Overview
Elihu challenges Job's self-justifying posture by arguing that God's transcendent perfection is untouched by human sin or virtue, that anguished cries go unanswered when not genuinely directed toward the Creator, and that Job has mistaken God's patient silence for indifference, filling the void with hollow speech.
Passages
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Job 35
1Moreover Elihu answered,
2“Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s,’
3that you ask, ‘What advantage will it be to you? What profit will I have, more than if I had sinned?’
4I will answer you, and your companions with you.
5Look to the skies, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you.
6If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him? If your transgressions are multiplied, what do you do to him?
7If you are righteous, what do you give him? Or what does he receive from your hand?
8Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man.
9“By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty.
10But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,
11who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’
12There they cry, but no one answers, because of the pride of evil men.
13Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the Almighty regard it.
14How much less when you say you don’t see him. The cause is before him, and you wait for him!
15But now, because he has not visited in his anger, neither does he greatly regard arrogance,
16therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge.”