Job 33:13-30 | KD | STEP | Why hast thou contended against Him, That He answereth not concerning all His doings? 14 Yet no-in one way God speaketh, And in two, only one perceiveth it not. 15 In the dream, in a vision of the night, When deep sleep falleth upon men, In slumberings upon the bed: 16 Then He openeth the ear of men, And sealeth admonition for them, 17 That He may withdraw man from mischief, And hide pride from man; 18 That He may keep back his soul from the pit, And his life from the overthrow of the sword. Knowing himself to be righteous, and still considering himself treated as an enemy by God, Job has frequently inquired of God, Why then does He treat him thus with enmity, , and why has He brought him into being to be the mark of His attack? Job 10:18. He has longed for God’s answer to these questions; and because God has veiled Himself in silence, he has fallen into complain against Him, as a ruler who governs according to His own sovereign arbitrary will. This is what Elihu has before his mind in Job 33:13. ריב (elsewhere in the book of Job with עם or the acc . of the person with whom one contends) is here, as and freq., joined with אל and conjugated as a contracted Hiph . (ריבות instead of רבתּ, Ges. §73, 1); and ענה with the acc . signifies here: to answer anything (comp. ; , and especially ); the suff . does not refer back to אנושׁ of the preceding strophe (Hirz., Hahn), but to God. דּבריו are the things, i.e., facts and circumstances of His rule; all those things which are mysterious in it He answers not, i.e., He answers concerning nothing in this respect (comp. כל לא, ), He gives no kind of account of them (Schnurr., Ges., and others). כּי, , in the sense of imo , is attached to this negative thought, which has become a ground of contention for Job: yet no, God does really speak with men, although not as Job desires when challenged and in His own defence. Many expositors take באחת and בּשׁתּים after lxx, Syr., and Jer., in the signification semel, secundo (thus also Hahn, Schlottm.); but semel is אחת, whereas באחת is nowhere equivalent to בפעם אחת, for in Num 10:4 it signifies with one, viz., trumpet; , on one, viz., of the many ways; , in one, i.e., in like folly (not: altogether, at once, which כּאחד, Syr. bachdo , signifies); then further on it is not twice, but two different modes or means of divine attestation, viz., dreams and sicknesses, that are spoken of; wherefore it is rightly translated by the Targ. una loquela, by Pagn. uno modo, by Vatabl., Merc., una via. The form of the declaration: by one - by two, is that of the so-called number-proverbs, like Job 5:19. In diverse ways or by different means God speaks to mortal man - he does not believe it, it is his own fault if he does perceive it. לא ישׁוּרנּה, which is correctly denoted as a separate clause by Rebia mugrasch, is neither with Schlottm. to be regarded as a circumstantial clause (without one’s ... ), nor with Vatablus and Hahn as a conditional clause (if one does not attend to it), nor with Montanus and Piscator as a relative clause (to him who does not observe it), but with Tremellius as a co-ordinate second predicative clause without a particle (one might expect אך): he (mortal man) or one observes it not (שׁוּר with neut. suff . exactly like ).

‏ Job 33:13-30

Job 33:13-18 13 Why hast thou contended against Him,

That He answereth not concerning all His doings? 14 Yet no-in one way God speaketh,

And in two, only one perceiveth it not. 15 In the dream, in a vision of the night,

When deep sleep falleth upon men,

In slumberings upon the bed: 16 Then He openeth the ear of men,

And sealeth admonition for them, 17 That He may withdraw man from mischief,

And hide pride from man; 18 That He may keep back his soul from the pit,

And his life from the overthrow of the sword.

Knowing himself to be righteous, and still considering himself treated as an enemy by God, Job has frequently inquired of God, Why then does He treat him thus with enmity, Job 7:20, and why has He brought him into being to be the mark of His attack? Job 10:18. He has longed for God’s answer to these questions; and because God has veiled Himself in silence, he has fallen into complain against Him, as a ruler who governs according to His own sovereign arbitrary will. This is what Elihu has before his mind in Job 33:13. ריב (elsewhere in the book of Job with עם or the acc. of the person with whom one contends) is here, as Jer 12:1 and freq., joined with אל and conjugated as a contracted Hiph. (ריבות instead of רבתּ, Ges. §73, 1); and ענה with the acc. signifies here: to answer anything (comp. Job 32:12; Job 40:2, and especially Job 9:3); the suff. does not refer back to אנושׁ of the preceding strophe (Hirz., Hahn), but to God. דּבריו are the things, i.e., facts and circumstances of His rule; all those things which are mysterious in it He answers not, i.e., He answers concerning nothing in this respect (comp. כל לא, Job 34:27), He gives no kind of account of them (Schnurr., Ges., and others). כּי, Job 33:14, in the sense of imo, is attached to this negative thought, which has become a ground of contention for Job: yet no, God does really speak with men, although not as Job desires when challenged and in His own defence. Many expositors take באחת and בּשׁתּים after lxx, Syr., and Jer., in the signification semel, secundo (thus also Hahn, Schlottm.); but semel is אחת, whereas באחת is nowhere equivalent to בפעם אחת, for in Num 10:4 it signifies with one, viz., trumpet; Pro 28:18, on one, viz., of the many ways; Jer 10:8, in one, i.e., in like folly (not: altogether, at once, which כּאחד, Syr. bachdo, signifies); then further on it is not twice, but two different modes or means of divine attestation, viz., dreams and sicknesses, that are spoken of; wherefore it is rightly translated by the Targ. una loquela, by Pagn. uno modo, by Vatabl., Merc., una via. The form of the declaration: by one - by two, is that of the so-called number-proverbs, like Job 5:19. In diverse ways or by different means God speaks to mortal man - he does not believe it, it is his own fault if he does perceive it. לא ישׁוּרנּה, which is correctly denoted as a separate clause by Rebia mugrasch, is neither with Schlottm. to be regarded as a circumstantial clause (without one’s ... ), nor with Vatablus and Hahn as a conditional clause (if one does not attend to it), nor with Montanus and Piscator as a relative clause (to him who does not observe it), but with Tremellius as a co-ordinate second predicative clause without a particle (one might expect אך): he (mortal man) or one observes it not (שׁוּר with neut. suff. exactly like Job 35:13). Job 33:19-22 19 He is chastened also with pain upon his bed,

