Job 35
Butler1. MOREOVER Elihu answered and said, 2 Thinkest thou this to be thy right,
Or sayest thou, My righteousness is more than God’s,
3. That thou sayest, What advantage will it be unto thee?
And, What profit shall I have, more than if I had sinned?
4. I will answer thee, And thy companions with thee. 5 Look unto the heavens, and see; And behold the skies, which are higher than thou. 6 If thou hast sinned, what doest thou against him?
And if thy transgressions be multiplied, what doest thou unto him?
7. If thou be righteous, what givest thou him? Or what receiveth he of thine hand? 8 Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; And thy righteousness may profit a son of man. 9 By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out; They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty. 10 But none saith, Where is God my Maker, Who giveth songs in the night; 11 Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, And maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? 12 There they cry, but none giveth answer, Because of the pride of evil men.
13. Surely God will not hear vanity.
Neither will the Almighty regard it.
14. How much less when thou sayest thou beholdest him not,
The cause is before him, and thou waitest for him!
ELIHU proceeds to deal with the assertion that a life of righteousness had brought Job no corresponding blessings; he argues that man’s righteousness constitutes no claim upon God (vs. 1-8); and that when God disregards appeals to His justice it is because they are urged without humility and faith (vs. 9-13); hence the duty of submitting to Him with full trust in His justice. Cook.—Job’s complaint that under God’s government of the world it availed a man nothing to be righteous, to which Elihu had referred (34:9), is now taken up and disposed of. The passage has three parts: 1. (vs. 1-4) Elihu states Job’s complaint that godliness avails a man nothing, and undertakes to answer it. 2. (vs. 5-8) his answer. Neither godliness nor irreligiousness can affect God, who is too exalted to be touched by anything human. Their influence therefore must be on men, to their advantage or hurt. 3. (vs 9-16) having made this philosophical retort, Elihu proceeds to dispose of some cases that might seem exceptions to his principle or anomalies. There are cases where apparently religious men are not heard when they cry to God; men cry out because of oppression and there is no answer. But why? Because they cry amiss. Their appeal to heaven is the mere instinctive cry of suffering like that of the lower creatures, without trust in God—they say not, Where is God my Maker? And Elihu ends, as before, with a charge of foolish talking.
1-4. Throughout Elihu’s speeches there runs the idea of a cause or plea between Job and God. Job is regarded by Elihu as maintaining that he has a right or just cause against God. Elihu here asks, if Job considers that the rectitude of his cause will appear in his maintaining that godliness profits a man nothing?—the word “this” in v. 2, refers to the questions in v. 3. If Job could successfully maintain this contention his cause against God would be good. Therefore Elihu controverts his assertion, contending that righteousness does avail a man, as it must. A. B. D.
5. Look unto the heavens. This is a sublime sentiment in a plain dress. One view, says he, of the magnificent scenery of the lofty sky will extinguish all low conceptions of its Almighty Author. It will strike the mind
15. But now, because he hath not visited in his anger,
Neither doth he greatly regard arrogance;
16. Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vanity;
He multiplieth words without knowledge.
with a vast idea of His infinite superiority to all other beings, and of the impossibility of His gaining or suffering by the good or bad behavior of His reasonable creatures. Scott.
6. If thou sinnest, what dost thou hurt Him? Is His holiness, justice, power the less, because thou hast transgressed? Is aught diminished from His essence by this offence? Bishop H.
6-8. The drift of this is that there is no such relation between God and man as to make happiness a reward due to righteousness. When granted, it is a matter of favor and grace; when withdrawn, complaints imply a wrong conception of our position before God. Cook.—What objection should Job raise in justification of his complaints concerning his affliction against such sentiments as these—that goodness bears its reward and evil its punishment in itself, and that God’s reward of goodness is not a work of indebtedness, nor His punishment of evil a work of self-defence. Before such truth he must hold his peace. A. B. D.
7. The great God cannot possibly receive any benefit by man, and therefore cannot be supposed to lie under any obligation to man; for if He be obliged by His purpose and promise it is only to Himself. That is a challenge which no man can take up (Rom. 11:35). Who hath first given to God let him prove it, and it shall be recompensed to him again. Why should we demand it as a just debt to gain by our religion (as Job seemed to do), when the God we serve does not gain by it?—8. To men like ourselves we are in a capacity either of doing injury or of showing kindness. And in both these the sovereign Lord and Judge of all will interest Himself, will reward those that do good and punish those that do hurt to their fellow-creatures and fellow-subjects. H.
