Commentary - Job 35:1-8

Bird's-eye view

In this section of the book of Job, the young man Elihu continues his discourse, shifting his focus to correct Job directly. Having addressed the three friends, he now turns to what he perceives as the central error in Job’s own defense. Elihu’s argument is a necessary theological corrective, a dose of celestial perspective for a man drowning in his own suffering and teetering on the edge of self-righteous blasphemy. The core of Elihu’s point is this: God’s justice and majesty are so far transcendent that He is not affected by human behavior in the way Job seems to imagine. Our sin does not diminish Him, nor does our righteousness enrich Him. God is not a cosmic business partner who profits from our good deeds or loses when we fail. The consequences of our actions, good or bad, reverberate horizontally, among mankind, not vertically, in a way that puts God in our debt. Elihu is attempting to pull Job’s gaze up from his ash heap and his own internal sense of grievance to the vast, star-filled heavens, reminding him of the unbridgeable chasm between Creator and creature. While not the final word, it is a crucial step in dismantling Job’s case against God, preparing the ground for God’s own appearance in the whirlwind.

This is a frontal assault on the very idea of a transactional relationship with God. Job, in his agony, has begun to sound like he kept his end of a bargain that God has now broken. Elihu counters by blowing up the whole concept of a bargain. God cannot be manipulated, bribed, or harmed by us. His justice is not a matter of balancing scales that we can tip one way or the other; it is an expression of His immutable character. This is a foundational truth that must be established before any true understanding of suffering, or of God Himself, can be reached.

Outline

Context In Job

Elihu’s speeches (chapters 32-37) form a bridge between the failed counsel of the three friends (Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar) and the arrival of God Himself. The friends operated on a rigid, almost mechanical, retribution principle: you suffer, therefore you sinned. Job rightly rejected this, but in his defense, he veered into another ditch, that of self-justification, demanding that God give an account for His apparent injustice. The debate has reached a stalemate. Elihu, whose anger was kindled against both parties, enters as a new voice. He is not simply repeating the friends' arguments. He is sharper, more theologically precise, and his primary target is Job's attitude toward God. Chapter 35 is the heart of his second major refutation of Job. He is no longer dealing with the simplistic "sin causes suffering" formula, but with the more subtle and dangerous sin of pride that has grown in Job's heart through his trial. Elihu's words set the stage for the Lord's speeches by shifting the central question from "Why is this happening to me?" to "Who is God?"

Key Issues

The Heavens Declare the Glory of God, Not Your Righteousness

One of the deepest errors a man can fall into is the assumption that his relationship with God is a business partnership. We do our part, and God is then obligated to do His. When things go well, we take a certain pride in our performance. When things go badly, we feel cheated, like a contractor whose client has refused to pay the invoice. Job has fallen headlong into this trap. He has a ledger of his good deeds, his integrity, his righteousness, and in his mind, the accounts do not balance. He looks at his suffering and concludes that God has made a catastrophic accounting error, or worse, has willfully broken the contract.

Elihu’s response is to tear up the contract and throw the ledger into the fire. He tells Job to look up. The argument is simple, profound, and devastating to human pride. Look at the clouds. They are higher than you. God is infinitely higher than the clouds. Do you really think your little sins can reach Him to cause Him injury? Do you imagine your acts of piety add anything to the one who spoke the galaxies into existence? Your actions matter, yes, but they matter down here. Elihu is re-calibrating the entire universe for Job, putting God back on the throne and man back on the footstool. It is a necessary, if humbling, lesson.

Verse by Verse Commentary

1-2 Then Elihu answered and said, “Do you think this is according to justice? Do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s’?

Elihu comes straight to the point. He does not mince words. He frames his entire speech with two sharp, rhetorical questions. First, "Do you think this is justice?" He is holding up a mirror to Job's complaints. Job has been crying out for justice, but Elihu asks if Job's own position is just. The second question is even more pointed, getting to the heart of Job's implicit claim: "My righteousness is more than God's." Job never said these exact words, of course. But this is the logical terminus of his arguments. If a perfectly righteous man suffers under the hand of God, the unavoidable conclusion is that the man's standard of righteousness is, in that instance, superior to God's. Elihu is an astute listener; he has heard the proud poison underneath the pathetic cries, and he is drawing it out into the open.

