Job 35 · The Lantern

Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

Elihu spoke moreover, and said,

Do you think this to be right, that you said, My righteousness is more than God’s?

For you said, What advantage will it be to you? and, What profit shall I have, if I be cleansed from my sin?

"He said, you do not like what is virtuous." Elihu says that holy Job had a wrong opinion about God, and these words are gathered from his reflections, because God is offended by this fact, as Job ascribes to him the errors of others.

For thou saidst, that which is right doth not please thee, or what will it profit thee, if I shall have sinned. If the whole course of the book is attended to, blessed Job is proved to have said none of these things.

Eliud distinctly says that Job had this intention, "For you said: Good does not please you, (or in another text, 'what is right') or what does it profit you if I sin?" These two sayings are never found in what Job has said, but the first of them, that good does not please God, he seems to find in what Job had said in Chapter Ten, "If I am wicked, woe is me!

I will answer you, and your companions with you.

Look to the heavens, and see; and look the clouds which are higher than you.

The one who looks at the heavens is not he who raises his physical eyes and observes the heavens. Indeed, also dogs and donkeys look at the heavens in this manner. No one who loves the world looks at the heavens, but only he who does not love the world and the things which are in it. If we love the things that are here, we do not look to the heavens.

Look unto the heaven, and see, and behold the sky, that it is higher than thou. If thou hast sinned, what wilt thou hurt Him? If thine iniquities have been multiplied, what wilt thou do against Him? If, moreover, thou hast acted justly, what wilt thou give Him, or what will He receive of thy hand?

He begins from what he had said last, showing that God cannot be helped or harmed by our good and evil works, and this is so because of his high character. He proposes this first saying, "Look up to heaven," which is the throne of God.

If you sin, what do you do against him? or if your transgressions be multiplied, what do you do to him?

If you look at the heavens and contemplate the clouds, you will understand that you sinned. And what do you need to do? It is necessary that you approach the high priest and implore him to offer a victim for you.

These words mean, you will do no wrong to him, and you will not be more useful to him by being righteous. In fact, he said, "If I have sinned, what shall I be able to do?" What shall I do to you? Elihu says, Why did you say that? Does God care about the fact that you sinned, as if he is the victim of an injustice or as if he is suffering damage?

So he says, "If you sin", against yourself or God, "what harm will you do him?" as if to say: He will suffer no detriment from this. As to the sins which are committed against one's neighbor, he then says, "and if your iniquities are multiplied", by which you unjustly wound your neighbors, "what will you do against him?" as if to say: In no way will he be injured by this.

If you are righteous, what do you give him? or what receives he of your hand?

Your wickedness may hurt a man as you are; and your righteousness may profit the son of man.

Thine iniquity will hurt a man, who is like thee, and thy righteousness will profit the son of man. The iniquity of man hurts him, whom it pollutes by perversion. And, again, our righteousness profits him, whom it converts from his wickedness. For those things cannot either hurt, or profit, which cannot either corrupt from what is good, or change from what is evil.

"Your wickedness affects others like you." If one asks, "Why does God judge [the wicked] if their sin does not harm him personally?" [the author] brings forward the reason and says, "Because of the multitude of oppressions people cry out; they call for help." It is not for him, he says, that the [impious] are punished, but because of those who are oppressed and robbed and cry o…

One could object that God did not care whether man acts justly or unjustly. To answer this he then adds, "Your impiety will harm man who is your fellow creature", because he can receive harm; "and your justice will help a son of man," who needs the help of justice. This is why God prohibits impiety and commands justice, since God cares about men who are helped or hurt by this.

By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty.

But none says, Where is God my maker, who gives songs in the night;

These words mean, do you not see that everything is set in good order, as in a field, and that with an even greater precision each object is in the most convenient place? [Do you not see] that no object exceeds its own limit or steps on the area reserved to another? It is as if the night watches control everything; during the sleep of mortals nobody tries to attack.

And He said not, Where is God, Who made me? It is the practice of Holy Scripture, to pass suddenly from the singular to the plural, and to turn itself from the plural to the singular. Whence Eliu, when saying, They will cry and wail, did not subjoin, They said not, Where is God? but, He said not, Where is God?

Then he turns himself to rejecting the other thing Job said, "what is right does not please you," which is repugnant to divine wisdom.

Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of heaven?

There they cry, but none gives answer, because of the pride of evil men.

Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.

Although you say you shall not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust you in him.

"For he, the Almighty, observes all those who commit impieties. But plead before him, if you can praise him conveniently." If he had established a court and had published its decisions, you would have not praised him, you would have not glorified him, as he deserves, with regard to what happened to you, because you think you have been unjustly punished.

Even when thou shall say, He doth not consider, judge thyself before Him, and wait for Him. For perhaps when our cry seems to be disregarded, the hope, which was in our heart, is weakened, and we believe that assistance from above will fail us, because we are too slow in asking: and we lament that the unavenged wrongs we are enduring are almost disregarded by God.

God especially does not seem to see the causes of individuals because the wicked sometimes prosper, but to disprove this he says, "Even though you have said," i.e.

But now, because it is not so, he has visited in his anger; yet he knows it not in great extremity:

Therefore does Job open his mouth in vain; he multiplies words without knowledge.

Job35

Elihu Recalls God’s Justice