Bible Glide

Job 35

Job 35 Summary, Context, and Full Chapter

In Job 35, Elihu continues his response by challenging Job's complaint that living rightly has brought no benefit. He points to God's greatness, human limits, and the difference between suffering with humility and speaking from pride.

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What happens in Job 35?

Elihu questions Job's claim that he is more righteous than God and argues that human actions do not add to or take from the Lord. He says sin hurts other people more than it harms God, and righteousness does not put God in our debt. Elihu then turns to the problem of unanswered cries, saying that people often call for relief but do not seek God as their Maker. He closes by insisting that empty or proud words do not move God, and that Job has spoken without understanding.

This chapter sits near the end of Elihu's speeches in Job. He is answering Job's arguments and the comments of Job's friends before the Lord finally speaks in the chapters that follow. Chapter 35 continues Elihu's focus on God's justice, human pride, and the need to wait for God's response.

Themes to notice

  • God's greatnessElihu stresses that God is above human actions and is not dependent on what people do.
  • Human prideThe chapter warns against speaking as if God owes us an answer or reward.
  • Suffering and prayerIt contrasts desperate cries for help with the need to seek God with humility.

Questions for Job 35

  • What is Elihu correcting when he asks whether Job thinks he is more righteous than God?
  • How does this chapter describe the limits of human sin and human righteousness before God?
  • What does Elihu say people often miss when they cry out in trouble?

Read the full text of Job 35 below, then open it in the reader to highlight, take notes, or ask follow-up Bible questions. No account is required to read.

Job 35

Elihu Recalls God’s Justice

1And Elihu went on to say:

2“Do you think this is just?

You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’

3For you ask, ‘What does it profit me,

and what benefit do I gain apart from sin?’

4I will reply to you

and to your friends as well.

5Look to the heavens and see;

gaze at the clouds high above you.

6If you sin, what do you accomplish against Him?

If you multiply your transgressions, 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 affects only a man like yourself,

and your righteousness only a son of man.

9Men cry out under great oppression;

they plead for relief from the arm of the mighty.

10But no one asks, ‘Where is God my Maker,

who gives us songs in the night,

11who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth

and makes us wiser than the birds of the air?’

12There they cry out, but He does not answer,

because of the pride of evil men.

13Surely God does not listen to empty pleas,

and the Almighty does not take note of it.

14How much less, then, when you say that you do not see Him,

that your case is before Him and you must wait for Him,

15and further, that in His anger He has not punished

or taken much notice of folly!

16So Job opens his mouth in vain

and multiplies words without knowledge.”

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