Job 34:10-12

Elihu's argument in these verses is the truest answer that can be given: injustice on the part of God is inconsistent with the idea of God. The three friends had urged the same plea. And Job would have accepted the argument had his friends or himself been able to take it up as a general principle and keep it clear from complications with the events of actual providence. When, however, they combined it with their other theory that good and evil befell men solely according to the principle of retribution, and that this latter principle was that according to which God's actual providence was entirely administered, Job could not consent to their reasoning. And as he agreed with them that retributive righteousness was or ought to be the principle of God's rule of the world, he was obliged, as he entirely failed to perceive such a principle adhered to, to charge God with injustice. It is not easy to see how Elihu differs from the friends in the position which he takes up here and in Job 34:20. He is concerned in the meantime, however, with a theoretical defence of God's justice.