And with the unceasing conflict of his limbs; 20 And his life causeth him to loathe bread,

And his soul dainty meat. 21 His flesh consumeth away to uncomeliness,

And his deranged limbs are scarcely to be seen. 22 Then his soul draweth near to the grave,

And his life to the destroyers.

Another and severer lesson which God teaches man is by painful sickness: he is chastened with pain (בּ of the means) on his bed, he and the vigorous number of his limbs, i.e., he with this hitherto vigorous (Raschi), or: while the multitude of his limbs is still vigorous (Ew). Thus is the Keri ורב to be understood, for the interpretation: and the multitude of his limbs with unceasing pain (Arnh. after Aben-Ezra), is unnatural. But the Chethib is far more commendable: and with a constant tumult of his limbs (Hirz. and others). Job 33:19 might also be taken as a substantival clause: and the tumult of his limbs is unceasing (Umbr., Welte); but that taking over of בּ from במכאוב is simpler and more pleasing. ריב (opposite of שׁלום, e.g., Psa 38:4) is an excellent description of disease which consists in a disturbance of the equilibrium of the powers, in the dissolution of their harmony, in the excitement of one against another (Psychol. S. 287). אתן for איתן belongs to the many defective forms of writing of this section. In Job 33:20 we again meet a Hebraeo-Arabic hapaxlegomenon. זהם from זהם. In Arab. zahuma signifies to stink, like the Aram. זהם (whence זוּהם, dirt and stench), zahama to thrust back, restrain, after which Abu Suleiman Daûd Alfâsi, in his Arabic Lexicon of the Hebrew, interprets: “his soul thrusts back (תזהם נפסה) food and every means of life,” ^{▼▼Vid., Pinsker’s Likkute Kadmoniot, p. קמג.} beside which the suff. of וזהמתּוּ is taken as an anticipation of the following object (vid., on Job 29:3): his life feels disgust at it, at bread, and his soul at dainty meat. The Piel has then only the intensive signification of Kal (synon. תּעב, Psa 107:18), according to which it is translated by Hahn with many before him. But if the poet had wished to be so understood, he would have made use of a less ambiguous arrangement of the words, וזהמתו לחם חיתו. We take זהם with Ew. §122, b, as causative of Kal, in which signification the Piel, it is true, occurs but rarely, yet it does sometimes, instead of Hiph.; but without translating, with Hirz., חיה by hunger and נפשׁ by appetite, which gives a confused thought. Schlottm. appropriately remarks: “It is very clearly expressed, as the proper vital power, the proper ψυχή, when it is inwardly consumed by disease, gives one a loathing for that which it otherwise likes as being a necessary condition of its own existence.” Thus it is: health produces an appetite, sickness causes nausea; the soul that is in an uninjured normal state longs for food, that which is severely weakened by sickness turns the desire for dainties into loathing and aversion. Job 33:23-24 23 If there is an angel as mediator for him,

One of a thousand,

To declare to man what is for his profit: 24 He is gracious to him, and saith:

Deliver him, that he go not down to the pit -

I have found a ransom.

