to do or make (systematically and habitually) · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
God
אֵ֑ל'El
H410
strength · noun, common masculine singular absolute
oftentimes
פַּעֲמַ֖יִםpa.'a.Ma.yim
H6471
a stroke · noun, common feminine dual absolute
man
גָּֽבֶרGa.ver
H1397
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
1 Corinthians 12:6 And there are diversities of operations, but it is the same God which worketh all in all.
Ephesians 1:11 In whom also we have obtained an inheritance, being predestinated according to the purpose of him who worketh all things after the counsel o…
Philippians 2:13 For it is God which worketh in you both to will and to do of his good pleasure.
2 Corinthians 5:5 Now he that hath wrought us for the selfsame thing is God, who also hath given unto us the earnest of the Spirit.
Hebrews 13:21 Make you perfect in every good work to do his will, working in you that which is wellpleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ; to whom be…
2 Kings 6:10 And the king of Israel sent to the place which the man of God told him and warned him of, and saved himself there, not once nor twice.
Job 33:14-17 For God speaketh once, yea twice, yet man perceiveth it not.
Colossians 1:29 Whereunto I also labour, striving according to his working, which worketh in me mightily.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 33:29–end
We have here the conclusion of this first part of Elihu's discourse, in which, 1. He briefly sums up what he had said, showing that God's great and gracious design, in all the dispensations of his providence towards the children of men, is to save them from being for ever miserable and bring them to be for ever happy, Job 33:29, Job 33:30. All these things God is working with the children of men. He deals with them by conscience, by providences, by ministers, by mercies, by afflictions. He makes them sick, and makes them well again. All these are his operations; he has set the one over the other (Ecc 7:14), but his hand is in all; it is he that performs all the things for us. All providences…
Margin, "twice and thrice," alluding to Job 33:14; once, by visions, Job 33:15-17; secondly, by afflictions, Job 33:19-22; now, by the "messenger," thirdly, Job 33:23.
Adam Clarke on Job 33:29
Lo, all these things worketh God - God frequently uses one, or another, or all of these means, to bring men, גבר gaber, stout-hearted men, who are far from righteousness, to holiness and heaven.
Oftentimes - פעמים שלש paamayim shalosh, "three times over;" or as פעמים paamayim is by the points in the dual number, then it signifies twice three times, that is, again and again; very frequently. Blessed be God!
John Gill on Job 33:29
Lo, all these things worketh God oftentimes with man. This is a summary or recapitulation of what goes before, from Job 33:15; God is an operating Being, he is always at work in a providential way: "my father worketh hitherto", John 5:17; sometimes on the minds of men in dreams and visions; and sometimes by affliction; and sometimes by his prophets, messengers and ministers of the word; he works with and by these, and all according to the internal workings and actings of his mind, his eternal purposes and decrees, which are hereby brought about: and these he works "oftentimes", or, as in the original, "twice" (w); therefore when once is not sufficient, he repeats it in dreams and visions; wh…
The Church Fathers
All these things God worketh three times with every man. Of this man tempted and beaten by the scourge it had been said before, His bread becomes abominable to him in his life, and his soul hath drawn nigh to corruption, and his life to the destroyers. [ver. 22] But it was subsequently added, He shall pray unto God, and He will be favourable unto him, and he will see His face with joy; and he hath delivered his soul from going onward to destruction, but that it should live, and behold the light. [ver. 26] In these expressions, then, now collected and accumulated together, the bitterness of sorrow precedes, the joy of security comes after. And it is presently added, All these things God worketh three times with every man. As if he were to say, What I have said once of one person only, takes place three times in every person. But we must carefully consider what are these three times, wherein each man is affected with anxiety and sorrow, and is immediately after sorrow called back to the security of joy. For, as I before said, he had stated above, that grievous sorrow first depresses ['afficit'] us, and that great delight raises us up afterwards. If we watch then attentively, we find that these three stages of sorrow and joy succeed each other, in the mind of each of the Elect, in these following ways, that is to say, in his conversion, his temptation, and his death. For in that first occasion of conversion, which we have mentioned, great is the sorrow of a man, when, from considering his own sins, he wishes to burst the fetters of worldly cares, and to walk in the way of God along the course of a secure conversation, to cast aside the heavy burden of temporal anxieties, and to bear the light yoke of the Lord, in a bondage akin to freedom. For as he thinks on these things, there occurs to his mind that old familiar carnal pleasure, which, from having become inveterate, binds him the closer, the longer it has held him; and is the more loath to permit him to escape. And then what pain is there, and what anxiety of heart, when the Spirit calls him on one side, the flesh calls him back on the other, his love for his new life invites him on the one hand, his old depraved habits assail him on the other: on the one side he glows with longings for his heavenly country, and on the other has to bear in himself that desire of the flesh, which pleases him to a certain…
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Agency · IN SALVATION OF MEN — IN SALVATION OF MEN
Philosophy · provi — provi
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
29 Behold, God doeth all
Twice, thrice with man,
30 To bring back his soul from the pit,
That it may become light in the light of life.
31 Listen, O Job, hearken to me;
Be silent and let me speak on.
32 Yet if thou hast words, answer me;
Speak, for I desire thy justification.
33 If not, hearken thou to me;
Be silent and I will teach thee wisdom.
After having described two prominent modes of divine interposition for the moral restoration and welfare of man, he adds, Job 33:29, that God undertakes (observe the want of parallelism in the distich, Job 33:29) everything with a man twice or thrice (asyndeton, as e.g., Isa 17:6, in the sense of bis terve) in order to bring back his soul from the pi…
God will receive him with joy: Cp. Num 6:24-26; Ps 67:1; Acts 2:28; Jude 1:24.
Rashi on Job 33:29
twice or thrice He chastises him for his iniquities with his illness in order not to destroy him, but if he provokes Him further, he should be concerned with Gehinnom or death, as it is written, “Yea for four, I will not return them” (Amos 1:3).
