Job 32,33:1-22
Chapter 32 introduces a new character, Elihu.
Being much younger than Job and his friends Elihu has quietly listened to all they had to say without comment. But now Job's friends have fallen silent - not knowing how to further answer Job - and Elihu's anger boils over.
Elihu was angry at Job for justifying himself rather than God.
He was angry at Job's friends because they had condemned Job without finding an answer to him.
Elihu expressed his respect for his elders but asserted that age does not always give wisdom and understanding. He believed that he, Elihu, could speak without partiality or flattery.
In chapter 33 Elihu quotes Job's claim of innocence and his complaints against God but rebukes him that this was not right - God is greater than man and does not have to explain his actions.
Elihu then suggests that God speaks to man in dreams and visions, and chastens him with pain and illness.
He tells how God opens men's ears and understanding to be instructed by these things, that God might turn them from their actions, and thus be saved from death; but such might be the affliction that man can lose all appetite, waste away and to all appearances be about to die.
My thoughts on these verses have been caught by Elihu's declaration that God speaks to man in dreams, but we don't perceive it.
He says, 'For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not. In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed' (Job 33:14,15).
This made me wonder - does God speak to us in dreams and we don't realise?
If you are like me, you often want reassurance and clarification from the Lord of the way you should be going - that you are doing his will - that you are fulfilling the purpose he has for you for being here, and you want to hear his voice.
Might I - and you - be missing out on hearing the Lord through our dreams?
Interpretation of dreams has always been of interest to mankind. In Genesis we have Joseph recounting his dreams to his father and brothers - who were angry at the inference of these dreams - that they would all at some point bow down to him.
But many years later this came true - after Joseph had interpreted the dreams of fellow prisoners and even Pharaoh, the ruler of Egypt at that time. As a result Joseph was made ruler of Egypt, next in command to Pharaoh himself, and his brothers and his father did bow down to him.
But what did Joseph say - and what did another godly man, Daniel, later say?
Joseph told his fellow prisoners, 'Do not interpretations belong to God?' (Genesis 40:8), and then when later interpreting Pharaoh's dreams he told him, 'It is not in me: God shall give Pharaoh an answer of peace' (Genesis 41:16)...'God hath shewed Pharaoh what he is about to do' (Genesis 41:25).
Joseph is giving all the glory for the interpretation of the dreams to God. He is telling them, 'It isn't me - it's God'.
Daniel, when with his counterparts threatened with death because no one could tell King Nebuchadnezzar what he had dreamed about and what it meant, told the king that only God could reveal this dream and explain it to him - something that God mercifully did in another vision to Daniel after he and his companions had prayed to God about it.
What were the purposes of these dreams?
In Daniel and King Nebuchadnezzar's case Daniel says that it was that the king might know what was going to happen and for the preservation of their lives (Daniel 2: 30).
In Pharaoh's case it was that the land might be prepared for the many years of famine, that their lives - and the descendants promised to Abraham - might be preserved.
In the case of Joseph perhaps it was to encourage him when later he would wonder what was happening to him - for the trial of his faith as he was firstly thrown into a pit by his brothers, then sold, made a servant, wrongly accused and thrown into prison.
We know of other dreams in which God warned people of what would happen so that they could avoid it, for example, Joseph, when Jesus was a young baby and Herod wanted to find and kill him. And prior to that God had reassured Joseph in a vision that he should marry Mary.
To be continued...
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