The former case, Job 33:15, was the easier; there a strengthening of the testimony of man’s conscience by a divine warning, given under remarkable circumstances, suffices. This second case, which the lxx correctly distinguishes from the former (it translates Job 33:19, πάλιν δὲ ἤλεγξεν αὐτὸν ἐν μαλακίᾳ ἐπὶ κοίτης), is the more difficult: it treats not merely of a warning against sin and its wages of death, but of a deliverance from the death itself, to which the man is almost abandoned in consequence of sin. This deliverance, as Elihu says, requires a mediator. This course of thought does not admit of our understanding the מלאך of a human messenger of God, such as Job has before him in Elihu (Schult., Schnurr., Boullier, Eichh., Rosenm., Welte), an “interpreter of the divine will, such as one finds one man among a thousand to be, a God-commissioned speaker, in one word: a prophet” (von Hofmann in Schriftbew. i. 335f.). The מלך appears not merely as a declarer of the conditions of the deliverance, but as a mediator of this deliverance itself. And if the ממתים, Job 33:22, are angels by whom the man is threatened with the execution of death, the מלאך who comes forward here for him who is upon the brink of the abyss cannot be a man. We must therefore understand מלאך not as in Job 1:14, but as in Job 4:18; and the more surely so, since we are within the extra-Israelitish circle of a patriarchal history. In the extra-Israelitish world a far more developed doctrine of angels and demons is everywhere found than in Israel, which is to be understood not only subjectively, but also objectively; and within the patriarchal history after Gen 16, that (אלהים) מלאך יהוה appears, who is instrumental in effecting the progress of the history of redemption, and has so much the appearance of the God of revelation, that He even calls himself God, and is called God. He it is whom Jacob means, when (Gen 48:15.), blessing Joseph, he distinguishes God the Invisible, God the Shepherd, i.e., Leader and Ruler, and “the Angel who delivered (הגּאל) me from all evil;” it is the Angel who, according to Psa 34:8, encampeth round about them that fear God, and delivereth them; ”the Angel of the presence” whom Isaiah in the Thephilla, ch. lxiii. 7ff., places beside Jehovah and His Holy Spirit as a third hypostasis. Taking up this perception, Elihu demands for the deliverance of man from the death which he has incurred by his sins, a superhuman angelic mediator. The “Angel of Jehovah” of primeval history is the oldest prefigurement in the history of redemption of the future incarnation, without which the Old Testament history would be a confused quodlibet of premises and radii, without a conclusion and a centre; and the angelic form is accordingly the oldest form which gives the hope of a deliverer, and to which it recurs, in conformity to the law of the circular connection between the beginning and end, in Mal 3:1.

The strophe begins without any indication of connection with the preceding: one would expect ואם or אז אם, as we felt the absence of אך fo e in Job 33:14, and לכן in Job 32:17. We might take מלאך מליץ together as substantive and epitheton; the accentuation, however, which marks both מלאך and מליץ with Rebia magnum (in which case, according to Bär’s Psalterium, p. xiv., the second distinctive has somewhat less value than the first), takes מלאך as subj., and מליץ as predicate: If there is then for him (עליו, pro eo, Ew. §217, 9) an angel as מליץ, i.e., mediator; for מליץ signifies elsewhere an interpreter, Gen 42:23; a negotiator, 2Ch 32:31; a God-commissioned speaker, i.e., prophet, Isa 43:27; - everywhere (if it is not used as in Job 16:20, in malam parte) the shades of the notion of this word are summarized under the general notion of internuncius, and therefore of mediator (as the Jewish name of the mediating angel מטטרון, probably equivalent to mediator, not μετάθρονος, which is no usable Greek word). The Targ. translates by פרקליטא, παράκλητος (opp. קטיגור, κατήγορος, κατήγωρ). Therefore: if an angel undertakes the mediatorial office for the man, and indeed one of a thousand, i.e., not any one whatever of the thousands of the angels (Deu 33:2; Psa 68:18; Dan 7:10, comp. Tobit 12:15, εἶς ἐκ τῶν ἑπτὰ), but one who soars above the thousands, and has not his equal among them (as Ecc 7:28). Hirz. and Hahn altogether falsely combine: one of the thousands, whose business it is to announce ... . The accentuation is correct, and that forced mode of connection is without reason or occasion. It is the function of the מלאך itself as מליץ, which the clause which expresses the purpose affirms: if an angel appears for the good of the man as a mediator, to declare to him ישׁרו, his uprightness, i.e., the right, straight way (comp. Pro 14:2), in one word: the way of salvation, which he has to take to get free of sin and death, viz., the way of repentance and of faith (trust in God): God takes pity on the man ... . Here the conclusion begins; Rosenm. and others erroneously continue the antecedent here, so that what follows is the intercession of the angel; the angel, however, is just as a mediator who brings about the favour of God, and therefore not the חנן himself. He renders pardon possible, and brings the man into the state for receiving it.

Therefore: then God pardons, and says to His angel: Deliver him from the descent to the pit, I have found a ransom. Instead of פּדעהוּ, it would be admissible to read פּרעהוּ, let him free (from פרע, Arab. frg), if the angel to whom the command is given were the angel of death. פּדע is a cognate form, perhaps dialectic, with hdfp@f, root פד (as יפע, יפה, Arab. wf‛ , wfy , from the common root יף, וף). ^{▼▼Wetzstein is inclined to regard פדע as a metathesis of דפע, Arab. df‛: thrust (tear, hold) him back from the gave. A proper name, fed‛ân , which often occurs among the Beduins, is of uncertain signification; perhaps it would serve as an explanation of פדעהו.}

