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Job 35

Elihu defends God’s independence from human conduct and challenges Job’s complaints about righteousness, oppression, and God’s silence.

Elihu addresses Job and his companions, challenging what he takes to be Job’s claim that righteousness brings no advantage. He points to the skies to describe God’s greatness, then argues that human conduct harms or helps other people without making God dependent on anyone. Turning to the cries of the oppressed, Elihu links unanswered cries with pride and failure to seek their Maker. He closes by accusing Job of speaking without knowledge; Job does not answer here.

feeling distant from Godinjustice and angersermon or Bible study notes
Read
2“Do you think this to be your right, or do you say, ‘My righteousness is more than God’s,’
3that you ask, ‘What advantage will it be to you? What profit will I have, more than if I had sinned?’
4I will answer you, and your companions with you.
5Look to the skies, and see. See the skies, which are higher than you.
6If you have sinned, what effect do you have against him? If your transgressions are multiplied, 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 may hurt a man as you are, and your righteousness may profit a son of man.
9“By reason of the multitude of oppressions they cry out. They cry for help by reason of the arm of the mighty.
10But no one says, ‘Where is God my Maker, who gives songs in the night,
11who teaches us more than the animals of the earth, and makes us wiser than the birds of the sky?’
12There they cry, but no one answers, because of the pride of evil men.
13Surely God will not hear an empty cry, neither will the Almighty regard it.
14How much less when you say you don’t see him. The cause is before him, and you wait for him!
15But now, because he has not visited in his anger, neither does he greatly regard arrogance,
16therefore Job opens his mouth with empty talk, and he multiplies words without knowledge.”
World English BibleRead in NIV in Psalmlog →Highlighted verses are the most connected.
Key verses
Job 35:10Elihu contrasts cries for relief with seeking the Maker, whom he describes as giving songs in the night.
Job 35:11God’s gift of wisdom distinguishes humans from animals and grounds Elihu’s expectation that sufferers should seek their Maker.
Job 35:9The cries of people crushed by the mighty introduce the question of why appeals for help go unanswered.
Where this chapter reaches

Psalm and Isaiah share this chapter’s language of cries under oppression and God as Maker, connecting suffering with appeals to the Creator. Genesis shares its distinction between humans and animals, while Proverbs also links wisdom, pride, and God’s response to prayer.

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Notice

After reading the whole chapter

What distinction does Elihu draw between crying for help and seeking God, and what questions does it raise?

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How does Elihu’s claim that human conduct affects other people shape your reading of his argument?

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Questions people ask about Job 35

What does “songs in the night” mean in Job 35:10?

Elihu describes God the Maker as the one “who gives songs in the night.” The phrase suggests that God can give grounds for praise amid darkness or distress. It appears within Elihu’s complaint that oppressed people cry for relief without seeking the God who gives them life and wisdom.

Does Job 35 say unanswered prayer is caused by pride?

Elihu connects unanswered cries with pride in verse 12 and says God does not hear an empty cry in verse 13. These statements belong to his argument against Job. The chapter records Elihu’s explanation; it does not establish that pride explains every unanswered prayer or every sufferer’s experience of silence.

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Cross-reference data from OpenBible.info (CC BY). Scripture from the World English Bible (public domain). Arc diagram after Chris Harrison and Christoph Römhild (2007).