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The Book of Job

Chapter Thirty-five: You Must Wait

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What Profit Shall I Have

Job: chapter 35
1 Elihu spake moreover, and said,
2 Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God's?
3 For thou saidst, What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin?
4 I will answer thee, and thy companions with thee.
5 Look unto the heavens, and see; and behold the clouds which are higher than thou.
6 If thou sinnest, what doest thou against him? or 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 the son of man.
9 By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out 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 Although thou sayest thou shalt not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him.
15 But now, because it is not so, he hath visited in his anger; yet he knoweth it not in great extremity:
16 Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vain; he multiplieth words without knowledge.

In a free form manner, Job has questioned God and God's justice. Job has come down squarely on God's side, he just can't say why. Still full of himself, Elihu tries to latch onto Job's queries only to hideously distort Job's conclusions. He presumes to quote Job, “My righteousness is more than God's... What advantage will it be unto thee? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin” (35:2-3)? The actual quote is: “What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him” (21:15)? The preceding verse clarifies: “Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways” (21:14). “They” being “the wicked” (21:7). Job is roundly condemning this thought, which Elihu now puts in Job's mouth. Nowhere does Job vaunt himself above God in righteousness. No wonder Job is silent. Where he to speak, he would not contain his anger.

Words Without Knowledge

Having presumed a false argument, Elihu goes on to answer (35:3-4). God is unaffected by our righteousness or our sin (35:6-7). In chapter 7, Job was wishing that God would not take so much interest in his sin (7:16-19). Elihu is tip-toeing close to the ‘night vision’ of Eliphaz (4:12-21). Fyall notes, “if Elihu is right God will simply not appear to Job, and thus it is difficult to imagine a greater marginalizing of Elihu than the spectacular appearance of God which is shortly to happen” (Fyall 1995, 100).

Elihu continues: “by... the multitude of oppressions... the oppressed cry” (35:9). Elihu begins to slide off into a defense of God, answering Job's statements, “The earth is given into the hand of the wicked” (9:24), “Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded crieth out: yet God layeth not folly to them” (24:12). Elihu suggests that the victims have failed to call on God: “But none saith, Where is God my maker?” (35:10).

Because of the pride of evil men the cry is not heard, (35:12), God won't listen to vanity (35:13). The Hebrew word translated as ‘vanity’ is ‘shâv’, which Strong's defines as ‘guile’ or ‘vanity’ in the sense of falsity (Strong, H7723). The sense is: you can't fool God with a two-pronged implication: that the oppressed multitudes are not heard by God because of their corruption, and that Job too is lying to God. “How much less when you say you do not behold Him,” Elihu scolds, “The case is before Him, and you must wait for Him!” (35:14, NASB). This NASB translation, which uses the word ‘wait’, seems to bring out the meaning indicated by the Hebrew word ‘chûl’ (Strong, H2342), but lacks the intensity of it. “The word which is used here (tchûlël, from chûl) means ‘to turn around’; to twist; to be firm – as a rope is that is twisted; and then to wait or delay – that is, to be firm in patience” (Barnes, note to 35:14). This is is the same word we saw in verse 26:5 and again 26:13 referring to dead things and serpents. The word is used the refer to birth: “wast thou made before the hills” (15:7), “hinds do calve” (39:1; also Ps. 29:9), as in the writhing of birth-pangs. It also refers to strong pain: “The wicked man travaileth” (15:20). Finally, it is used in this sense, being bound in the midst of transformation: “Rest in the LORD, and wait patiently for him” (Ps. 37:7); and again, “I waited patiently for the LORD; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry. He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings” (Ps. 40:1-2).

Wait and God will bring more wrath, or clarify your sin (35:15). To speak before that is to “multiplieth words without knowledge” (35:16). This is the core of God's opening statement to Job, in chapter 38. Elihu may be an imperfect vessel, but, here, his council is excellent, probably led by the Holy Spirit. Elihu is not listening to his own advise. Too eager to speak for God, he rushes ahead with horrid presumption. Elihu's own vanity won't let him wait on the Lord. He, too, multiplies words without knowledge, even as he scolds Job, his elder, for the same. “Even a fool, when he holdeth his peace, is counted wise: and he that shutteth his lips is esteemed a man of understanding” (Prov. 17:28). By this point Job has shut his lips and is waiting. He further declines to reply to Elihu which, as I mentioned, seems to have enraged the proud young man.


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*All Bible quotes are from the King James Version unless otherwise indicated.



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