33:29-33 Elihu shows that God's great and gracious design toward the children of men, is, to save them from being for ever miserable, and to bring them to be for ever happy. By whatever means we are kept back from the we shall bless the Lord for them at least, and should bless him for them though they be painful and distressing. Those that perish for ever are without excuse, for they would not be healed.

Verse 33. - If not, hearken unto me: hold thy peace, and I shall teach thee wisdom. Elihu is certainly quite sufficiently impressed with the sense of his intellectual capacity. Job's silence may have been meant as a sort of tacit rebuke to him. Considering his youth (Job 32:6), there is something of arrogance in the whole tone of his address, and especially in his notion that he could "teach Job wisdom." It is significant that neither now, when expressly invited to reply, nor at any subsequent point of the discourse, nor even at its close, does Job condescend to make any answer at all to Elihu's speech.

If not, hearken to me,.... If he had no objection to make, nor answer to return, then he desires he would attend and listen to what he had further to lay before him:

hold thy peace, and I shall teach thee wisdom. For though Job was a wise and good man, he might become wiser and more knowing; and indeed when instruction is given to a wise man, he will be yet wiser, Proverbs 9:9; and this may be received sometimes from persons inferior in age and abilities. Elihu proposed to teach him, as he did, natural, moral, and evangelical wisdom, especially the wisdom of God in his providential dealings with men, and what is man's highest wisdom under them; which is to be reconciled unto them, and patiently to submit, and to fear the Lord, and be careful not to offend him, which to do is wisdom and understanding.

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