The verb מצא (מטא) signifies to come at, Job 11:7, to attain something, and has its first signification here, starting from which it signifies the finding on the part of the seeker, and then when weakened finding without seeking. One is here reminded of Heb 9:12, αἰωνίαν λύτρωσιν εὑράμενος. כּפר (on this word, vid., Hebräerbrief, S. 385, 740), according to its primary notion, is not a covering = making good, more readily a covering = cancelling (from כּפר, Talmud. to wipe out, away), but, as the usual combination with על shows, a covering of sin and guilt before wrath, punishment, or execution on account of guilt, and in this sense λύτρον, a means of getting free, ransom-money. The connection is satisfied if the repentance of the chastened one (thus e.g., also von Hofm.) is understood by this ransom, or better, his affliction, inasmuch as it has brought him to repentance. But wherefore should the mediatorship of the angel be excluded from the notion of the כּפר. Just this mediatorship is meant, inasmuch as it puts to right him who by his sins had worked death, i.e., places him in a condition in which no further hindrance stands in the way of the divine pardon. If we connect the mediating angel, like the angel of Jehovah of the primeval history, with God Himself, as then the logos of this mediating angel to man can be God’s own logos communicated by him, and he therefore as מליץ, God’s speaker (if we consider Elihu’s disclosure in the light of the New Testament), can be the divine Logos himself, we shall here readily recognise a presage of the mystery which is unveiled in the New Testament: “God was in Christ, and reconciled the world unto Himself.” A presage of this mystery, flashing through the darkness, we have already read in Job 17:3 (comp. Job 16:21; and, on the other hand, in order to see how this anticipation is kindled by the thought of the opposite, Job 9:33). The presage which meets us here is like another in Ps 107 - - a psalm which has many points of coincidence with the book of Job - where in Job 33:20 we find, “He sent His word, and healed them.” ^{▼▼In his introduction, p. 76, Schlottmann says: “The conceptions of Wisdom and of the Revealing Angel were already united in that of the Eternal Word in the ante-Christian, Jewish theology. Therein the fact of the divine revelation in Christ found the forms in which it could accommodate itself to the understanding, and stimulate succeeding ages to further thought and penetration.” Thus it is: between the Chokma of the canonical books and the post-biblical development of the philosophy of religion (dogmatism) which culminates in Philo, there is an historical connection, and, indeed, one that has to do with the development of redemption. Vid., Luth. Zeitschrift, 1863, S. 219ff.}

At any rate, Elihu expresses it as a postulate, that the deliverance of man can only be effected by a superhuman being, as it is in reality accomplished by the man who is at the same time God, and from all eternity the Lord of the angels of light.

The following strophe (Job 33:25) now describes the results of the favour wrought out for man by the מלאך מליץ. Job 33:25-28 25 His flesh swelleth with the freshness of youth,

He returneth to the days of his youth. 26 If he prayeth to Eloah, He showeth him favour,

So that he seeth His face with joy,

And thus He recompenseth to man his uprightness. 27 He singeth to men and saith: “I had sinned and perverted what was straight, “And it was not recompensed to me. 28 “He hath delivered my soul from going down into the pit, “And my life rejoiceth in the light.”

Misled by the change of the perf. and fut. in Job 33:25, Jer. translates Job 33:25 : consumta est caro ejus a suppliciis; Targ.: His flesh had been weakened (אתחלישׁ), or made thin (אתקלישׁ), more than the flesh of a child; Raschi: it had become burst (French אשקושא, in connection with which only פשׁ appears to have been in his mind, in the sense of springing up, prendre son escousse) from the shaking (of disease). All these interpretations are worthless; נער, peculiar to the Elihu section in the book of Job (here and Job 36:14), does not signify shaking, but is equivalent to נערים (Job 13:26; Job 31:18); and רטפשׁ is in the perf. only because the passive quadriliteral would not so easily accommodate itself to inflexion (by which all those asserted significations, which suit only the perf. sense, fall to the ground). The Chateph instead of the simple Sehevâ is only in order to give greater importance to the passive u. But as to the origin of the quadriliteral (on the four modes of the origin of roots of more than three radicals, vid., Jesurun, pp. 160-166), there is no reason for regarding it as a mixed form derived from two different verbs: it is formed just like פּרשׁז (from פּרשׁ, by Arabizing = פּרשׂ) with a sibilant termination from רטף = רטב, and therefore signifies to be (to have been made) over moist or juicy. However, there is yet another almost more commendable explanation possible. In Arab. ṭrfš signifies to recover, prop. to grow green, become fresh (perhaps from tarufa, as in the signification to blink, from tarafa). From this Arab. tarfasha, or even from a Hebr. טרפּשׁ, ^{▼▼The Talmud. טרפשׁא דליבא (Chullin, 49 b) signifies, according to the customary rendering, the pericardium, and טרפשׁא דכבדא (ib. 46 a) the diaphragm, or rather the little net (omentum minus). Originally, however, the former signified the cushion of fat under the pericardium on which the heart rests, especially in the crossing of the furrows; the latter the accumulation of fat on the porta (πύλη) and between the laminae of the little net. For טרפשׁ is correctly explained by שׁומן, fat. It has nothing to do with τράπεζα (an old name for a part of the liver), with which Ges. after Buxtorf connects it.}pinguefacere (which may with Fürst be regarded as springing from טפשׁ, to be fleshy, like כּרבּל, כּרסם), רטפשׁ might have sprung by transposition. In a remarkable manner one and the same idea is attained by all these ways: whether we regard וטפשׁ as a mixed form from רטב and טפשׁ, or as an extended root-form from one or other of these verbs, it is always according to the idea: a superabundance of fresh healthfulness. The מן or מנּער is chiefly regarded as comparative: more than youth, i.e., leaving this behind, or exceeding it, Ew. §221, a; but Job 33:25, according to which he who was hitherto sick unto death actually renews his youth, makes it more natural to take the מן as causal: it swells from youth or youthfulness. In this description of the renovation which the man experiences, it is everywhere assumed that he has taken the right way announced to him by the mediating angel. Accordingly, Job 33:26 is not intended of prayer that is heard, which resulted in pardon, but of prayer that may be heard continually, which results from the pardon: if he prays to Eloah (fut. hypotheticum as Job 22:27, vid., on Job 29:24), He receives him favourably (רצה, Arab. raḍiya, with ב, Arab. b, to have pleasure in any one, with the acc. eum gratum vel acceptum habere), and he (whose state of favour is now established anew) sees God’s countenance (which has been hitherto veiled from him, Job 34:29) with rejoicing (as Psa 33:3 and freq.), and He (God) recompenses to the man his uprightness (in his prolonged course of life), or prop., since it is not ויּשׁלּם, but ויּשׁב, He restores on His part his relation in accordance with the order of redemption, for that is the idea of צדקה; the word has either a legal or a so-to-speak evangelical meaning, in which latter, used of God (as so frequently in Isaiah II), it describes His rule in accordance with His counsel and order of redemption; the primary notion is strict observance of a given rule.

