Hebrew Word Study – Exaltation  – Gavah – גֵּוָ֑ה  Gimmel Vav Hei 

Job 22:29: “When men are cast down thou shalt say, there is lifting up, and he shall save the humble person.”

Job 22 is the reply to Job by his friend Eliphaz.   It is suggested by many that Eliphaz means God of gold.  This is likely due to an assumption that the root word is Pazaz.   I would have to agree with this as the root word because I can find no other word with any other association of the Pei and Zayin.  However, I would take issue with the fact that it means God of gold.   This is where we get our modern English word “Pizzazz.”   which means to put on a  spectacle, or a spectacular show.   It is something impressive but has little substance. Indeed what Eliphaz says has great value, but he gives a lousy application.  The word Pazaz in Hebrew means to be light, active and agile.  It is also a word used to refine or purify gold.  What Eliphaz says is light or simplistic, but taken properly it can refine one to gold.  Eliphaz has a message of purification from God, he has just made a simple and improper application.

Eliphaz’s first reply to Job is that God does punish for secret sins.  No one is guiltless before God and he admonishes Job for suggesting that he is. He suggest Job repent and confess his sin and when this is done God will restore him. Simple and true, but poorly applied. Even though his arguments appear logical and are well supported, at the end of the book God points out that Eliphaz is in error and Job lights a candle or offers a sacrifice for Eliphaz.  

I would be careful before throwing rocks as Eliphaz,  because is that not our most common way of thinking? I know I think that way.  As soon as trouble comes into my life I suddenly become very pious, I begin to spend more time in His word, my prayers become more sincere. I start improving my prayers hoping God will show a little mercy and withdraw this thing that has come upon me. 

Eliphaz starts to tell Job just what he has to do to overcome this trouble that came upon him, but his advice was wrong. Good for Job that he did not take Eliphaz’s advice.  Bad for us when we take the advice of someone without first searching the Scriptures and our hearts to be sure that advice is of God and not someone’s own wisdom.  Shame on us if we do not apply the Ayin – deep spiritual discernment, to the teachings of man.

There is a story in Jewish literature of an illiterate shepherd who did not know how to pray.  The only prayer he could pray was one from his heart. “Sovereign of the universe, if you had cattle to entrust to my care, others I would charge for this; but for you I would do it for nothing because I love you.”    One day a man of great learning, a Zaddik, came by and heard the man’s prayer.  The man of great learning said: “You fool; don’t you pray in this way.  The man immediately explained the order of prayer, the proper way to pray,  starting with divine unity and ending with the eighteen benedictions.   This way he would not end up uttering the same prayer all the time.  But when the learned man left, the poor shepherd forgot all that this man taught him and now fearful he was offending God with his usual prayer he stopped praying altogether.   One night in a dream the learned man was told by God that  he must return to the Shepherd and tell him to continue saying what he had been accustomed to say because, as the voice told him: “You robbed me of one destined for the world to come and now evil will fall upon you.”   The learned man quickly returned the shepherd, apologized and encouraged him to pray as his heart led him to pray.   The lesson in the story is that what the learned man shared was good and right, but God seeks the heart not the deeds.

This was Eliphaz’s mistake.  What he told and instructed Job was not necessarily wrong,   It just had no universal application particularly in Job’s case.  Sometimes God will send chastisement to correct, but not all trouble is chastisement. The point God was making was that man’s piety is not profit or gain to God.  God is a sovereign who gives no account for his conduct, He is free to do what he wants and He alone is the judge of what is merciful and good. 

Many will translate Job 22:29 to say that “when man is brought low and you say: ’Lift them up,’ they shall save the downcast or humble.“  What is interesting is that the word for humble is ayin deep insight.   Note  that the word for lifting up is gavah which means pride as well as lifting up. Eliphaz is really saying Jobs’ sin is pride.

In a sense what Eliphaz says is true.  But it is an unusual play on words.  The word for lifting up means just that but it is also the same word for pride.   Thus Eliphaz has used words which in a different application provides a real truth of God.   When someone is going through trial and you tell him it is due to pride then God will save the one in trouble.  But  embedded in that word for humble  (ayin) sometimes  translated as downcast,  is that you must discern it for yourself.  In other words you can see the pride in someone and it may drive you crazy and you can see how that pride is destroying that person, but if you tell him he is full of pride, unless he is willing to use the ayin, the deep insight, he will not be restored.

In a twist of irony, Eliphaz thinks he is helping Job by saying his problem is the result of pride, but the very words he speaks is saying, “You must discern in your own heart if there is pride or not before you can become humble and then restored.”

I have often wondered why the book of Job is filled with the wrong doctrine from his friends.  Yet, things his friends say do make sense.  Am I to accept that as truth and teach the teachings of his friends as it is in the Bible. Or do I reject all the teachings of his friends as false because they were wrong for Job.   This is an example of how Hebrew works.   If the friends of Job are teaching something wrong and not of God,  as if you say to someone he is full of pride, such words will humble the person and they will be restored.   You will also find buried in those words that grain of truth.  Yes, God will restore a proud person who humbles himself, but he must find that pride in his own heart through the Ayin, through  deep spiritual discernment in his own heart.  Someone may tell you, you are full of pride and that can start the search in your own heart, but just being told you are proud will not make you humble, only your acknowledgement of it and total dependence upon God will bring God‘s deliverance.

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