so that his life loathes bread, and his appetite the choicest food.
Elihu has been describing how God speaks to a man who will not listen: first in dreams at night, then through the body. Verse 20 shows how far that second voice goes: a sick man can no longer face even bread.
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The rod after the word
One writer sets this verse beside Job's own earlier words, and finds that Elihu's picture fits the man listening to him:
Samuel RidoutBut God has another way of speaking to men. If they do not listen to His word, He may send them His rod. In enlarging on this, Elihu practically describes the case of Job. Severe chastening pains come on him, and his bones seem to wither in deadly struggle... He is brought so low that he loathes even the food that would keep him alive. "The food I refused to touch has become my food of sorrow." "My soul is weary of my life."
Why the sickbed
The place matters too. On a bed a man runs out of ways to keep busy and avoid God:
Leslie M. GrantGod has another way of speaking: He sends "strong pain." It often comes in a man's bed, where he cannot keep himself busy with the many things that keep him from listening to God (v.19). Sickness and suffering have often driven people to the Lord. A man finds himself unable even to eat (v.20). Then he loses weight and becomes little more than "skin and bones." An early death stares him in the face.
What the words say
The verse names two foods, not one. Here is how one translator renders verses 19-21:
William KellyHe is also chastised with pains on his bed, and the strife of his bones is lasting. And his life loathes bread, and his soul the food it desires. His flesh wastes out of sight, and his bones that were not seen stand out.
The man turns from plain bread and from choice food alike. What kept him alive and what he enjoyed lose their worth together.
The aim: bending the will
This is not God grinding a man down for no reason. The same writer reads God's dealing here as mercy at work on a will that has never been bent:
William KellyIt is exactly what marks out divine mercy in appealing to the unconverted man. He is carried away by his own will. But God knows how to bend or break it. "He keeps back his soul from the pit" (such is the merciful object of God's intervention), "and his life from perishing by the sword."
Who it is for
One writer applies this in two directions at once — to the person who has never turned to God, and to the believer as well:
F. B. HoleGod may also speak through pain and sickness. Verses 19-22 describe it in vivid detail. He may keep speaking until the sufferer comes face to face with death itself... How often has a blow like this led a careless sinner to turn to God and awakened him for his eternal salvation. How often too has a believer had to look back to a time of severe sickness as an occasion of much spiritual blessing.
Where the wasting ends
The starved body of verse 20 is not the last word. Two verses later the man is at the edge of the grave. There a messenger comes to him:
William KellyGod uses these outward means of dealing with a man. He works by His word, and as a rule also by a messenger He sends — an interpreter, as we are told, one among a thousand. "Then He is gracious to him, and says, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom." That is a strikingly vivid way of presenting what God was about to do in due time... Here the language is plain — perhaps as clear as any words in the Old Testament. It looks forward to that infinite work which we now know to be finished in the cross of Christ.
Summary
- Voice. When the night-time word goes unheard, God speaks through pain — the rod after the word.
- Bed. Illness takes away the distractions a man uses to avoid listening. First appetite goes, then flesh, then life itself.
- Will. The aim is not ruin. God bends or breaks the self-will that is carrying the man toward the pit.
- Reach. The same dealing wakes a careless sinner, and brings a believer much spiritual blessing.
- Ransom. The wasting ends at a messenger and a word — "I have found a ransom" — which commentators read as pointing to the cross.