In Job 33:27 the favoured one is again the subj. This change of person, without any indication of the same, belongs to the peculiarities of the Hebrew, and, in general, of the Oriental style, described in the Geschichte der jüd. Poesie, S. 189 [History of Jewish Poetry;] the reference of ויּרא, as Hiph., to God, which is preferred by most expositors, is consequently unnecessary. Moreover, the interpretation: He causes his (the favoured one’s) countenance to behold joy (Umbr., Ew.), is improbable as regards the phrase (נראה) ראה פני ה, and also syntactically lame; and the interpretation: He causes (him, the favoured one) to behold His (the divine) countenance with joy (Hirz., Hahn, Schlottm., and others), halts in like manner, since this would be expressed by ויּראהוּ (ויּראנּוּ). By the reference to psalmody which follows in Job 33:27 (comp. Job 36:24), it becomes natural that we should understand Job 33:26 according to such passages in the Psalms as Psa 90:2; Psa 67:2; Psa 17:15. ישׂר is a poetically contracted fut. after the manner of a jussive, for ישׁוּר; and perhaps it is a dialectic form, for the Kal שׁוּר = שׁיר occurs only besides in 1Sa 18:6 as Chethîb. With על (comp. Pro 25:20) it signifies to address a song to any one, to sing to him. Now follows the psalm of the favoured one in outline; Job 33:28 also belongs to it, where the Keri (Targ. Jer.), without any evident reason whatever, gets rid of the 1 pers. (lxx, Syr.). I had sinned - he says, as he looks back ashamed and thankful - and perverted what was straight (comp. the confession of the penitent, Psa 106:6), ולא שׁוה לי, et non aequale factum s. non aequatum est mihi, ^{▼▼In Arabic swy (sawa) is the most general expression for “to be worth, to cost,” usually with the acc. of price, but also with li, e.g., in the proverb hal ka‛ke mâ tiswe li - hal da‛ke , this (wretched) bite of bread (of subsistence) is not worth this (excessive) pressure after it. Accordingly ולא שׁוה לי would signify: it (what I suffered) came not equal to me (did not balance me), which at any rate is equivalent to ”it did not cost my life” (Wetzst.), but would be indistinctly expressed.} i.e., it has not been recompensed to me according to my deserts, favour instead of right is come upon me. שׁוה (Arab. sawâ) is intended neutrally, not so that God would be the subj. (lxx καὶ οὐκ ἄξια ἤτασέ με ὧν ἥμαρτον). Now follows, Job 33:28, the positive expression of the favour experienced. The phrase עבר בשׁחת, after the analogy of עבר בשׁלח above, and also חיּה for חיּים, are characteristic of the Elihu section. Beautiful is the close of this psalm in nuce: “and my life refreshes itself (ראה בּ as Job 20:17 and freq.) in the light,” viz., in the light of the divine countenance, which has again risen upon me, i.e., in the gracious presence of God, which I am again become fully conscious of. Job 33:29-33 29 Behold, God doeth all

Twice, thrice with man, 30 To bring back his soul from the pit,

That it may become light in the light of life. 31 Listen, O Job, hearken to me;

Be silent and let me speak on. 32 Yet if thou hast words, answer me;

Speak, for I desire thy justification. 33 If not, hearken thou to me;

Be silent and I will teach thee wisdom.