9. The oppressed cry, saith Elihu, but not with a right frame of heart; they cry rather as oppressed with the weight of their own sufferings, than as touched with a sense of their sins, or as having faith in Him for their deliverance, or quiet submission to His will; these may either be said not to pray at all, or they pray not with such holy aims and designs, with such integrity and uprightness of heart as become the people of God. They pray under the control of impatience, or moved with envy at the power of their adversaries, or with a desire of the utmost revenge; and therefore God takes no notice of their prayers (vs. 12, 13). “There they cry, but none giveth answer; surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.” Caryl.—If the cries of the oppressed be not heard the fault is not in God, He is ready to hear and help them; but the fault is in themselves; they ask and have not, but it is because they ask amiss (James 4:3). They cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty, but it is a complaining cry, a wailing cry, not a penitent, praying cry, the cry of nature and passion, not of grace. They do not inquire after God nor seek to acquaint themselves with Him under their affliction (v. 10). But none saith, Where is God my Maker? Afflictions are sent to direct and quicken us to inquire early after God (Psalm 78:34). But many that groan under great oppressions never mind God nor take notice of His hand in their troubles; if they did they would bear their troubles more patiently and be more benefited by them. Of the many that are afflicted and oppressed, few get the good they might get by their affliction. It should drive them to God; but how seldom is this the case!
10. He gives songs in the night—that is, when our condition is ever so dark, and sad, and melancholy, there is that in God, in His providence and promise, which is sufficient not only to support us, but to fill us with joy and consolation, and enable us in everything to give thanks, and even to rejoice in tribulation. H.—Those who raise these songs of praise are believers under severe trial; pilgrims amid gloom, who cannot see a step before them. There is many a night in and around us in which a dirge appears infinitely more natural than a joyous song. It is much if we can hold our peace to God in the dark hours; more when we pray under suffering; but to sing songs, how much deeper the faith! Verily, such songs in the night relieve the suffering heart and strengthen it to bear that which would otherwise be intolerable. It is God who gives these songs, first in the heart, and in His own good time in the mouth; who else but He can give them? and again, what can He give higher than this? Blessed is he who through faith has learned to see in God his Maker, and in this Maker the Rock of his salvation! Van O.
12, 13. “There”—that is, in that state of mind, without piety and faith, so that although they really suffer wrong their cry is but vanity, and is therefore disregarded. Elihu thus meets the reiterated complaints of Job that his cry is unanswered. Cook.—They are proud still, therefore they do not seek unto God (Psalm 10:4); or if they do cry unto Him, therefore He does not give answer, for He hears only the desire of the humble (Psalm 10:17). They are not sincere and upright and inward with God in their supplications to Him, and therefore He does not hear and answer them. The case is plain, then, if we cry to God for the removal of the oppression and affliction we are under and it is not removed, the reason is not because the Lord’s hand is shortened or His ear heavy, but because the affliction has not done its work; we are not sufficiently humbled, and therefore must thank ourselves that it is continued. H.
God will not hear vanity. A worldly spirit hinders prayer. Let one be bent on the accumulation of property; let the most sensitive part about him on which you can lay your finger be his purse; let his meditations be upon the best means of making ten dollars a hundred, and his labors be to effect this transformation, and he will have but little time and thought for prayer. Let one be eager for style in houses or furniture or equipage or dress, studying continually in any or all of these particulars to be as good as the best, selecting and rejecting and arranging not in obedience to a law of self-respect and convenience and pure taste, but with a reference to the judgment of others and the eye of the world, and the spirit of prayer will have narrow quarters in that heart. Let one be devoted to the amusements of society, the things invented to make time pass quickly and pleasantly, the gayeties and frivolities of idle circles, the modes of fashionable entertainment, and there will be little relish left for prayer. The form of it may be kept up, but the spirituality of it will be at a low ebb indeed. Let one be greatly absorbed in political contests, watching with intensest interest the movements of the hostile parties, in every part of the field, punctual at all the gathering places of those with whom he sides and votes, and the probability is, that he will have little ardor to spare for the cause of Christ, and there is danger that the thing which takes such strong hold of him will hinder his prayers. Anon.
15,16. God is not always exhibiting His special vengeance against the multiplicity of human sins. He is “not strict to mark iniquity,” or He would be always striking. Besides His longsuffering, so often spoken of in the Old Testament, there is the great (final) judgment always before Him. No cause is really forgotten. There is a greatness in Elihu’s
views unsurpassed by anything in the book outside of the Divine address, and that is a sufficient answer to those who would argue the
spuriousness of this portion, because there is no mention of his being answered with the rest. T. Lewis.