Elihu Condemns Job
1 Comparison is not to be made with God, because our good or evil cannot extend unto him. 9 Many cry in their afflictions but are not heard for want of faith.
Job 35:1 Then Elihu said:
Job 35:2 “Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am in the right, not God.’
Job had made no such claims. He had questioned God’s justice (chs. 9:22–24; 10:3; 12:6), but Elihu’s accusation, as here rendered, contains an influence that goes beyond anything Job had intended in his speeches.
Job 35:3 Yet you ask him, ‘What profit is it to me, and what do I gain by not sinning?’
Elihu is challenging Job’s right to take the position that a righteous man may suffer the same as a sinner. Such a viewpoint is as offensive to him as to the three friends. However, he draws unwarranted inferences from Job’s statements. Job did not maintain that the righteous have no ultimate advantage over the sinner. What he did insist was that the dealings of Providence in this world were not always in accordance with the character of men.
Job 35:4 “I would like to reply to you and to your friends with you.
Elihu’s answer expands the argument of Eliphaz in ch. 22:2,
Job 35:5 Look up at the heavens and see; gaze at the clouds so high above you.
The three friends of Job are pointed out.
Look unto the heavens. The object of Elihu’s statement is to show that God is so great that He cannot be affected by human conduct. The greatness of God is illustrated by the loftiness and grandeur of the heavens and the clouds.
Job 35:6 If you sin, how does that affect him? If your sins are many, what does that do to him?
The argument is that the God who created the heavens is not influenced or in any way coerced by man’s sin. His power is not diminished. He is not injured, nor is His dignity impaired.
Job 35:7 If you are righteous, what do you give to him, or what does he receive from your hand?
Elihu maintains, man’s righteousness cannot benefit God, nor does it place God under obligation to man.
Job 35:8 Your wickedness only affects humans like yourself, and your righteousness only other people.
According to Elihu’s reasoning the results of iniquity or righteousness are felt, not by God, but by man. God is so apart from the effects of either sin or righteousness that there is no reason for Him to swerve from strict justice. It would then follow that where there ought to be reward there will be, and where there ought to be punishment, there will be. Consequently, there is an advantage in being righteous.
God is too exalted to modify the workings of cause and effect which, in Elihu’s estimation, demand reward for the righteous and punishment for the evildoer. In other words, a man’s wickedness or righteousness affects him alone, not God. Elihu’s philosophy in this regard fails to consider the close tie between God and His creatures. Elihu sees God’s transcendence, but he fails to see His nearness to His creatures. The gospel teaches a loving God who is affected by what His creatures do, and who deals with them on a personal basis (see Heb. 4:15).
Job 35:9 “People cry out under a load of oppression; they plead for relief from the arm of the powerful.
Elihu is confronted with the stubborn fact of oppression. He could not deny that multitudes were crying out because of the treatment they were receiving from those stronger than they. How could he fit this fact into his philosophy? Why were these oppressed people not delivered?
Job 35:10 But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,
Elihu’s contention is that the oppressed continue to suffer because they complain of their ills, but fail to call upon God with the proper spirit. If they would thus approach God, He would give them a “song in the night,” or happiness in the hour of darkness and distress (see Ps. 30:5; 77:6; 90:14; 143:8). The weakness of this contention is that it presupposes that those who continue to suffer do not call upon God aright.
Job 35:11 who teaches us more than he teaches the beasts of the earth and makes us wiser than the birds in the sky?’
Beasts and fowls cry instinctively under pain and affliction, but they know not how to appeal to their Creator. God has taught man to do more than complain—he is to carry his grief to God in a spirit of faith, piety, humility, and resignation. According to Elihu, if God does not answer such an appeal, the proper spirit must be lacking.
Job 35:12 He does not answer when people cry out because of the arrogance of the wicked.
Elihu obviously has his eye on Job. God does answer a sincere cry. This is true, but does it follow that all sincere cries are immediately answered, or in the way we desire? This is an oversimplification of the problem of suffering. It shows how an apparently logical position can be extremely misleading.
Does not Answer. Elihu sets forth that God does not answer evil men because they ask proudly, not humbly. They claim relief from suffering as a right. They approach God from selfish motives.
Job 35:13 Indeed, God does not listen to their empty plea; the Almighty pays no attention to it.
Job 35:14 How much less, then, will he listen when you say that you do not see him, that your case is before him and you must wait for him,
That is, if God will not hear an empty cry, how much less will He hear the cry of one who complains that he cannot see God. Elihu apparently refers to statements of discouragement made by Job, such as in chs. 9:11; 13:24; 23:3, 8, 9; 30:20; 33:10.
Job 35:15 and further, that his anger never punishes and he does not take the least notice of wickedness.
The thought may be that God has not visited fresh affliction because of Job’s arrogant words. Job was thus emboldened to continue his complaints.
Job 35:16 So Job opens his mouth with empty talk; without knowledge he multiplies words.”
Elihu concludes that Job has no just cause for complaint. He implies that Job has not suffered as much as he deserves—that in fact he does not know what he is talking about. Surely no comfort could possibly come to Job from a speech like this!