Reflections on Job 35

 Job 35 (Contemporary English Version)

1. Elihu said:
   
2. Job, are you really innocent in the sight of God?
   
3. Don't you honestly believe it pays to obey him?
   
4. I will give the answers to you and your friends.
   
5. Look up to the heavens
   
6. and think! Do your sins hurt God?
   
7. Is any good you may have done at all helpful to him?
   
8. The evil or good you do only affects other humans.
   
9. In times of trouble, everyone begs the mighty God to have mercy.
   
10. But after their Creator helps them through hard times, they forget about him,
    
11. though he makes us wiser than animals or birds.
    
12. God won't listen to the prayers of proud and evil people.
    
13. If God All-Powerful refuses to answer their empty prayers,
    
14. he will surely deny your impatient request to face him in court.
    
15. Job, you were wrong to say God doesn't punish sin.
    
16. Everything you have said adds up to nonsense.

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Elihu continued his speech, telling Job that it was he who was unjust rather than God. Is it just, he asked, for Job to say, "I am righteous," and to also ask, "What does it profit . . . if I do not sin?" He tells Job to consider God who is high above him and the clouds. How does sin affect Him? Or if you are righteous, of what benefit is that to God? It is only man, he says, who is affected by our actions.

People cry out to God when they are oppressed but they do not consider who God is and what He does for them. This is because of their pride, he says. But God does not pay attention to their pleas because their cries are empty. They are thinking only of themselves and not of God. Job, according to Elihu, compounds this when he complains that he cannot see God and is having to wait on Him to do something about his case. With what appears to be sarcasm, Elihu adds, that Job's complaint is in vain because, according to Job, God "does not pay attention to transgression." But Elihu misconstrued Job in this. Job did not say that God does not pay attention to transgression, only that God does not always deal with it in this lifetime.

Missing through nearly all the speeches to this point, including those of Job, is God's love. Scripture tells us "God is love," one example being, Exodus 34:6: "Yahweh is a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger and rich in faithful love and truth." But this aspect of God is almost completely absent throughout the discourse between Job and his friends. Job made one reference of God's love early in the discourse and Elihu mentioned it later in his present speech. But these are passing references and do not seem to influence their thoughts to any great degree.

Can a loving God be unconcerned about Job's plight or unaffected by man's sin or his righteousness? I think not. He was so affected by man's sin that He provided a way, though His own Son, to deal with it.