Albert Barnes Commentary Job 33:4

Albert Barnes Commentary

Job 33:4

1798–1870
Presbyterian
Albert Barnes
Albert Barnes

Albert Barnes Commentary

Job 33:4

1798–1870
Presbyterian
SCRIPTURE

"The Spirit of God hath made me, And the breath of the Almighty giveth me life." — Job 33:4 (ASV)

The Spirit of God hath made me; see the notes on Job 32:8. There is an evident allusion in this verse to the mode in which man was created, when God breathed into him the breath of life and he became a living being (Genesis 2:7). But it is not quite clear why Elihu refers here to the fact that God had made him, or what is the bearing of this fact on what he proposed to say. The most probable supposition is that he means to state that he is, like Job, a man; that both were formed in the same way—from the same breathing of the Almighty, and from the same clay (Job 33:6); and that although he had undertaken to speak to Job in God’s place (Job 33:6), Job had no occasion to fear that he would be overawed and confounded by the Divine Majesty.

He had dreaded that, if he should be permitted to bring his case before him (see notes on Job 33:7), but Elihu says that now he would have no such thing to apprehend. Though it would be in fact the same thing as carrying the matter before God—since he came in his name, and meant to state the true principles of his government—Job would also be really conducting the cause with a man like himself, and might, unawed, enter with the utmost freedom into the statement of his views.