Job 33

The TorahRooted Bible (TRB), translated directly from the Hebrew and Greek.

Elihu speaks to Job

¹ But now, Job, please hear my speech, and listen to all my words. ² See now, I have opened my mouth; my tongue speaks in my mouth. ³ My words declare the uprightness of my heart, and what my lips know they speak sincerely. ⁴ The Spirit of El has made me, and the breath of Shaddai gives me life. ⁵ If you can, answer me; set your words in order before me; take your stand. ⁶ See, I am toward El as you are; I too was formed from clay. ⁷ See, dread of me shall not terrify you, nor shall my hand be heavy upon you.

⁸ Surely you have spoken in my hearing, and I have heard the sound of your words: ⁹ "I am pure, without transgression; I am innocent, and there is no iniquity in me. ¹⁰ See, He finds occasions against me; He counts me as His enemy. ¹¹ He puts my feet in the stocks; He watches all my paths."

El speaks in more than one way

¹² See, in this you are not in the right; I will answer you, for Eloah is greater than man. ¹³ Why do you contend against Him, saying that He does not answer any of man's words? ¹⁴ For El speaks once, and twice, though man does not perceive it. ¹⁵ In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falls on men, in slumbers upon the bed, ¹⁶ then He opens the ears of men and seals their instruction, ¹⁷ to turn man aside from his deed, and to keep pride from man; ¹⁸ He keeps back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.

¹⁹ He is also chastened with pain on his bed, and with unceasing pain in all his bones, ²⁰ so that his life loathes bread, and his soul the food he once desired. ²¹ His flesh wastes away out of sight, and his bones, once unseen, stick out. ²² His soul draws near to the pit, and his life to those who bring death.

A messenger and a ransom

²³ If there is for him a messenger, a mediator, one among a thousand, to declare to man what is right for him, ²⁴ and he is gracious to him and says, "Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom," ²⁵ then his flesh becomes fresher than a child's; he returns to the days of his youth. ²⁶ He prays to Eloah, and He accepts him; he sees His face with a shout of joy, and He restores to man his righteousness. ²⁷ He sings before men and says, "I sinned and perverted what was right, and I was not repaid as I deserved." ²⁸ He has redeemed his soul from going down into the pit, and his life shall see the light.

²⁹ See, El does all these things, twice, three times, with a man, ³⁰ to bring back his soul from the pit, that he may be lighted with the light of life.

³¹ Pay attention, Job, listen to me; be silent, and I will speak. ³² If you have anything to say, answer me; speak, for I desire to declare you in the right. ³³ If not, listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom.

Notes

• 33:4 "The Spirit of El" (ruach El) and "the breath of Shaddai" (nishmat Shaddai) recall Genesis 2:7, where Yahweh Elohim "breathed into his nostrils the breath of life" (nishmat chayyim), and Elihu has already named the breath of Shaddai as the source of understanding (32:8). Ruach can mean "spirit," "wind" or "breath." The TRB reads it here as El's own Spirit, the Creator who made Elihu, as "the Spirit of Elohim" in Genesis 1:2, and so capitalizes it (as in 34:14); when Job spoke of "the spirit of Eloah" in his nostrils (27:3), he meant the breath of life that Eloah had put in him, parallel to "my breath," so it is lowercase there. Elihu's point is that he is a creature like Job, made by El and formed from clay (verse 6), so Job need not fear him as he feared the dread of Elohim (verse 7; 9:34; 13:21).
• 33:9 Elihu sets out Job's words before answering them. Verses 10-11 repeat Job's own complaint almost word for word: "count me as Your enemy" (13:24) and "You put my feet in the stocks, and watch all my paths" (13:27). Verse 9 is more a summary than a quotation: Job had said that he was blameless (9:21), not guilty (10:7) and pure in his prayer (16:17), but he had not claimed to be without any sin at all (7:21; 13:26). Elihu's answer (verse 12) is not that Job is a hidden sinner, as the friends said, but that Eloah is greater than man.
• 33:14 Job complained that Elohim would not answer him (verse 13; compare 9:16; 19:7). Elihu replies that El does speak, in more than one way: through dreams and night visions (verses 15-18; verse 15 uses the very words of Eliphaz's vision in 4:13, "when deep sleep falls on men," and recalls Job's own dreams in 7:14), and through pain and sickness (verses 19-22), to turn a man back from pride before it destroys him. "Chastened" in verse 19 (hukhach) is from the same root as the "arbiter" (mokhiach) of 9:33: for Elihu, suffering itself can be El's reproof and warning. This is close to Eliphaz in 5:17, but Elihu stresses that its purpose is to rescue, not to destroy (verses 18, 24, 28-30); the prologue, however, has shown the reader another reason for Job's suffering (1:8-12; 2:3).
• 33:23 Elihu pictures a messenger (malakh, the word also used for angels, as in 4:18) who stands by the suffering man as a mediator (melits, an interpreter or go-between; see the note at 16:20), "one among a thousand," a rare one indeed (compare 9:3, where no one could answer El once in a thousand). He declares to the man what is right for him, and then comes the word: "Deliver him from going down to the pit; I have found a ransom" (verse 24). The ransom (kofer) is the price paid to release a life (Exodus 21:30; 30:12). The Hebrew does not make clear who is gracious and speaks, the messenger pleading for the man or Elohim Himself ordering his release, nor what the ransom is. Elihu seems to take up Job's longing for an arbiter between him and El (9:33) and for a witness in heaven who would plead for him (16:19-21). Some take the messenger as an angel, others as a human teacher like Elihu himself, and many Christian readers have seen here a foreshadowing of the Messiah, the one mediator given as a ransom (Mark 10:45; 1 Timothy 2:5-6); the text itself leaves it open.
• 33:28 The written Hebrew (ketiv) has "my soul … my life," continuing the man's own song of thanks ("He has redeemed my soul from going down into the pit, and my life shall see the light"), and many modern versions follow it. The Masoretes marked the words to be read "his soul … his life" (qere), so that Elihu himself tells what Elohim has done; the TRB follows that reading here as it does elsewhere (compare the note at 13:15). Either way, the man who drew near to the pit (verse 22) is brought back to the light of life (verse 30).

Job 32 · Job 34

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