Job 33:14 - Meaning and Application

Job had complained that God kept him in the dark about what he was doing with him, and so Job concluded that God was treating him like an enemy. Elihu answers, “No, God is speaking to you, but you are not noticing him. The fault is yours, not his, and he is aiming at your good even in the things you are taking so harshly.”

In general, Elihu shows two things. First, God is a true friend to our well-being: “He speaks to us once, yes, twice” (Job 33:14). It is a sign of his favor that, even though there is distance and conflict between us and him, he still speaks to us. It also shows his kindness that he speaks to us about our own concerns, telling us what our duty is and what is good for us, what he asks of us and what we may expect from him, warning us about our faults and our danger, and showing us the way. He does this once, yes, twice, meaning again and again. When one warning is ignored, he gives another, not willing that anyone should perish.

Second, we are often enemies to our own well-being. “Man perceives it not,” that is, he does not pay attention to it or understand it. He does not recognize God’s voice, and he does not welcome what is shown to him, because it seems foolish to him. He shuts his ear, puts himself in the way of light, rejects God’s counsel against himself, and so learns nothing, even from wisdom itself. God speaks to us by conscience, by providences, meaning the events of life, and by ministers, which Elihu will speak about more fully. In that way, he shows Job that God was both telling him his mind and doing him good, even when Job felt shut out and treated as a stranger, and even when he felt kept in pain and treated as an enemy. In those days, as far as we know, there was no written divine revelation, so that is not mentioned here as one of the ways God speaks, though now it is the main way.

Elihu then shows how God teaches and warns people through their own consciences. The proper time for these warnings is “in a dream, in slumberings upon the bed” (Job 33:15), when people are away from the noise of the world. That is a good time to turn inward, think honestly, and talk with our own hearts, when we are on our beds, alone and still (Psalm 4:4). It is also the time God often uses for dealing directly with people. When he sent angels, his special messengers, he often chose the time when deep sleep had fallen on people, so their bodily senses were quiet and the mind was more open to receive light from God. In that way he made his will known by visions and dreams to the prophets (Numbers 12:6), warned Abimelech (Genesis 20:3), Laban (Genesis 31:24), and Joseph (Matthew 1:20), and made Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar know things that would happen later.

When he moves conscience, his ordinary deputy in the soul, he also often chooses that same quiet time. It may happen in deep sleep, since some dreams may come through conscience as well as through imagination. It may also happen in slumberings, when people are between sleeping and waking, thinking at night about the day that is past or planning the day ahead. That is a fitting time for the heart to rebuke what was done wrongly and to warn what should be done next. See (Isaiah 30:21).

These warnings also come with power. When God means to do people good through the convictions and promptings of their own consciences, he first gives them access to the ear. “He opens the ears of men,” which had been shut against the voice that would have awakened them (Psalm 58:5). He opens the heart, as he opened Lydia’s heart, and so he opens the ear too. He removes what was blocking the ear, so the conviction finds its way in. More than that, he brings the soul to submit to conscience and follow its rule, for that is what follows when God opens the ear (Isaiah 50:5). “The Lord God has opened my ear, and I was not rebellious.”

He also makes those warnings stay in the heart. “He seals their instruction,” meaning the instruction meant for them and suited to them. He presses it into the soul, like wax takes the impression of a seal. When the heart is shaped by divine instruction, as soft material is shaped in a mold, the work is done.

The aim of these warnings is to keep people from sin, especially from pride (Job 33:17). God does this so that he may turn a person away from his purpose, meaning his evil plans. He may change the direction of the mind and life, and stop some sin that is close at hand. He may turn a person away from his work, meaning the busy labor of serving the world and the flesh, and set him to God’s work instead. Many a person has been stopped in full speed on a sinful path by the timely rebukes of conscience, saying, “Do not do this evil thing that the Lord hates.”

In a special way, God uses this to hide pride from man, that is, to hide from him the things that feed his pride and turn his thoughts away from them by showing him how much reason he has to be humble. Some read it as, “to take away pride from man,” meaning to pull out the root of evil that causes so much sin. Everyone whom God means to bless he will first humble and strip of pride. Pride makes people stubborn and determined to keep pushing their own plans. So God withdraws them from those plans by bringing their pride down.

God also does this to keep people from ruin (Job 33:18). While sinners keep chasing their evil plans and feeding their pride, their souls are rushing toward the pit, toward the sword, and toward destruction in this world and the next. But when God uses conscience to turn them back from sin, he keeps their souls from the pit, even from the lowest pit, and saves them from perishing by the sword of divine judgment. Then “iniquity shall not be their ruin.” What turns people from sin saves them from hell and saves a soul from death (James 5:20). What a mercy it is to live under the restraint of an awakened conscience. Its wounds are faithful, and its bonds are kind, because through them the soul is kept from eternal ruin.