pit
    • His life draws near to the destroyers
23. 33:23
    • Elihu speaks of the case where there is a messenger with the man
    • The messenger is an interpreter
    • The messenger is one among a thousand
    • The messenger's task is to show man his uprightness
24. 33:24
    • Then he is gracious to the man
    • He says to deliver the man from going down to the pit
    • He says he has found a ransom
25. 33:25
    • The man's flesh shall be fresher than a child's
    • The man shall return to the days of his youth
26. 33:26
    • The man shall pray to God
    • God will be favourable to him
    • The man shall see God's face with joy
    • God will render to man his righteousness
27. 33:27
    • He looks upon men
    • A man says, I have sinned
    • The man says he perverted what was right
    • The man says it did not profit him
28. 33:28
    • God will deliver his soul from going into the pit
    • His life shall see the light
29. 33:29
    • God works all these things with man oftentimes
30. 33:30
    • God does this to bring back his soul from the pit
    • God does this so that he may be enlightened with the light of the living
31. 33:31
    • Elihu tells Job to mark well
    • Elihu tells Job to listen to him
    • Elihu tells Job to hold his peace
    • Elihu says he will speak
32. 33:32
    • Elihu says if Job has anything to say, he should answer him
    • Elihu tells Job to speak
    • Elihu says he desires to justify Job
33. 33:33
    • Elihu says if not, Job should listen to him
    • Elihu tells Job to hold his peace
    • Elihu says he will teach Job wisdom

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

33:1

The speaker is Elihu, a younger onlooker who broke in at chapter 32 after Job's three friends gave up arguing with him. He is the only speaker in the book who addresses Job by name, and he does it repeatedly, part of the direct, face-to-face manner he keeps claiming for himself.

33:4

One Hebrew word covers 'breath', 'wind' and 'spirit', so the two lines of this verse are near-twins rather than two separate ideas. The wording echoes the picture of God breathing life into the first man; Elihu is saying he is a made creature like Job, not speaking with any special authority.

33:5

Job and his friends argue the way people argue in a courtroom. "Set thy words in order" means line up your case, like a lawyer getting ready to speak.

33:6

The King James 'I am according to thy wish in God's stead' reflects a genuinely difficult line. It can mean 'I stand toward God exactly as you do' (so we are equals in this argument), or 'I am here in God's place, as you asked for', Job had wished for someone to act as go-between or umpire between himself and God. 'Formed out of clay' uses the image of a potter pinching off a lump of clay, the standard picture of how a human being is made.

33:7

Job had complained that he could not argue his case with God because God's terror overwhelmed him and God's hand pressed him down. Elihu is quoting those complaints back and saying that none of that applies to a human opponent like himself.

33:9

Verses 9 to 11 are Elihu quoting Job, or rather summarizing him. Job never said these exact words, and the claim 'there is no guilt in me' is stronger than anything Job actually argued; this is Elihu's version of Job's position.

33:11

Stocks were a wooden frame that clamped a prisoner's feet or ankles so he could not move, a standard restraint for someone under arrest. 'He marketh all my paths' means God watches every move, in the sense of a guard keeping the prisoner under surveillance.

33:13

The Hebrew can be read two ways: that God gives no account of what he does, or that God does not answer any of the words a person addresses to him. Either way the complaint is about God's silence, not his conduct.

33:14

'Once, yea twice' is a Hebrew way of saying 'in one way and then another', or simply 'again and again'. It is not a count of two occasions.

33:15

The 'deep sleep' here is a specific Hebrew word used for an unnaturally heavy, God-sent sleep, the same word used when the first man is put to sleep, and when Abraham falls into a trance. Dreams were widely treated in the ancient world as a normal channel for messages from a god.

33:16

'Sealeth their instruction' uses the image of stamping a document with a seal, which certified it and made it binding. The Hebrew of the second half is uncertain: some read it as God certifying and fixing the warning, others as God terrifying the sleeper with it.

33:18

'The pit' translates a Hebrew word meaning both a grave and the underworld where the dead go. It runs through this whole chapter as the thing a person is being rescued from, and does not carry the modern sense of a place of punishment.

33:19

Corrects means teaching someone to stop doing what is wrong.

33:20

In 1611 'meat' meant food of any kind, not flesh specifically, and 'dainty' meant choice or desirable rather than delicate. The line is about a sick man losing his appetite even for his favorite food.

33:22

'The destroyers' translates a Hebrew word meaning 'those who put to death'. It may mean death-dealing powers or messengers imagined as coming for the dying man, matching 'the pit' in the first half of the verse; the vagueness is in the original.

33:23

'Messenger' and 'angel' are the same word in Hebrew, so the figure here may be a human spokesman or a heavenly one, the text does not settle it. 'Interpreter' translates a word for a go-between: someone who speaks for one party to another, whether as an envoy, an advocate, or a translator. 'One among a thousand' marks how rare such a figure is.

33:24

A 'ransom' was the price paid to buy someone out of a penalty, a debt, or slavery, in law, the sum that could be accepted instead of a life that was forfeit. Who pays it and who receives it is left unstated here.

33:26

'To see his face' is court language: being admitted to the presence of a king was the sign of restored favor, and being shut out was the sign of disgrace. The last clause is ambiguous in the Hebrew: it can mean God restores the man to his right standing, or that God grants his own righteousness to the man.

33:27

'It profited me not' translates a phrase that most naturally means 'it was not repaid to me in kind': that is, the speaker did not get the punishment his conduct had earned. The Hebrew verb for what he does in front of others can mean either 'sings' or 'looks'; the older reading has God looking on men, the more common modern reading has the rescued man singing his confession publicly.

33:28

To 'see the light' means simply to go on living. Life and daylight, death and darkness, are paired throughout the Hebrew Bible, which is why the pit in the previous line is its opposite.

33:29

'Two times, even three times' is another Hebrew idiom for repeated action, like 'once, yea twice' in verse 14. It counts the pattern as habitual, not as exactly three occasions.

33:30

Light stood for being alive, and darkness stood for death. "The light of the living" simply means life among living people.

33:32

'Justify' is a courtroom word: to declare someone in the right, to clear them of the charge. Elihu is offering to pronounce Job innocent if Job can make the case, not offering to forgive him.