System reports libelf.so.1 finds libedit.so.8 not proper layout?

My month-old server has died with a baffling error. It boots to the prompt
to enter the shell (default: /bin/sh). Entering anything returns:
libelf.so.1:  /usr/lib32/libedit.20.8: unsupported file layout

As there is no way to enter any command without a shell, I can't proceed.
This baffles me.
1. Why is libelf.so.1 being used? I thought that libelf.so.2 was used these
days. The only copy of libelf.s0.1 is in /usr/local/lib.
2. /usr/lib32/.so.8? Why is it loading the 32-bin library?

Can anyone give me a  clue as to what might be going on? Can it be fixed.
I'll be booting the live OS from the install thumb drive tomorrow in hopes
I can recover the system, but an explanation of what is going on might help
getting this working.
-- 
Kevin Oberman, Part time kid herder and retired Network Engineer
E-mail: rkoberman@gmail.com
PGP Fingerprint: D03FB98AFA78E3B78C1694B318AB39EF1B055683