Job 33:23–26

Job 33:15-22. He shows God using the plough — a dream, a striking providence, bodily pain or sickness — to break up such unploughed ground. And such is the work to this day. Job 33:23-24. The sower comes after the ploughman. The seed is the Gospel. God provides the ransom, and deliverance comes to the sinner.

The word for "messenger" is "angel," and this suggests a supernatural revealer of the mind of God. We find this often in the Old Testament, where the "angel" made known the will of God (see Judges 2:1; Judges 13:3). The "angel of Jehovah" is indeed His representative — so fully that Scripture calls Him Jehovah Himself ("The angel of His presence," Isaiah 63:9). Here we have a hint of the Mediator, and the next word makes it stronger: "an Interpreter," or "Mediator" (see Genesis 42:23; 2 Chronicles 32:21) — one whom God sends as an ambassador to make His mind known. An ordinary messenger will not do; it must be "one of a thousand."

Times of emergency are the opportunity for the one Elihu called a "messenger," an "interpreter." He can show what God has to say in these things. Such people are not common, as we know, but they are of great value, and Elihu called them "one among a thousand," which shows how rare they are. Many can pity the afflicted one, and sometimes condemn him, as Job's three friends did. To give the mind of God is another and a greater thing.

Yes, there is help, but only in God, who knows how to send a messenger at the right time, a messenger who is also a mediator, "one among a thousand" (v.23). Such an individual is typical of the Lord Jesus, the "one mediator between God and men" (1 Tim. 2:5).

He had asked for someone with feelings like his own, when he was crushed in spirit under the hand of God. He longed for a man who would step in between God and himself. And God now gives him what he wanted (not yet the man Christ Jesus), a man of God indeed, but with weaknesses like his own.

We fully grant that the Hebrew word can sometimes be translated "duty," but that hardly fits man's sinful state and condition before God. No doubt his state calls for self-judgment; but you could not press this on him as a duty... The sinner needs someone to show him what, for him, is uprightness: bowing before God, and owning his true state, holding nothing back and hiding nothing.

This interpreter is to show man his uprightness. But whose uprightness, or righteousness, does this mean?... Most commentators explain that the interpreter tells the sufferer how to do right before God, and critics even suggest changing the word "uprightness" to "fault." There is a deeper meaning here. The word "his" should carry a capital "H" — not man's righteousness, but God's.

The moment the conscience bows under the sin and confesses it, it comes into an upright position. Where evil has been, uprightness of soul shows itself in the awareness of that evil, and in the power to confess it... Get sin judged in the conscience, and then comes the revelation of the unfailing love of God to meet the need.

If a man is to profit from God's chastening, he must understand its purpose, and for that he needs someone who can explain it. The word for "messenger" is "angel," and this points to a heavenly messenger who reveals the mind of God. Often in the Old Testament the "angel" made known the will of God (see Judges 2:1; 13:3). The "angel of Jehovah" is His representative — so fully that Scripture calls Him Jehovah Himself ("The angel of His presence," Isa. 63:9). So here we have a hint of the Mediator, and the next word strengthens it: "an Interpreter," or "Mediator" (see Gen. 42:23; 2 Chron. 32:21) — one whom God sends as an ambassador to make His mind known. And an ordinary messenger will not do; it must be "one of a thousand."

The word translated "ransom" here means a "covering," close to the word translated "atonement" in the Old Testament. Before Christ came, God covered the sin of the repentant sinner from His own holy eye. He was waiting for the time when the sacrifice of Christ, enough for everything, would make full propitiation. So Romans speaks of God passing over "former sins" in "his divine forbearance" (Rom. 3:25). Those past sins were the sins of believers who lived before Christ — Job's among them.

The means of such grace is wonderful: "Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom" (v.24). Elihu could not have understood the full weight of his own words. We know the ransom is the Lord Jesus Himself, in His perfect sacrifice for sinners at the cross. Job's friends could not think of suggesting a ransom for Job. But Elihu's heart overflowed with the conviction that there must be such a ransom, since he knew the character of His Creator. The Spirit of God put such words into his mouth. It was not any man who had found the ransom, but God.

Look at that drunkard! He is "going down into the pit." … Look at the man who only claims to believe — respectable and respected, honest and honourable, the most religious and most self-righteous church or chapel member, whether a robed priest or an ordinary member of the congregation! He too is "going down into the pit." The word of God says that everyone is travelling that road, whatever their outward, moral, or religious state, unless they have personally taken for themselves the ransom that God found and God gave.

"He is merciful to him, and says, 'Deliver him from going down into the pit; I have found a ransom'" — a strikingly vivid way of setting out what God was about to do in due time, and not merely a promise given here in picture form. The language here is plain enough. These are perhaps as clear as any words in the Old Testament, looking ahead to that infinite work which we now know was finished at the cross of Christ.