After having described two prominent modes of divine interposition for the moral restoration and welfare of man, he adds, Job 33:29, that God undertakes (observe the want of parallelism in the distich, Job 33:29) everything with a man twice or thrice (asyndeton, as e.g., Isa 17:6, in the sense of bis terve) in order to bring back his soul from the pit (שׁחת, here for the fifth time in this speech, without being anywhere interchanged with שׁאול or another synonym, which is remarkable), that it, having hitherto been encompassed by the darkness of death, may be, or become, light (לאור, inf. Niph., syncopated from להאור, Ew. §244, b) in the light of life (as it were bask in the new and restored light of life) - it does not always happen, for these are experiences of no ordinary kind, which interrupt the daily course of life; and it is not even repeated again and again constantly, for if it is without effect the first time, it is repeated a second or third time, but it has an end if the man trifles constantly with the disciplinary work of grace which designs his good. Finally, Elihu calls upon Job quietly to ponder this, that he may proceed; nevertheless, if he has words, i.e., if he thinks he is able to advance any appropriate objections, he is continually to answer him (השׁיב with acc. of the person, as Job 33:5), for he (Elihu) would willingly justify him, i.e., he would gladly be in the position to be able to acknowledge Job to be right, and to have the accusation dispensed with. Hirz. and others render falsely: I wish thy justification, i.e., thou shouldst justify thyself; in this case נפשׁך ought to be supplied, which is unnecessary: חפץ, without a change of subject, has the inf. constr. here without ל, as it has the inf. absol. in Job 13:3, and צדּק signifies to vindicate (as Job 32:2), or acknowledge to be in the right (as the Piel of צדק, Job 33:12), both of which are blended here. The lxx, which translates θέλω γὰρ δικαιωθῆναί σε, has probably read צדקך (Psa 35:27). If it is not so (אם־אין as Gen 30:1), viz., that he does not intend to defend himself with reference to his expostulation with God on account of the affliction decreed for him, he shall on his part (אתּה) listen, shall be silent and be further taught wisdom.Quasi hac ratione Heliu sanctum Iob convicerit! exclaims Beda, after a complete exposition of this speech. He regards Elihu as the type of the false wisdom of the heathen, which fails to recognise and persecutes the servant of God: Sunt alii extra ecclesiam, qui Christo ejusque ecclesiae similiter adversantur, quorum imaginem praetulit Balaam ille ariolus, qui et Elieu sicut patrum traditio habet (Balaam and Elihu, one person - a worthless conceit repeated in the Talmud and Midrash), qui contra ipsum sanctum Iob multa improbe et injuriose locutus est, in tantum ut etiam displiceret in una ejus et indisciplinata loquacitas. ^{▼▼Bedae Opp. ed. Basil. iii. col. 602f. 786. The commentary also bears the false name of Jerome Hieronymus, and as a writing attributed to him is contained in tom. v. Opp. ed. Vallarsi.}

Gregory the Great, in his Moralia, expresses himself no less unfavourably at the conclusion of this speech: ^{▼▼Opp. ed. Prais, i. col. 777.}Magna Eliu ac valde fortia protulit, sed hoc unusquisque arrogans habere proprium solet, quod dum vera ac mystica loquitur subito per tumorem cordis quaedam inania et superba permiscet. He also regards Elihu as an emblem of confident arrogance, yet not as a type of a heathen philosopher, but of a believing yet vain and arrogant teacher. This tone in judging of Elihu, first started by Jerome, has spread somewhat extensively in the Western Church. In the age of the Reformation, e.g., Victorin Strigel takes this side: Elihu is regarded by him as exemplum ambitiosi oratoris qui plenus sit ostentatione et audacia inusitate sine mente. Also in the Greek Eastern Church such views are not wanting. Elihu says much that is good, and excels the friends in this, that he does not condemn Job; Olympiodorus adds, πλὴν οὐκ ἐνόησε τοῦ δικαίου τῆν διάνοιαν, but he has not understood the true idea of the servant of God! ^{▼▼Catena in Job. Londin. p. 484, where it is further said, Ὅθεν λογιζόμεθα καὶ τόν θεὸν μήτε ἐπαινέσαι τὸν Ελιοὺς, ἐπειδὴ μὴ νενόηκε τοῦ Ἰὼβ τοὺς λόγους, μήτε μὴν καταδικάσαι, ἐπειδὴ μὴ ἀσεβείας αὐτὸν κατέκρινε.}

In modern times, Herder entertains the same judgment. Elihu’s speech, in comparison with the short, majestic, solemn language of the Creator, he calls “the weak rambling speech of a boy.” “Elihu, a young prophet” - he says further on his Geist der Ebr. Poesie, where he expounds the book of Job as a composition - “arrogant, bold, alone wise, draws fine pictures without end or aim; hence no one answers him, and he stands there merely as a shadow.” ^{▼▼Edition 1805, S. 101, 142.}

Among the latest expositors, Umbreit (Edition 2, 1832) consider’s Elihu’s appearance as “an uncalled-for stumbling in of a conceited young philosopher into the conflict that is already properly ended; the silent contempt with which one allows him to speak is the merited reward of a babbler.” In later years Umbreit gave up this depreciation of Elihu. ^{▼▼Vid., Riehm, Blätter der Erinnerung an F. W. C. Umbreit (1862), S. 58.}

Nevertheless Hahn, in his Comm. zu Iob (1850), has sought anew to prove that Elihu’s speeches are meant indeed to furnish a solution, but do not really do so: on the contrary, the poet intentionally represents the character of Elihu as that “of a most conceited and arrogant young man, boastful and officious in his undeniable knowingness.” The unfavourable judgments have been carried still further, inasmuch as an attempt has even been made to regard Elihu as a disguise for Satan in the organism of the drama; ^{▼▼Thus the writer of a treatise in the 3rd vol. of Bernstein’s Analekten, entitled: Der Satan als Irrgeist und Engel des Lichts.} but it may be more suitable to break off this unpleasant subject than to continue it.

