Commentary - Job 35:9-16

Bird's-eye view

In this section of Job, the young man Elihu continues his discourse, and he is driving toward a central and crucial point. Job's friends have argued that suffering is a direct and immediate consequence of sin, a tidy formula that the book as a whole demolishes. Job, in his agony, has veered toward charging God with injustice, with being silent and aloof. Elihu now steps in to correct both errors. He is not simply repeating the arguments of the other three. He is introducing a new line of reasoning that gets closer to the heart of the matter. He addresses the problem of unanswered prayer in the midst of suffering. Why do the oppressed cry out and receive only silence? Elihu's answer is sharp and penetrating: the cry itself is often the problem. It is a cry of animal pain, not a cry of faith. It is a demand directed at the universe, not a humble petition to the Creator. Elihu is distinguishing between two kinds of cries, the cry of the beast and the song of the son.

Elihu's argument unfolds logically. He first acknowledges the reality of oppression and the natural human response to it (v. 9). He then identifies the fatal flaw in this natural response: it is godless (vv. 10-11). The cry is horizontal, directed at the "arm of many oppressors," but it does not look upward. Because this cry is rooted in pride and self-pity, God does not answer it (vv. 12-13). Elihu then applies this principle directly to Job, telling him that his claim of not perceiving God is a symptom of this very problem, and that his only recourse is to wait for Him in faith (v. 14). He concludes by diagnosing Job's torrent of words as empty and ignorant, a multiplication of vanity precisely because it lacks this Godward orientation (vv. 15-16). Elihu is calling Job, and us, to examine the very nature of our prayers in affliction.

Outline

Context In Job

We are deep into the book of Job, and the debate has reached a fever pitch. Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar have shot their arrows and are now silent. Their theological system was neat, tidy, and wrong. They operated on a strict tit-for-tat principle of retribution that could not account for the suffering of a righteous man like Job. Job, for his part, has rightly defended his integrity but has wrongly maligned the character of God. In his pain, he has accused God of being his enemy, of hunting him down without cause, of refusing to answer his plea for a hearing.

Elihu's entrance marks a turning point. He is zealous for the glory of God, and he sees that both sides have erred. He is not just another friend with another bad argument. He is here to vindicate God's justice and wisdom. In chapter 35, Elihu zeroes in on Job's complaint about God's silence. He is essentially saying, "Job, you complain that God does not answer. Have you considered that you are not asking correctly? You are crying out, but you are not crying out to God." This section is crucial because it shifts the focus from the fact of suffering to the response to suffering. It prepares the way for God's own appearance in the whirlwind, where the issue will not be Job's sin, but God's absolute sovereignty and wisdom.

Key Issues

Clause-by-Clause Commentary

v. 9 “Because of many oppressions they cry out; They cry for help because of the arm of many oppressors.”

Elihu begins by stating a plain fact of life in a fallen world. Oppression happens. It is manifold, it is heavy, and it makes people cry out. The word here is a raw, guttural cry for help. This is not a polite request. It is a shriek of pain. He acknowledges the reality of the "arm of many oppressors," the brute force that crushes the weak. Elihu is not a stoic, detached from the reality of human suffering. He sees it and he names it. But notice the direction of the cry. It is a cry because of the oppression. It is a reaction. An animal caught in a trap cries out. A man crushed by a tyrant cries out. This is a natural, creaturely response to pain. But as we are about to see, what is natural is not necessarily spiritual.

v. 10 “But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, Who gives songs of praise in the night,”

Here is the pivot. Here is Elihu's central charge. The world is full of cries, but it is empty of a certain kind of question. In the midst of the pain, "no one says, 'Where is God my Maker?'" The cry of verse 9 is horizontal. It is all about the oppressors and the pain they cause. But there is no vertical dimension. The sufferers do not inquire after God. They do not seek their Maker. This is the fundamental problem. They want relief from the pain, but they do not want God. They want the gifts, but not the Giver.

And what kind of God is He? He is the one "Who gives songs of praise in the night." This is a staggering statement. God does not just give relief from the night. He gives songs in the night. The night is the time of trial, of darkness, of oppression, of suffering. And right in the middle of it, God grants His people a song. Think of Paul and Silas in the Philippian jail, their backs raw from whipping, their feet in stocks, singing hymns at midnight (Acts 16:25). That is a song in the night. It is a supernatural joy that is not dependent on circumstances. The cry of the oppressed is a demand for circumstances to change. The song of the believer is a declaration of God's goodness regardless of the circumstances. The oppressed are not asking for this song. They are not even asking for the God who gives it.

v. 11 “Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth And makes us wiser than the birds of the heavens?’”

Elihu continues his description of the God who is being ignored. He is the one who distinguishes man from the animals. What separates us from the beasts and the birds? It is the capacity for wisdom, for understanding, for a relationship with our Creator. God teaches us. He gives us revelation. A beast cries out when it is in pain. It has no capacity to understand the meaning of its suffering, to see a sovereign hand in it, or to worship God through it. When men cry out merely from their pain, without seeking God, they are behaving like beasts. They are reducing themselves to the level of instinct and reaction. They are ignoring the very thing that makes them human, which is the ability to know and worship God. The wisdom God gives makes us wiser than the birds, who may have an instinct for the seasons but have no knowledge of the God who made the seasons.

v. 12 “There they cry out, but He does not answer Because of the pride of evil men.”

