Job 35 · a question people ask

Elihu asks whether Job says, "My righteousness is more than God’s" (35:2). Did Job say that?

In the text

Elihu asks it as a question, and doesn't say where Job said it: "Do you think this to be your right" (35:2), or does he say, "My righteousness is more than God’s" (35:2). In the WEB, more than God's comes in the book only here; Job's own speeches never say it. Here are Job's own words. "My cause is righteous" (6:29), where righteous is 35:2's my righteousness in Hebrew (tap righteousness). "I know that I am righteous" (13:18). "I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go" (27:6). He had also said, "how can man be just with God?" (9:2), and "Though I am righteous, my own mouth will condemn me" (9:20). Before Elihu spoke, the book said his wrath was kindled against Job "because he justified himself rather than God" (32:2). The words of 35:3 are given to Job the same way; Job 34's honest question on what Job said sets the words Elihu gave him there (34:9) beside Job's own. Job had said that the wicked tell God, "What profit should we have, if we pray to him?" (21:15), with 35:3's profit in Hebrew (tap profit). And where Elihu says, "you say you don’t see him" (35:14), Job had said, "Behold, he goes by me, and I don’t see him" (9:11), with another Hebrew verb for see. Elihu doesn't say which of Job's words he has in view. These notes set the verses side by side and don't decide whether he reports them fairly.

The verses

““Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s,’ that you ask, ‘What advantage will it be to you? What profit will I have, more than if I had sinned?’”
Job 35:2-3 · World English Bible
“How much less when you say you don’t see him. The cause is before him, and you wait for him!”
Job 35:14 · World English Bible
“Please return. Let there be no injustice. Yes, return again. My cause is righteous.”
Job 6:29 · World English Bible
“See now, I have set my cause in order. I know that I am righteous.”
Job 13:18 · World English Bible

From Favor's study of Job 35

Job 35: Songs in the night

Elihu's "There they cry, but no one answers" (35:12) has, in Hebrew, the verbs of Job's own "I cry out of wrong, but I am not heard" (19:7), and his "what effect do you have against him?" (35:6) begins with the same two Hebrew words as Zophar's "What can you do?" (11:8).

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Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible, which is in the public domain. Every answer cites the verses it rests on. What we believe · All Bible questions