3 For you say, ‘What use will it be to You? What profit will I have, more than if I had sinned?’

Here Elihu paraphrases the essence of Job's complaint (e.g., Job 9:22, 21:7-15). Job has looked at his life of integrity and his current state of utter ruin and concluded that righteousness is unprofitable. "What's the point?" he asks. "I served God faithfully, and I got nothing for it. In fact, I would be no worse off if I had been a wicked man." This is the cry of a man who sees righteousness as a means to an end, a currency with which to purchase blessing. When the transaction fails, he declares the entire enterprise bankrupt. Elihu identifies this as the rotten foundation of Job's worldview. It is a thoroughly man-centered perspective.

4 I will respond to you, And your friends with you.

Elihu makes it clear that his answer is not just for Job. While he is addressing Job directly, his argument also demolishes the simplistic theology of the three friends. They also believed in a transactional system, just from the other side. They saw Job's suffering and assumed he hadn't paid his bill of righteousness. Elihu's correction about the nature of God and man is for all of them. Both the self-righteous sufferer and the self-righteous counselors are operating from the same flawed premise. They are all trying to litigate with God on a human scale.

5 Look at the heavens and see; And perceive the clouds, they are higher than you.

This is the beginning of the great corrective. The argument is not philosophical but observational. It is a call to basic creaturely humility. "Job, stop looking at your sores for a minute and look up." The sheer physical distance and majesty of the heavens are meant to teach a theological lesson. You are small. The sky is vast. God is immeasurably greater than the sky. This simple observation is designed to shatter Job's man-sized frame of reference. You cannot argue with God as an equal because you are not His equal. You are not even in the same category of being.

6 If you have sinned, what do you accomplish against Him? And if your transgressions are many, what do you do to Him?

Now Elihu applies the lesson of the heavens to the problem of sin. If God is so transcendent, so far above us, how can our sin possibly affect Him? This does not mean sin is of no consequence. But it means sin does not wound God, diminish His power, or threaten His throne. Our rebellion is like a toddler throwing a tantrum in the basement of a skyscraper; the chairman on the top floor is not disturbed. God's opposition to sin is not a reaction of personal injury, but an expression of His holy nature. He judges sin not because it hurts Him, but because it is contrary to His perfect righteousness.

7 If you are righteous, what do you give to Him, Or what does He receive from your hand?

This is the other side of the coin, and it is the side that cuts Job most deeply. If your sin doesn't harm God, your righteousness doesn't help Him either. God is self-sufficient. He has no needs. What can you, a man made of dust, possibly give to the God who owns everything? To think that our obedience places God in our debt is the height of arrogance. He does not need our worship, our tithes, or our good behavior. He commands these things for our good, not His. Our righteousness is not a gift we give to God, but rather a gift He gives to us.

8 Your wickedness is for a man like yourself, And your righteousness is for a son of man.

This is Elihu's conclusion, and it is a crucial one. Our actions have real consequences, but those consequences are felt on the horizontal plane. Your wickedness harms your neighbor, your family, yourself. Your righteousness benefits the "son of man," your fellow human beings. When you are just, society is more stable. When you are kind, your family flourishes. When you are wicked, you bring ruin upon yourself and those around you. God has structured the world this way. He is the ultimate Judge and the one who establishes the moral order, but the immediate effects of our choices are played out in the theater of human history, among our fellow men.

Application

Elihu’s words should ring in the ears of the modern church with terrific force. We are shot through with a therapeutic, transactional view of God. We come to Him seeking benefits. We treat prayer like a vending machine and righteousness like an investment portfolio. We believe that if we are good, God owes us a comfortable life. And when suffering inevitably comes, we, like Job, feel betrayed and begin to question God's fairness or even His existence.

Elihu calls us to repent of this consumer-grade Christianity. He calls us to look up at the heavens and be humbled. God is not our business partner; He is our sovereign Creator. He does not owe us anything. The fact that He gives us breath, life, and salvation is pure, unadulterated grace. Our sin is an offense against His majesty, but it does not threaten Him. Our righteousness is a pale reflection of His own, and it certainly does not enrich Him.

The gospel is the ultimate answer to Job's dilemma and Elihu's argument. Elihu rightly states that our righteousness cannot reach God to benefit Him. But in the gospel, God's righteousness reaches down to us. We cannot give anything to God, so He gives everything to us in His Son. Jesus Christ lived the perfect life of righteousness that we could not live. On the cross, He absorbed the horizontal and vertical consequences of our sin. Our relationship with God is not based on the ledger of our performance, which would leave us bankrupt, but on the finished work of Christ, which has paid every debt. True righteousness is not something we achieve to impress God; it is something we receive by faith, and it frees us to live for His glory, not for our own profit.