Job 33
Elihu: “Don’t let me scare you”
Advice from a “sincere” heart
1Okay, here’s my speech, so pay attention.Job, oh Job. Listen to me.
2Look at my lips. They’re moving.
I’m opening my mouth.
3The words you hear come from the heart,
The heart of a good and godly man.
What comes past these lips
Are words spoken most sincerely.
4God put the breath [1] of life in me.
The Almighty gave me the air I breathe.
5I've got some questions for you
And I'd like you to answer them.
So get ready to start talking.
6We are two creatures of God.
He created me from a pinch of clay,
Just like he created you.
7Don't let me scare you.
I'm not going to come down hard on you.
”Job, you’re wrong”
8OK, let's get down to business.I heard what you said.
9You said you did nothing wrong.
You said you are a righteous man.
10You say God picks on you
And he treats you like an enemy.
11He locks your feet in wooden stocks. [2]
He tracks you and hounds you
Wherever you go.
12I'm here to tell you that you're wrong.
God is greater than we are.
We're human and he is God.
13So why do you fight with him?
And why do you say he doesn't answer you?
14God answers us in various ways.
We aren't always alert enough to pick up on it.
15Sometimes he answers in a dream,
A vision of the night. [3]
He speaks to us while we sleep,
Resting in our beds.
16That's when they should be listening,
For his frightening alerts.
17That's when he speaks to us
Warning us of our sins and our pride.
18He does this to keep us out of the Pit,
That hole in the ground, the grave.
God doesn’t want us crossing the river of death.
God uses pain to punish us
19God sometimes resorts to painTo get our attention.
He will punish us with sickness
And with an aching in our bones.
20We might get too sick to eat,
And sick at the sight of food.
21We might waste away to almost nothing,
So thin our bones show through the skin.
22We slip closer and closer to the Pit,
Into the arms of death and the grave.
Savior angel to the rescue
23Then along comes a savior,Maybe one of the thousand angels, [4]
Assigned to defend us.
24This defender is kind to us,
And tells Death to let us go
Because there’s no reason to kill us. [5]
25The angel tells God, [6]
“Make him healthy and strong again,
Like the good ol’ days when he was younger.”
26Then we pray to God and thank him.
And God rewards us for coming home to him.
Saved to repent and find happiness
27We are happy to feel good again,And we admit that we had sinned,
But that God forgave us instead of killing us.
28We say, “God saved my life
So I’m staying on his good side.”
29God has a habit of doing this for us.
He gives us a second chance, third chance.
30He doesn’t want us to die.
We might be at the brink of death,
But he’s still working to save us.
31Job, are you paying attention?
Listen. I’m talking.
32Do you have anything to say for yourself?
Talk to me. I’m pulling for you.
33If you’ve got nothing to say, listen
Because I’ve got plenty more to say.
I’m going to wise you up but good.
Footnotes
Most Bibles translate the first line as something like this, “the spirit of God created me.” The Hebrew word translated “spirit” is ruah. It can mean the “spirit of God.” But more common meanings include: “breath” and “wind.” The context here seems more focused on the words “breath,” and “breathe.” God brought Elihu to life, putting air in his lungs. That seems clear because the next line in the poem uses another Hebrew word for breath, nsama. One characteristic of ancient Hebrew poetry is repetition, much like a common characteristic of English poetry today is rhyme.
Job 13:27.
Prophets in the Bible sometimes called vivid dreams “visions of the night.” Many people in ancient times—Jews, Egyptians, Babylonians, Persians, and others—seemed to believe that dreams were clues to the future. Many taught that God or gods often communicated to people in dreams. Dream interpreters even wrote handbooks about how to interpret dreams. Parts of one Egyptian dream book from the 1200’s BC, roughly the time some scholars say Moses lived, showed up in the cemetery at Deir el-Medina. That’s at Thebes, a little more than 300 miles (480 km) upriver from Cairo, as the crow flies along the Nile. Written on papyrus, it lists bad dreams (written in red ink) and good dreams. Example of a bad dream: bed catches on fire. It means you’re driving your wife away. Good dream: burial of an old man. It means you’re coming into money. Or, perhaps, sheep—possibly from inheritance.
“A million served him, one hundred million stood beside him” (Daniel 7:10).
More literally, “I found a ransom.” It’s unclear what that means. Scholars debate this. Most seem to agree that Elihu wasn’t talking about paying money as ransom to save a person. But the effect is clear: Don’t kill the person.
The phrase is more literally just, “He says.” It’s not clear who is talking to who. The context suggests that in this hypothetical example Elihu has created for Job, Elihu imagines the protecting angel addressing God, perhaps more like someone praying than some prosecutor attacking in court.
Discussion Questions
- Sorry, there are currently no questions for this chapter.
