Chapter Thirty-Five

Elihu’s third speech. 1–16. The benefit of piety toward God; refutation of possible objections to this proposition.

Job 35:1. And Elihu continued and said: Job 35:2. Do you think it just that you said: I am more righteous than God? Job 35:3. You have said: What benefit is it to me? And what profit would I have beyond sinning? Of the two incorrect thoughts of Job outlined in the previous speech (Job 34:5-6), Elihu had so far refuted only one – the denial of divine justice. The investigation of the other – the proposition about the uselessness of piety – is devoted to the speech of the present chapter. Job is “more righteous than God” in the respect that he acknowledges the necessity of retribution, whereas God’s justice makes no distinction between the virtuous and sinners (Job 9:22-23 and so forth), from which proceeds the uselessness of piety.

Job 35:5. Look at the heavens and see; behold the clouds – they are higher than you. Job 35:6. If you sin, what do you do to Him? And if your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to Him? Job 35:7. If you are righteous, what do you give Him? Or what does He receive from your hand? Job 35:8. Your wickedness affects a man like you, and your righteousness affects a son of man. Man is not able to change the clouds – to increase or diminish their brightness. Much more so, the infinitely great and all-perfect God receives nothing from the good and evil deeds of man (cf. Job 7:20 and so forth; Ps 15:2). He would not be God if He changed in dependence on man’s virtue and wickedness; their consequences – benefit and harm – are felt only among people (v. 8).

Job 35:9. From the multitude of oppressors men groan, and they cry out from the hand of the mighty. An objection to the view expounded by Elihu is the reference to the fact that the Lord does not hear the mournful cries of the oppressed (Job 24:12): piety is useless. To the discussion of this proposition Elihu now turns.

Job 35:10. But no one says: Where is God, my Maker, who gives songs in the night, One reason why God does not help all the oppressed is their unwillingness to turn to God; they do not seek Him (“where is God,” cf. Jer 2:6), whose help in a time of affliction (“in the night,” cf. Job 34:20) fills the lips of the sufferer with a song of praise (cf. Ps 39:2-4).

Job 35:11. who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens? Job 35:12. There they cry out, and He does not answer them, because of the pride of evil men. Job 35:13. But it is false that God does not hear, and the Almighty does not regard it. Another reason for God’s leaving unanswered the cries lies in their character. They are the same as the instinctive cries of animals, a manifestation of a hopeless situation created by the oppressors’ pride (v. 12), but not a humble prayer united with consciousness of sinfulness. As such, they are not heeded by God (cf. Prov 1:27-28): “God does not listen to lawlessness, and the Almighty does not regard him” (the literal reading of v. 13).

Job 35:14. Although you said that you do not see Him, yet judgment is before Him, and you must wait for it. Job 35:15. But now, because His anger has not visited him and He has not known him in all strictness, If God does not answer all prayers for entirely lawful reasons, then the cause that Job’s cries remain unheard (Job 19:7; Job 23:8-10) lies not in God, but in Job himself. And on the other hand, this does not give the right to assert that the matter will forever remain in the same position – there will never be judgment on Job. “Since His anger does not show itself at once, does it follow that He does not pay attention to transgression” (the literal reading of v. 15). Job should not comfort himself with the thought that God has, as it were, forgotten him: temporary forgetting will be replaced by strict judgment.

Job 35:16. So Job opens his mouth in lightness and multiplies words without understanding. Denying divine justice and its manifestation in the history of mankind (Job 24:1), Job reasons without good sense.