Job 33 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study

Job 33 Short Summary:

In Job 33, Elihu rebuked Job for being self-righteous and for falsely accusing God of not answering him. Elihu argued that God was answering Job, not with words, but with corrective discipline, dreams, and with messengers who called him to repentance. While Elihu’s explanation of Job’s suffering was a little more developed than that of Job’s friends, it ultimately came back to the same erroneous point, that Job was being punished because he refused to repent of sin in his life.

Job 33 Bible Study

SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB

• Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan

• Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution

• Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.

• Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost

WHEN:

• The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).

• I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.

KEY CHARACTERS:

• Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.

• Elihu – Elihu had been listening to the conversation between Job and his friends. He speaks and shares his opinions for the first time in Job 32. He was the youngest of the group. His father was Barachel the Buzite, of the family of Ram (32:2).

WHERE:

• Job lived in the land of Uz. Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.

OUTLINE:

• ELIHU’S INTRODUCTION (33:1-7):

  • Elihu addressed Job first and reassured him that he would be fair with his words.

  • He didn’t want to take sides; he wanted to speak with sincerity and uprightness (33:3).

  • He positioned himself as Job’s equal and as an unbiased witness to Job’s situation.

• ELIHU’S REBUKE (33:8-33):

  • Elihu, like Job’s 3 friends, was quick to start accusing Job of things.

  • He took issue with Job claiming he was a righteous man, and he took issue with Job’s claim that God had become his enemy.

  • Elihu was partially correct and partially wrong.

  • He was wrong to assume Job was guilty of hidden sin. He was correct that Job shouldn’t have counted God as his enemy, because it was really Satan who was Job’s enemy.

  • He also didn’t like the fact that Job kept claiming God wouldn’t give him any answers or respond to his prayers. He told Job that God speaks in ways other than words, in dreams for example or through discipline.

  • Towards the end of the chapter, Elihu takes a similar stance to Job’s friends, essentially telling Job that God was trying to speak to him through discipline. That Job’s suffering was God trying to get Job to repent of whatever secret sin he was hiding.

  • Elihu suggested God was talking to Job, but Job was too stubborn to stop and consider what God was trying to teach him.  

  • Elihu also suggested that God might speak through a messenger, someone who could correct Job and restore him. Elihu may have believed himself to be that messenger.

  • He described a future Job singing and shouting for joy as he basked in God’s mercy upon his repentance.

  • Elihu thought that he had really enlightened Job, and he challenged him to respond, saying, “If you have any words, answer me; speak, for I desire to justify you. If not, listen to me; be silent, and I will teach you wisdom” (33:32-33).

  • So while Elihu’s explanation of Job’s suffering was a little more developed than that of Job’s friends, it ultimately came back to the same erroneous point, that Job was being punished because he refused to repent of sin in his life.

APPLICATION

• We know from Job 1 and 2 that Job wasn’t being disciplined by God to bring him to repentance, but would God ever discipline someone He loves for the purpose of course correcting them when they stumble off the path of righteousness?

• The answer is: Yes!

• There are several examples in the Old Testament and several verses in the New Testament that teach us that God uses discipline the way a parent uses discipline, to correct bad behavior and to train children.

• Especially in books like Judges, we read about God allowing foreign nations to oppress His people, the Israelites, to teach them the consequences of not following His commands.

• Hebrews 12:5-6 is a great passage that informs us that God disciplines us because He loves us. 

• Hebrews 12:5-6 – “And have you forgotten the exhortation that addresses you as sons? “My son, do not regard lightly the discipline of the Lord, nor be weary when reproved by Him. For the Lord disciplines the one He loves, and chastises every son whom He receives.”

• While Job’s situation was different from what is being described in these examples and verses, Elihu was right that sometimes God speaks to us through loving corrective discipline.