In Elihu's words we find a beautiful expression of the good news of God — "I have found a ransom"; or, in the language of the New Testament, "having obtained (Greek: found) eternal redemption" (Heb. 9:12).

Now we see the blessed results of this work of the Interpreter in the ransomed man. He can now pray with confidence and rejoice in God's favour, seeing His face with joy. He has found a righteousness — not of his own goodness but of Another — "the righteousness which is of God by faith."

Job 33:15-22. He shows God using the plough — a dream, a striking providence, bodily pain or sickness — to break up that hard ground. And such is the work to this day… Job 33:23-24. The sower comes after the ploughman. The seed is the Gospel. God provides the ransom; He brings deliverance to the sinner. Job 33:25-26. The condition of the believer… Job 33:29-30. Elihu tells Job these are samples of God's way in saving souls.

He was a godly man; there was no one like him. Yet God saw a defect in him… Here God does not deal first with outward sin, but with the inward working of a man's ignorance of himself, and then with its breaking out, through God's dealings, into actual sin. So when Job was brought into God's presence, the thing was found out and came into his conscience. When God reveals His presence, the effect is first submission, then confession. "I have uttered what I did not understand… I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes." And God restores him to full blessing… Job was not upright in the full, true sense until he despised himself and said so — that is, until he confessed. Then his flesh became fresher than a child's again.

So a freshness better than that of youth is given — as Naaman gives us an example. "His flesh was restored like the flesh of a little child, and he was clean" (2 Kings 5:14). It is a new birth, by the incorruptible seed of the word of God.

What freshness of soul this gives! "His flesh shall be fresher than a child's; he shall return to the days of his youth." It is no longer, "Oh that I was as in months past." The old "I" is done with. It is no longer I, but Christ in me; no more wretched striving to justify the old me. Ah, no! but my soul filled with freshness in contemplating God's ransom, and God's perfection in justifying me by that ransom.

We have here nothing at all about the two natures. The Old Testament saint never understood that. Man cannot profit by that truth, or understand it, until he sees Christ by faith — sees the Son and believes in Him. Now we are made to understand it simply and fully… "He looks upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted what was right, and it profited me not" — there you see is just what the repentant soul says. It is not called "repentance" here… but here we have the thing, repentance, although the word is not used. It is very comforting to think that this was what God was doing in those days, and was known to be doing — because the gospel was not preached then.

Elihu seems to call himself the interpreter Job asked for. He says that a go-between, an interpreter, would bring the solution Job was looking for… Elihu says that the only complete answer to this will come when the full results of the interpreter's coming have reached us.

Now we see the blessed results of this work of the Interpreter in the ransomed man. He can now pray with confidence, rejoice in God's favour, and see His face with joy. He has found a righteousness — not from his own goodness but from Another — "the righteousness from God that depends on faith." No doubt this includes God recognising faithfulness in a child of God, as in Job's case. But the principle carries us much further.

Elihu speaks of God showing man what was righteous. That came to light in the path our Lord walked. But he adds, "He will render to man His righteousness." That could only be as a result of the work upon the cross (Job 33:23-26).

He would never surrender his integrity. He would never let go his righteousness. But, as Elihu puts it, his "righteousness," or his "uprightness" (see Job 33:23, 26) would now mean something different. It would mean bowing under God's hand. It would mean trusting the searching work of His discipline, and learning the lesson God would teach. In short, it would mean looking away from himself to God, and living on that new principle before Him — centred in God and no longer in self.

The freshness of that new life will overflow in thankful prayer to God. Take Saul of Tarsus. God's grace woke him and saved him, and he had the distinction of having God say of him, "Behold, he is praying" (Acts 9:11). That is the result of being born again: "then man prays to God, and He accepts him" (v.26). More than that, "he sees His face with a shout of joy" — a wonderful honour given to every believer, because God has rendered to him His righteousness (v.26). We throw away our own righteousness as filthy rags, and the believer's confidence is now in God's righteousness.

He takes notice of every departure from Him. But the door is always open for "repentance." When a man judges his sin, and sees it in the light in which God sees it, nothing stands in the way of immediate restoration. The moment the conscience bows under the sin and confesses it, it comes into an upright position... So the church of God, or an individual soul, must come into this state of uprightness before God, so that He can restore it; Job 33:23-26. Judge sin in the conscience, and then God reveals His unfailing love to meet the need.

The way to be cleared is so simple. Why should anyone walk with a burdened conscience? Make an upright and honest confession, and we are not only forgiven but cleansed. Elihu says the same of the soul that has come to judge itself: "then man prays to God, and He accepts him; he sees His face with a shout of joy."