Now the consequence. "There they cry out", the same beastly cry from verse 9, "but He does not answer." God's silence is not arbitrary. It is not deafness. It is a judicial response to the nature of the cry. And the reason is given: "Because of the pride of evil men." Whose pride? It could refer to the pride of the oppressors, which God will one day judge. But in the context of Elihu's argument, it more likely refers to the pride of the ones crying out. Their cry is a proud cry. It is a cry that refuses to seek God. It is the cry of a victim who believes he is entitled to relief. It is a self-centered demand. It is the pride of the creature shaking his fist at the universe, demanding that his pain stop, but never once humbling himself to ask, "Where is God my Maker?" This kind of pride is the essence of evil, and God will not honor it with an answer.

v. 13 “Surely God will not listen to an empty cry, Nor will the Almighty perceive it.”

Elihu drives the point home. The cry is "empty." It is vanity. Why is it empty? Because it is godless. A prayer, a cry, a plea that is not directed in faith to the living God is just noise. It is a clanging cymbal. It has no substance. God, the Almighty (Shaddai), will not "perceive it." This doesn't mean He is unaware of it. The Almighty is aware of everything. It means He will not regard it, He will not pay attention to it in a saving or delivering way. It does not register with Him as a valid petition. It is like sending a letter with no address. It is just shouting into the wind. This is a severe mercy from Elihu. He is explaining that some prayers are designed to fail because they are launched from a platform of pride and unbelief.

v. 14 “How much less when you say you do not perceive Him, The case is before Him, and you must wait for Him!”

Here, Elihu turns the argument directly on Job. "How much less..." If God does not listen to the generic, empty cry of the proud, how much less will He respond to you, Job, when you explicitly say you cannot see Him? Job has been complaining that God is hidden, that he cannot find Him to present his case (e.g., Job 23:8-9). Elihu says this very complaint is part of the problem. But then he offers a word of profound pastoral counsel. "The case is before Him, and you must wait for Him!" Your case, Job, is already before the judge. You don't need to find Him; He is already aware of your situation. Your task is not to hunt Him down, but to trust Him. Your job is to wait. This is the posture of faith that was missing from the cries of the oppressed. It is a waiting that is not passive resignation, but active, dependent trust in the sovereign justice of God. You must wait for Him, not just for a verdict or for relief.

v. 15 “And now, because He has not visited in His anger, Nor has He acknowledged transgression well,”

This verse is difficult, but it seems to be Elihu's critique of Job's reasoning. Elihu is saying that Job has misinterpreted God's patience. "Because He has not visited in His anger..." That is, because God has not immediately struck down the wicked or even Job himself, Job has wrongly concluded certain things. God's patience has been mistaken for indifference. Job has not "acknowledged transgression well," or as some translations put it, God "does not take much note of arrogance." Job sees wickedness seemingly going unpunished and his own integrity going unrewarded, and from this apparent divine inaction, he has started to draw wrong conclusions about God's character and justice.

v. 16 “So Job opens his mouth vainly; He multiplies words without knowledge.”

This is the conclusion of the matter. Because Job has reasoned from a faulty premise (interpreting God's patience as indifference), his response has been faulty. He "opens his mouth vainly." His eloquent, passionate speeches are, in the final analysis, empty. And why? Because "He multiplies words without knowledge." Job is an intelligent man. He has said many true things. But his core complaint, his central accusation against God, is rooted in ignorance. He does not have the whole picture. He is speaking about matters that are too high for him. He is multiplying words, piling them up, but they lack the one thing that would give them weight: true knowledge of God's sovereign purposes. This is a direct rebuke, but it is a necessary one, intended to lead Job out of the whirlwind of his own words and into a quiet waiting for the whirlwind of God.

Application

The message of Elihu here is a bracing tonic for our therapeutic and sentimental age. We are taught to "validate" every cry of pain, to treat every expression of suffering as untouchable and sacred. Elihu teaches us that a cry of pain can be shot through with pride, unbelief, and arrogance. The application for us is first to examine our own prayers when we are in trouble. When affliction comes, what is our first response? Do we cry out against the injustice, against the oppressor, against the unfairness of it all? Or do we say, "Where is God my Maker?" Our first move must be vertical.

Second, we must learn the difference between demanding relief and seeking God. The former is the cry of a beast; the latter is the prayer of a child. God is not a cosmic vending machine where we insert a prayer of complaint and expect a neatly packaged solution to drop down. He is the sovereign Lord who gives songs in the night. He is more interested in our holiness than in our comfort. He uses the darkness to teach us to sing. The goal is not to get out of the night, but to find God in the night.

Finally, when God is silent, we must learn to wait. Faith is not getting all the answers. Faith is trusting the one who has all the answers. Job wanted a confrontation, a trial, a verdict. Elihu tells him to wait. Waiting is one of the most difficult and most sanctifying disciplines of the Christian life. It strips us of our pride and our self-reliance. It forces us to confess that we are not in control, but that we serve the one who is. So when we are tempted to multiply words without knowledge, to fill the silence with our vain complaints, the wisest thing we can do is be still. The case is before Him. We must wait for Him.