Job

Chapter 35

Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

Elihu presses one part of Job's complaint to its edge and rejects it. He argues that human sin and human righteousness do not alter God himself, that suffering people often cry out without truly seeking their Maker, and that Job's own words become empty when they turn God's silence into proof of injustice.

This chapter condenses Elihu's case into a sharper philosophical claim about God's transcendence. It continues the correction of Job, but now by insisting that divine justice cannot be measured as though God were personally enriched by human goodness or injured by human evil.

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Job 35

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vv. 1-16

Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

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A¹nd Elihu went on to say: ²“Do you think this is just? ³For you ask, ‘What does it profit me, ⁴I will reply to you ⁵Look to the heavens and see; ⁶If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him? ⁷If you are righteous, what do you give Him, ⁸Your wickedness affects only a man like yourself,

⁹Men cry out under great oppression; ¹⁰But no one asks, ‘Where is God my Maker, ¹¹who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth ¹²There they cry out, but He does not answer, ¹³Surely God does not listen to empty pleas, ¹⁴How much less, then, when you say that you do not see Him, ¹⁵and further, that in His anger He has not punished ¹⁶So Job opens his mouth in vain

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01vv. 1-16Elihu Recalls God’s JusticeElihu challenges Job's thought that righteousness has no profit and points him upward to God's untouched majesty above the heavens. From there he argues that oppression often produces cries of pain rather than true Godward seeking, so unanswered appeals do not by themselves prove injustice, and Job's own speech risks falling into the same emptiness.