Job 33:32

32. If not, hearken unto me Job maintains silence, and thus tacitly admits his own dereliction and the reasonableness of Elihu’s views. The kind appeals of Elihu are sunlight to the heart, and melt while they enlighten. Here we may fix the beginning of Job’s repentance.

EXCURSUS No. VII.

THE ANGEL MEDIATOR.

Some of the profoundest Biblical scholars, among whom may be mentioned Michaelis and Velthusen, look upon this, together with other passages in the book of Job, as relics of a primeval revelation, primitive oracles which have perished, except the few excerpta or fragments which still remain imbedded in this book and in Genesis. The pre-eminently great commentator upon this book, Schultens, gives it as his judgment that the Angel of the Covenant, the Messiah, is the person here described; and he alleges, (as summed up by J. Pye Smith, Scrip. Test., 1:497,) (1) the correspondence of the titles; (2) the suitableness of the descriptions; (3) the affinity with Job 19:25; (4) the scope and argument of the passage as determining reasons for his opinion. ( Com. in Jobum. 2:918.) Had the word מלאךְ ( malak) been rendered angel, as in the old versions instead of messenger, the sense would have been more clear. To this angel is assigned an office that plainly distinguishes him from other angels. It is that of interpreter, מליצ , melits, (see note on Job 16:20; Job 17:3,) which, according to Gesenius, Furst, etc., might have been translated also Intercessor or Mediator for all these interpretations are justified by the root louts. Jewish prayers show that this Interpreter was always identified in their minds with the expected Redeemer of Israel, as in the following prayer: “Raise up for us the righteous interpreter say I have found a ransom.” The whole passage in Job is quoted (says Canon Cook, in loc., who cites Wunsche) at the sacrifice offered still in many countries of Europe on the eve of the great day of atonement. The master of each house, as he recites these words, strikes his head three times with a cock he has meanwhile been holding in his hands, saying at each stroke, “Let this cock be a commutation for me: let him be substituted in my place: let him be an atonement for me: let this cock be put to death: but let a fortunate life be vouchsafed to me and all Israel.” For further particulars see “Allen’s Modern Judaism,” p. 393. Jewish faith has ever held most tenaciously to the conviction that the Angel Interpreter and the Messiah are one. His pre-eminence is strikingly set forth by the expression, “one out of a thousand,” (Song of Solomon 5:10; Psalms 45:2,) by which Elihu means to convey, not oneness of nature with the angels, but superiority of being. Had Elihu been a Jew, we would naturally suppose he meant the ANGEL OF JEHOVAH, of whose appearances on earth, even in patriarchal times, abundant traces remain, attesting a depth of affection for man that led him often to self-disclosure, thus anticipating his advent as “God manifest in the flesh.” “The angel of Jehovah of primeval history,” says Delitzsch, “is the oldest prefigurement in the history of redemption of the future incarnation, without which the Old Testament history would be a confused quod libet of premises and radii, without a conclusion and a centre; and the angelic form is accordingly the oldest form which the hope of a deliverer assumes, and to which it recurs, in conformity to the law of the circular connexion between the beginning and the end in Malachi 3:1.” (See M’Clintock and Strong’s Cyc., 4:534.)

The probable descent of Elihu from a collateral branch of the family of Abraham renders it not improbable that he possessed the patriarchal knowledge of this strange superhuman being who called himself God, and who was worshipped as God. The extreme exposure that of death and the pit (of which the context speaks,) a juncture where human and angelic help are useless, demands divine interposition. The office of this Angel Mediator is not alone to make known the will of a superior his conditions of deliverance but to be an agent or mediator of that deliverance. With great assurance Zockler (in Lange, p. 564) assumes it to be “ certain that the mediatorial angel of salvation is put essentially on an equality with the angel of disease and death mentioned just before, [but] not exalted above him,” and compares Job 33:22 b, with Matthew 8:9, and parallel passages. Zockler seems to overlook the striking resemblance between the relation this Angel Intercessor bears to “the destroyers,” and that borne by the “Captain of our salvation “to him that had the power of death, that is, the devil. Hebrews 2:14. With Elihu the province of this mighty Angel is twofold to rescue dying man from fearful superhuman beings “the slayers” and to save him from the more darkly adumbrated doom of going down into the pit. With the apostle the mission of the great Mediator is substantially the same, but more fully disclosed. The oneness of the mission though there be the interval of many centuries points to oneness of being, In both cases it means deliverance deliverance in a field and from dangers in the presence of which human prowess and power can accomplish nothing.

Elihu claims to have spoken by special inspiration. Although, as an Aramean, he might be outside of Israel, he was signally honoured (as is plain throughout the whole address) as an organ for the communication of divine truth. On the other hand, overlooking the fact that Job and his book are altogether extra Israel, some rationalizing commentators are disposed, because of its Aramaic origin, to count this wonderful revelation through Elihu with the many sage vaticinia of the heathen world; one of which, from Sophocles, (OEdipus Coloneus,) Zockler cites: One soul, in my opinion, for ten thousand, will suffice to make atonement, if with kindly feelings it draws nigh.