Job 33:24

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.

LET it never be forgotten that in all that God does, He acts from good reasons. You observe that the text, speaking of the sick man, represents God as saying, "Deliver him from going down to the Pit: I have found a ransom." If I understand the passage as relating solely to a sick man and take the words just on the natural common level where some place them, I would still say that the Lord, here, gives a reason why He suspends the operations of pain and disease and raises up the sufferer—"I have found a ransom."

Jesus Christ could not but have found it, but still His seeking it was needed [BENGEL], (Lu 15:8). God the Father, is the Finder (Ps 89:19). Jesus Christ the Redeemer, to whom He saith, Redeem (so Hebrew) him from going, &c.

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.

LET it never be forgotten that in all that God does, He acts from good reasons. You observe that the text, speaking of the sick man, represents God as saying, "Deliver him from going down to the Pit: I have found a ransom." If I understand the passage as relating solely to a sick man and take the words just on the natural common level where some place them, I would still say that the Lord, here, gives a reason why He suspends the operations of pain and disease and raises up the sufferer—"I have found a ransom." There is always a reason for every act of Grace which God performs for man. He acts sovereignly and, therefore, He is not bound to give any reason for His actions, but He always acts wisely and, therefore, He has a reason for so acting. Writing to the Ephesians, the Apostle Paul says that God "works all things after the counsel of His own will." It is not an arbitrary will, but a will arising out of the wisdom and holiness of His Character. So God has a reason for raising men up from their sickness, but that reason is not found in them, but in Himself. The sick man does not give God a reason for restoring him, but God finds it, Himself. "I have found a ransom." Possibly, the man does not even know the reason for his restoration—he may be so blind of heart that he does not care to think whether there is any reason for it or not—but God finds a reason for His mercy and finds it entirely in Himself. He is gracious to whom He will be gracious and He has compassion on whom He will have compassion. So let each one of us think, "If I have been raised from sickness. If my life, which was almost gone, has been spared, I may not know why God has done it, but certainly He has done it in infinite wisdom and compassion.

Then he is gracious unto him - That is, on the supposition that he hears and regards what the messenger of God communicates. If he rightly understands the reasons of the divine administration, and acquiesces in it, and if he calls upon God in a proper manner Job 33:26, he will show him mercy, and spare him. Or it may mean, that God is in fact gracious to him by sending him a messenger who can come and say to him that it is the divine purpose to spare him; that he is satisfied, and will preserve him from death. If such a messenger should come, and so announce the mercy of God, then he would return to the rigoar of his former days, and be fully restored to his former prosperity. Elihu refers probably to some method of communication, by which the will of God was made known to the sufferer, and by which it was told him that it was God’s design not to destroy, but to discipline and save him. Deliver him - Hebrew, פדעהו pâda‛hû, “redeem him”. The word used here (פדע pâda‛) properly means “to let loose, to cut loose”; and then “to buy loose”; that is, “to redeem, to ransom for a price.” Sometimes it is used in the general sense of freeing or delivering, without reference to a price, compare Deu 7:8; Jer 15:21; Psa 34:22; Job 6:23; but usually there is a reference to a price, or to some valuable consideration, either expressed or implied; compare the notes at Isa 43:3. Here the appropriate idea is expressed, for it is said, as a reason for redeeming or rescuing him, “I have found a ransom.” That is, the “ransom” is the valuable consideration on account of which he was to be rescued from death. From going down to the pit - The grave, the world of darkness. Notes, Job 33:18. That is, he would keep him alive, and restore him again to health. […]