Job 33:23

WHEN God has distinct and definite purposes of mercy towards an individual, He often begins with stern discipline and brings him low by affliction and sorrow. As the good farmer cuts down the trees and makes a clearance of the soil before he sows the grain and prepares for a harvest, so does our God cut down all our goodly cedars, our pleasures, and our pride in order that the heart may be afterwards plowed, broken, harrowed and made ready to receive the good seed of the Word. Elihu describes this preparatory breaking-up process as being brought about by sickness.

"One among a thousand" is a man rarely to be found. So Jesus Christ (So 5:10). Elihu, the God-sent mediator of a temporal deliverance, is a type of the God-man Jesus Christ the Mediator of eternal deliverance: "the messenger of the covenant" (Mal 3:1).

WHEN God has distinct and definite purposes of mercy towards an individual, He often begins with stern discipline and brings him low by affliction and sorrow. As the good farmer cuts down the trees and makes a clearance of the soil before he sows the grain and prepares for a harvest, so does our God cut down all our goodly cedars, our pleasures, and our pride in order that the heart may be afterwards plowed, broken, harrowed and made ready to receive the good seed of the Word. Elihu describes this preparatory breaking-up process as being brought about by sickness. It is often so—I doubt not that a sickbed is one of God's best orators to the sons of men. But God is by no means restricted to any uniform method, nor is the experience of the redeemed precisely similar in its details though, notwithstanding all its diversities, it leads to one and the same result. Sometimes a storm at sea has brought men to their senses and aroused their conscience and so they have cried to the Lord in their trouble. At other times serious losses in business have brought men into such distress of mind that they have been driven to seek riches more enduring than silver and gold—a competence more to be relied on than the profits of trade or the stability of banks— and comfort more genuine and lasting than wealth. Yes, and without either of these the Holy Spirit has not infrequently been pleased to convince men of their sin and reduce them to utter self-despondency and abject self-abhorrence. This He has effected in such a way as neither sickness nor poverty could have done of themselves. He has brought the man very low, even to the gates of Hell.

V. The Messengers If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, etc. - The Messengers of righteousness; this is a Fifth method, אם יש עליו מלאך מליץ im yesh alaiv malach melits, “If there be over him an interpreting or mediatorial angel or messenger.” One among a thousand, אחד מני אלף echad minni aleph. “One from the Chief, Head, or Teacher.” To show unto man his uprightness - להגיד לאדם ישרו lehaggid leadam yoshro, “to manifest or cause to be declared to man his righteousness:” to show unto Adam - men in general, the descendants of the first man - his purity and holiness; to convince him of sin, righteousness, and judgment, that he may be prepared for the discovery of what is next to be exhibited.