In fact this dogmatic criticism of Elihu’s character and speeches produces a painful impression. For, granted that it might be otherwise, and the poet really had designed to bring forward in these speeches of Elihu respecting God’s own appearing an incontrovertible apology for His holy love, as a love which is at work even in such dispensations of affliction as that of Job: what offence against the deep earnestness of this portion of Holy Scripture would there be in this degradation of Elihu to an absurd character, in that depreciation of him to a babbler promising much and performing little! But that the poet is really in earnest in everything he puts into Elihu’s mouth, is at once shown by the description, Job 33:13-30, which forms the kernel of the contents of the first speech. This description of the manifold ways of the divine communication to man, upon a contrite attention to which his rescue from destruction depends, belongs to the most comprehensive passages of the Old Testament; and I know instances of the powerful effect which it can produce in arousing from the sleep of security and awakening penitence. If one, further, casts a glance at the historical introduction of Elihu, Job 32:1-5, the poet there gives no indication that he intends in Elihu to bring the odd character of a young poltroon before us. The motive and aim of his coming forward, as they are there given, are fully authorized. If one considers, further, that the poet makes Job keep silence at the speeches of Elihu, it may also be inferred therefrom that he believes he has put answers into Elihu’s mouth by which he must feel himself most deeply smitten; such truths as Job 32:13-22, drawn from the depths of moral experience, could not have been put forth if Job’s silence were intended to be the punishment of contempt.

These counter-considerations also really affect another possible and milder apprehension of the young speaker, inasmuch as, with von Hofmann, the gravitating point of the book of Job is transferred to the fact of the Theophany as the only satisfactory practical solution of the mystery of affliction: it is solved by God Himself coming down and acknowledging Job as His servant. Elihu - thus one can say from this point of view - is not one of Job’s friends, whose duty it was to comfort him; but the moral judgment of man’s perception of God is made known by this teacher, but without any other effect than that Job is silent. There is one duty towards Job which he has not violated, for he has not to fulfil the duty of friendship: The only art of correct theorizing is to put an opponent to silence, and to have spoken to the wind is the one punishment appropriate to it. This milder rendering also does not satisfy; for, in the idea of the poet, Elihu’s speeches are not only a thus negative, but the positive preparation for Jehovah’s appearing. In the idea of the poet, Job is silent because he does not know how to answer Elihu, and therefore feels himself overcome. ^{▼▼The preparation is negative only so far as Elihu causes Job to be silent and to cease to murmur; but Jehovah drawn from him a confession of penitence on account of his murmuring. This positive relation of the appearing of Jehovah to that for which Elihu negatively prepares the way, is rightly emphasized by Schlottm., Räbiger (De l. Iobi sententia primaria, 1860, 4), and others, as favourable to the authenticity.}

And, in fact, what answer should he give to this first speech? Elihu wishes to dispute Job’s self-justification, which places God’s justice in the shade, but not indeed in the friends’ judging, condemnatory manner: he wishes to dispute Job’s notion that his affliction proceeds from a hostile purpose on the part of God, and sets himself here, as there, a perfectly correct task, which he seeks to accomplish by directing Job to regard his affliction, not indeed as a punishment from the angry God, but as a chastisement of the God who desires his highest good, as disciplinary affliction which is intended to secure him against hurtful temptation to sin, especially to pride, by salutary humiliation, and will have a glorious issue, as soon as it has in itself accomplished that at which it aims.

It is true one must listen very closely to discover the difference between the tone which Elihu takes and the tone in which Eliphaz began his first speech. But there is a difference notwithstanding: both designate Job’s affliction as a chastisement (מוסר), which will end gloriously, if he receives it without murmuring; but Eliphaz at once demands of him humiliation under the mighty hand of God; Elihu, on the contrary, makes this humiliation lighter to him, by setting over against his longing for God to answer him, the pleasing teaching that his affliction in itself is already the speech of God to him, - a speech designed to educate him, and to bring about his spiritual well-being. What objection could Job, who has hitherto maintained his own righteousness in opposition to affliction as a hostile decree, now raise, when it is represented to him as a wholesome medicine reached forth to him by the holy God of love? What objection could Job now raise, without, in common, offensive self-righteousness, falling into contradiction with his own confession that he is a sinful man, Job 14:4, comp. Job 13:26? Therefore Elihu has not spoken to the wind, and it cannot have been the design of the poet to represent the feebleness of theory and rhetoric in contrast with the convincing power which there is in the fact of Jehovah’s appearing.

