Job 34: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Elihu keeps speaking, now calling on the wise men listening to weigh his case with him. He quotes Job's claim to be righteous and to have been denied justice by God, and answers that God cannot do wrong: he repays each person according to his deeds, watches every step a man takes, shows no favor to kings or the rich, and can remove the powerful without an inquiry. Elihu ends by saying Job speaks without knowledge and by wishing Job tested to the limit for answering the way wicked men do.

Claim by Claim

1. 34:1
   • Elihu answered further.
   • Elihu spoke.
2. 34:2
   • Elihu called on the wise men to hear his words.
   • Elihu called on those who have knowledge to give ear to him.
3. 34:3
   • The ear tests words.
   • The palate tastes food.
4. 34:4
   • Elihu urged that they choose what is just for themselves.
   • Elihu urged that they determine among themselves what is good.
5. 34:5
   • Job has said that he is righteous.
   • Job has said that God has taken away his justice.
6. 34:6
   • Job asked whether he should lie concerning his own case.
   • Job said his wound is incurable.
   • Job said he is without transgression.
7. 34:7
   • Elihu asked what man is like Job.
   • Job drinks up scorn like water.
8. 34:8
   • Job goes in company with workers of iniquity.
   • Job walks with wicked men.
9. 34:9
   • Job has said that it profits a man nothing to take delight in God.
10. 34:10
    • Elihu called on men of understanding to listen to him.
    • It is far from God to do wickedness.
    • It is far from the Almighty to commit injustice.
11. 34:11
    • God repays a man according to his work.
    • God causes a man to find according to his ways.
12. 34:12
    • God will not act wickedly.
    • The Almighty will not pervert justice.
13. 34:13
    • Elihu asked who gave God charge over the earth.
    • Elihu asked who appointed God over the whole world.
14. 34:14
    • If God were to set his heart upon man, and gather to himself man's spirit and breath, then what follows in the next verse would occur.
    • The Hebrew leaves open whether God sets his heart upon man or upon himself.
15. 34:15
    • All flesh would perish together.
    • Man would return to dust.
16. 34:16
    • Elihu said that if his hearer has understanding, he should hear this.
    • Elihu told his hearer to listen to the voice of his words.
17. 34:17
    • Elihu asked whether one who hates justice can govern.
    • Elihu asked whether his hearer will condemn the one who is just and mighty.
18. 34:18
    • It is asked whether one may say to a king, You are worthless.
    • It is asked whether one may say to nobles, You are wicked.
    • The Hebrew leaves open whether saying this to king and nobles is improper or is what God himself does.
19. 34:19
    • God does not show partiality to princes.
    • God does not regard the rich above the poor.
    • All of them are the work of God's hands.
    • Elihu argued that it is even less fitting to accuse God than to accuse a king or princes.
20. 34:20
    • They die in a moment.
    • At midnight the people are shaken.
    • They pass away.
    • The mighty are taken away without a hand.
21. 34:21
    • God's eyes are on the ways of a man.
    • God sees all of a man's steps.
22. 34:22
    • There is no darkness where workers of iniquity may hide.
    • There is no deep shadow where workers of iniquity may hide.
23. 34:23
    • God will not lay upon a man more than is right, that the man should enter into judgment with God.
    • The Hebrew is terse and can also mean that God need not further appoint a time for a man to come before God in judgment.
24. 34:24
    • God shatters mighty men without inquiry.
    • God sets others in their place.
25. 34:25
    • God knows their works.
    • God overturns them in the night.
    • They are crushed.
26. 34:26
    • God strikes them as wicked men.
    • God strikes them in the sight of onlookers.
27. 34:27
    • They turned aside from following God.
    • They did not consider any of God's ways.
28. 34:28
    • Their conduct caused the cry of the poor to come before God.
    • God hears the cry of the afflicted.
29. 34:29
    • When God gives quietness, no one can condemn.
    • When God hides his face, no one can behold him.
    • This holds alike over a nation and over a single man.
30. 34:30
    • This is so that a godless man should not reign.
    • This is so that the people should not be ensnared.
31. 34:31
    • Elihu said it is fitting to say to God, I have borne chastisement.
    • Elihu said it is fitting to say to God, I will not offend any more.
32. 34:32
    • Elihu said one should ask God to teach him what he does not see.
    • Elihu said one should say that if he has done iniquity, he will not do it again.
33. 34:33
    • Elihu asked whether God should recompense on his hearer's terms.
    • Elihu said his hearer has refused God's terms.
    • Elihu said the choosing belongs to his hearer and not to Elihu.
    • Elihu told his hearer to speak what he knows.
34. 34:34
    • Elihu said men of understanding will speak to him.
    • Elihu said a wise man listening to him will agree.
35. 34:35
    • Job speaks without knowledge.
    • Job's words are without insight.
36. 34:36
    • Elihu desired that Job be tried to the end.
    • The reason is Job's answers made like those of wicked men.
37. 34:37
    • Job adds rebellion to his sin.
    • Job claps his hands among them.
    • Job multiplies his words against God.

Words Worth Explaining

Every language note in this chapter, gathered. These explain what a word meant, never what it means for the reader.

