Job 35: What the Passage Says

The Chapter in a Sentence

Elihu keeps speaking, and answers Job's complaint that living rightly brings no profit. He argues that a person's sin takes nothing from God and a person's right living gives God nothing; such actions affect other human beings. He says people crushed by powerful oppressors cry out but do not turn to God their Maker, and that God does not answer empty cries. He ends by saying that Job talks for nothing and piles up words without knowledge.

Claim by Claim

1. 35:1
   • Elihu spoke again.
   • Elihu said the following.
2. 35:2
   • Elihu asks Job whether he considers this to be just.
   • Elihu says Job claimed his own righteousness exceeded God's.
   • The claim attributed to Job is ambiguous in the Hebrew: it can mean 'I am more righteous than God' or 'my vindication comes from God.'
3. 35:3
   • Elihu says Job asked what advantage it brings.
   • Elihu says Job asked what profit he gains from not sinning.
   • It is ambiguous whom Job's question 'what does it profit you' addresses.
4. 35:4
   • Elihu says he will answer Job with words.
   • Elihu says he will answer Job's companions along with him.
5. 35:5
   • Elihu tells Job to look at the heavens and see.
   • Elihu tells Job to gaze at the clouds.
   • Elihu says the clouds are higher than Job.
6. 35:6
   • Elihu asks what Job accomplishes against God if Job sins.
   • Elihu asks what Job does to God if Job's transgressions are many.
7. 35:7
   • Elihu asks what Job gives God if Job is righteous.
   • Elihu asks what God receives from Job's hand.
8. 35:8
   • Elihu says Job's wickedness affects a man like himself.
   • Elihu says Job's righteousness affects a son of man.
9. 35:9
   • Because of the great number of oppressions, people cry out.
   • They cry for help because of the arm of the mighty.
10. 35:10
    • No one asks where God his maker is.
    • God gives songs in the night.
11. 35:11
    • God teaches people more than he teaches the beasts of the earth.
    • God makes people wiser than the birds of the heavens.
12. 35:12
    • There they cry out.
    • No answer is given to their cry.
    • The lack of answer is because of the pride of evil men.
13. 35:13
    • God does not hear an empty cry.
    • The Almighty does not regard it.
14. 35:14
    • Job says that he does not see God.
    • Judgment is before God.
    • Job is told to wait for God.
15. 35:15
    • Elihu says God has not called to account in his anger.
    • Elihu says God does not take great notice of wrongdoing.
    • The term for what God does not notice is obscure and has been understood as transgression, folly, or arrogance.
16. 35:16
    • Job opens his mouth to no purpose.
    • Job multiplies words without knowledge.

Words Worth Explaining

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

35:1

Elihu is the fourth and last of Job's human visitors, a younger man who has been speaking since chapter 32, after the three older friends fell silent. This chapter continues a single long speech; "went on speaking" marks a new section, not a new conversation.

35:2

Elihu is putting words in Job's mouth, a debating summary rather than a direct quotation. Job has claimed to be in the right (as in 13:18 and 27:5–6), but never said in so many words that he was more righteous than God. The Hebrew phrase itself is ambiguous: it can mean "my righteousness is greater than God's" or "I am in the right before God."

35:3

The pronouns shift oddly here in the Hebrew, "what does it profit you" and then "what do I gain", which is why translations differ over who is speaking to whom. The second half is also ambiguous: the Hebrew reads literally "more than my sin," so it can mean either "what do I gain by being cleansed of my sin?" or "what better off am I than if I had sinned?"

35:4

"Your friends" are Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar, the three men who came to comfort Job and then spent chapters arguing that his suffering must be punishment for wrongdoing.

35:5

Pointing at the height of the sky is a standard move in Hebrew poetry for talking about distance and scale. Eliphaz used the same image against Job in 22:12. The clouds are the ordinary, visible measure of "far above you"; the argument that follows depends on that distance.

35:6

The King James uses two different words on purpose. "Sin" is the general word for going wrong; "transgressions" translates a stronger Hebrew word meaning rebellion, a deliberate breaking of a relationship rather than a slip.

35:7

"Of thine hand" means "from you", and the phrase carries the picture of handing something over, the way a worshiper hands over an offering. Elihu is asking what God actually receives when a person does right.

35:8

"Son of man" in the King James is a Hebrew idiom meaning simply a human being, a member of the human race. It carries no special title or rank here.

35:9

"The arm of the mighty" uses arm as the standard Hebrew image for force or power, the way English says "strong-arm." The picture is of powerful people using their strength against those who cannot resist.

35:10

"Songs in the night", night is the usual Hebrew image for a time of distress or trouble, not merely the hours of darkness. Some scholars read the Hebrew word behind "songs" as a similar word meaning "strength" or "protection," which would give "who gives us strength in the night."

35:11

The Hebrew particle here can mean either "more than" or "by means of," so the line reads either "teaches us more than he teaches the animals" or "teaches us by means of the animals": that is, through what can be learned from watching them. Both readings are old and neither can be ruled out.

35:12

"There" is vague in the Hebrew too, most likely meaning "in that situation," under the oppression just described. The Hebrew also does not say who fails to answer; it says only that no answer comes, which translators supply either as "no one answers" or "he does not answer."

35:13

"Vanity" in 1611 English meant emptiness or worthlessness, not conceit or self-admiration; the sense is a cry that is hollow or not seriously meant. "The Almighty" translates Shaddai, an ancient title for God used far more often in Job than anywhere else in the Hebrew Bible; its original meaning is uncertain.

35:14

"Judgment" in the King James here means a legal case or cause (the matter you have brought), not a verdict against you. The picture is of Job's complaint lying filed before a judge. And where the King James says "trust," the Hebrew verb means to wait or hold out for someone, with the sense of expecting them to act.

35:15

This verse is the most damaged and disputed in the chapter; the Hebrew is obscure and ancient versions already disagreed about it. The word the King James renders "extremity" occurs nowhere else in the Hebrew Bible and nobody knows what it means, guesses include "folly," "arrogance," "transgression" and "abundance." "Visited" in the King James means called someone to account, that is, punished. Any translation of this verse, including the one beside it, is a reasoned guess.

35:16

"In vain" means to no purpose, emptily. "Multiplieth words" means piling up quantity where knowledge is missing. Worth noticing: when God finally speaks in 38:2, he uses almost the same phrase, "words without knowledge", though he aims it at a different target.