But would it be possible, that from the earliest times one could form such a condemnatory, depreciating judgment concerning Elihu’s speeches, if it had not been a matter of certainty with them? If of two such enlightened men as Augustine and Jerome, the former can say of Elihu: ut primas partes modestiae habuit, ita et sapientiae, while the latter, and after his example Bede, can consider him as a type of a heathen philosophy hostile to the faith, or of a selfishly perverted spirit of prophecy: they must surely have two sides which make it possible to form directly opposite opinions concerning them. Thus is it also in reality. On the one side, they express great, earnest, humiliating truths, which even the holiest man in his affliction must suffer himself to be told, especially if he has fallen into such vainglorying and such murmuring against God as Job did; on the other side, they do not give such sharply-defined expression to that which is intended characteristically to distinguish them from the speeches of the friends, viz., that they regard Job not as רשׁע, and his affliction not as just retribution, but as a wholesome means of discipline, that all misunderstanding would be excluded, as all the expositors who acknowledge themselves unable to perceive an essential difference between Elihu’s standpoint and the original standpoint of the friends, show. But the most surprising thing is, that the peculiar, true aim of Job’s affliction, viz., his being proved as God’s servant, is by no means thoroughly clear in them. From the prologue we know that Job’s affliction is designed to show that there is a piety which also retains its hold on God amid the loss of all earthly goods, and even in the face of death in the midst of the darkest night of affliction; that it is designed to justify God’s choice before Satan, and bring the latter to ruin; that it is a part of the conflict with the serpent, whose head cannot be crushed without its sting being felt in the heel of the conqueror; in fine, expressed in New Testament language, that it falls under the point of view of the cross (σταυρός), which has its ground not so much in the sinfulness of the sufferer, as in the share which is assigned to him in the conflict of good with evil that exists in the world. It cannot be supposed that the poet would, in the speeches of Elihu, set another design in opposition to the design of Job’s affliction expressed in the prologue; on the contrary, he started from the assumption that the one design does not exclude the other, and in connection with the imperfectness of the righteousness even of the holiest man, the one is easily added to the other; but it was not in his power to give expression to both grounds of explanation of Job’s affliction side by side, and thus to make this intermediate section “the beating heart” ^{▼▼Vid., Hengstenberg, Lecture on the Book of Job.} of the whole. The aspect of the affliction as a chastisement so greatly preponderates, that the other, viz., as a trial or proving, is as it were swallowed up by it. One of the old writers ^{▼▼Jacob Hoffmann (of St. Gallen), Gedult Iobs, Basel, 1663 (a rare little book which I became acquainted with in the town library of St. Gallen).} says, “Elihu proves that it can indeed be that a man may fear and honour God from the heart, and consequently be in favour with God, and still be heavily visited by God, either for a trial of faith, hope, and patience, or for the revelation and improvement of the sinful blemishes which now and then are also hidden from the pious.” According to this, both aspects are found united in Elihu’s speeches; but in this first speech, at least, we cannot find it.

There is another poet, whose charisma does not come up to that of the older poet, who in this speech pursues the well-authorized purpose not only of moderating what is extreme in Job’s speeches, but also of bringing out what is true in the speeches of the friends. ^{▼▼On this subject see my Art. Hiob in Herzog’s Real-Encyklopädie, vi. 116-119, and comp. Kahnis, Dogmatik, i. 306-309, and my Für und wider Kahnis (1863), S. 19-21.}

While the book of Job, apart from these speeches, presents in the Old Testament way the great truth which Paul, Rom 8:1, expresses in the words, οὐδέν κατάκριμα τοῖς ἐν Χριστῷ Ἰησοῦ, this other poet has given expression at the same time, in the connection of the drama, to the great truth, 1Co 11:32, κρινόμενοι ὑπὸ τοῦ δυρίου παιδευόμεθα, ἵνα μὴ σὺν τῷ κόσμῳ κατακριθῶμεν. That it is another poet, is already manifest from his inferior, or if it is preferred, different, poetic gift. True, A. B. Davidson has again recently asserted, that by supporting it by such observations, the critical question is made “a question of subjective taste.” But if these speeches and the other parts of the book are said to have been written by one poet, there is an end to all critical judgment in such questions generally. One cannot avoid the impression of the distance between them; and if it be suppressed for a time, it will nevertheless make itself constantly felt. But do the prophecies of Malachi stand lower in the scale of the historical development of revelation, because the Salomonic glory of prophetic speech which we admire in Isaiah is wanting in them? Just as little do we depreciate the spiritual glory of these speeches, when we find the outward glory of the rest of the book wanting in them. They occupy a position of the highest worth in the historical development of revelation and redemption. They are a perfecting part of the canonical Scriptures. In their origin, also, they are not much later; ^{▼▼Seinecke (Der Grundgedanke des B. Hiob, 1863) places it, with Ewald, 100-200 years later; and, moreover, asserts that the book of Job has no foundation whatever in oral tradition - Job is the Israel of the exile, Uz is Judaea, etc.} indeed, I venture to assert that they are by a contemporary member even of the Chokma-fellowship from which the book of Job has its rise. For they stand in like intimate relation with the rest of the book to the two Ezrahite Psalms, 88, 89; they have, as to their doctrinal contents, the fundamental features of the Israelitish Chokma in common; they speak another and still similar Aramaizing and Arabizing language (hebraicum arabicumque sermonem et interdum syrum, as Jerome expresses it in his Praef. in l. Iobi); in fact, we shall further on meet with linguistic signs that the poet who wrote this addition has lived together with the poet of the book of Job in one spot beyond the Holy Land, and speaks a Hebrew bearing traces of a like dialectic influence.