34:1

Elihu is the fourth and youngest speaker. He broke into the debate at chapter 32, after Job's three friends had run out of arguments, and he speaks four times in a row without anyone answering him. This is the third of those speeches.

34:3

In 1611 English "meat" meant food of any kind, not flesh in particular. The proverb is one Job himself used earlier (12:11); Elihu is quoting Job's own saying back at him.

34:4

KJV "judgment" in this chapter almost always means justice, or a court's verdict, not the act of forming an opinion. "Let us choose to us judgment" means: let us work out together what a just ruling would be.

34:5

Elihu is summarizing Job rather than quoting him word for word; the closest thing Job actually said is at 27:2. The complaint is a legal one, Job says he has been denied a hearing, not merely that he feels hard done by.

34:6

The Hebrew word for the wound is the one used for an arrow wound (compare 6:4). The last phrase is compressed and translators attach it differently, but both readings come out the same: the wound will not heal, and nothing Job did earned it.

34:7

Drinking something "like water" is an idiom for taking it in freely and in large quantity. Eliphaz used it of wicked men drinking down evil (15:16). The Hebrew leaves open whether Job swallows the mockery aimed at him or pours it out on others.

34:8

"Walketh with" is an idiom for keeping company with people and sharing their outlook. Elihu is not accusing Job of actual crimes; he is saying Job's arguments sound like the arguments of people who have no regard for God.

34:9

Job never says this in these words anywhere in the book. The nearest thing is 21:15, where Job reports what wicked men say. Elihu is stating what he takes to be the logical end of Job's argument, and treating it as Job's own position.

34:10

"The Almighty" translates Shaddai, an ancient title for God used far more often in Job than in the rest of the Hebrew Bible; its original meaning is no longer certain. "Far be it from God" renders a fixed phrase of horrified rejection, close to "unthinkable."

34:11

This is the standard principle Job's three friends have argued all along: what happens to you matches what you have done. Job has spent the book insisting it does not always hold.

34:13

A rhetorical question expecting the answer "no one." A human official holds his post from somebody above him, and can be leaned on by whoever appointed him; the question turns on the fact that no one appointed God.

34:14

"Spirit" and "breath" render two Hebrew words for the breath of life that animates a living body, the same idea as Genesis 2:7, where God breathes life into the first man. Drawing that breath back in is a picture of death.

34:15

"Return to the dust" echoes the wording of Genesis 3:19.

34:16

Elihu switches here from the plural "you" of verses 2–10, addressed to the wise men listening, to a singular "you" addressed to Job alone. Modern English "you" covers both, so the change is invisible.

34:17

The argument rests on an assumption Elihu treats as obvious: nobody who despised justice could hold an entire world together, since rule by pure whim would collapse. So, he reasons, the one who does hold it together cannot be unjust.

34:18

The Hebrew has no verb in this line, and it can be read two ways. KJV reads it as a question about what is proper for a subject to say to his king, leading into verse 19: how much worse to say it to God. The other reading makes it a description of God himself, who does tell kings they are worthless. "Worthless" translates beliyya'al, a very strong word of contempt.

34:19

KJV "accepteth not the persons" renders a Hebrew courtroom idiom, literally "lifting the face", showing partiality to one side, the standard charge against a corrupt judge.

34:20

"Without hand" is an idiom meaning without human agency: no assassin, no army, no visible cause. The powerful simply drop.

34:22

KJV "shadow of death" translates tsalmaweth, a Hebrew word for the thickest possible darkness. Whether "death" is really part of the word is disputed; the sense is pitch black.

34:23

One of the hardest verses in the book. KJV takes it as God not loading a man with more than is fair. Others take it as God not needing to set a man a date to appear in court, because he requires no further investigation before judging.

34:24

KJV "without number" and the rendering's "without an investigation" translate the same Hebrew phrase, which can mean either "beyond counting" or "without inquiry": that is, without the formal examination a human court would have to hold first.

34:26

The picture is a public execution. Criminals were struck down in an open place where a crowd could watch, the shame of the setting being part of the punishment.

34:28

In the ancient Near East the outcry of someone wronged was close to a legal act: a victim's shout in a public place obliged those who heard it to take the case up. The claim here is that such a cry reaches God.

34:29

"Hides his face" is an idiom for withdrawing attention or favor, like a king refusing to grant an audience. The first half of the verse is also read by some as "when he keeps quiet, who can condemn him?" and by others as "who can declare him guilty?", the Hebrew supports both.

34:30

KJV "hypocrite" translates chanef, which in Hebrew means godless or morally polluted. It does not mean someone who fakes piety, which is what the English word suggests today.

34:31

KJV "meet" is the old word for fitting or proper. What follows is a specimen speech of submission that Elihu imagines a man making to God. The Hebrew of the opening is damaged or elliptical, which is why translations have to supply something like "suppose someone says."

34:33

The Hebrew of this verse is obscure and every translation reconstructs it differently. The general drift is: you cannot expect God to settle the account on terms you set yourself while refusing his; the decision is yours to make, not Elihu's.

34:36

"Tried" is a courtroom word here (examined, put through the full process), not "tempted." Elihu is asking that Job's case be pressed to its conclusion rather than dropped.

34:37

Clapping the hands here is a gesture of contempt, not applause. It goes with jeering at someone who has been brought down (compare Lamentations 2:15).