Job 35:14-16

4. Job has approached God in the wrong spirit. (Job 35:14-16)

TEXT 35:14-16

14 How much less when thou sayest thou beholdest him not,

The cause is before him, and thou waitest for him!

15 But now, because he hath not visited in his anger,

Neither doth he greatly regard arrogance;

16 Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vanity;

He multiplieth words without knowledge.

COMMENT 35:14-16

Job 35:14If God does not listen to those who do not turn to him, how much less would He listen to Job who relentlessly pursues Him with His complaints. Other men cry out against their oppressors; but Job cries out against GodJob 13:24; Job 23:8 ff; and Job 30:20. What basis does he have for believing that God will come to his aid and deliver him from disease and death?[349] But Elihu is no more convincing in polemic than in exhortation. Job has argued his case like a lawyerJob 13:18; Job 23:4, and Elihu declares that the outcome all depends on the judge. The A. V. rendering of cause comes from -din and is best understood as case in a legal sense.[350]

[349] See suggestions of G. R. Driver, Vetus Testamentum, 1955, p. 89.

[350] G. R. Driver, Vetus Testamentum, 1960, p. 89.

Job 35:15In Job 21:14 ff Job has asserted that the wicked go unpunished. Perhaps Elihu is referring to this Jobian claim. God does not regard arrogance, or perhaps with Brown, Driver, and Briggsfolly. The obscurity of this verse is not reduced by the A. V. rendering of greatly regard, as the Hebrew has greatly know, when we would expectnot know at all.

Job 35:16The verse is addressed to the bystanders, not Job.