Biblion Bible Commentary
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Elihu: Far Be It from God to Do Wickedness
Job 34:1-20
1 Moreover Elihu answered, · WEB
Elihu argues that a God who owes nobody the world has no motive to be unjust, and then overstates Job's position to make the point land.
The address widens. He is no longer speaking only to Job but to you wise men... you who have knowledge Job 34:2, and he proposes a method: let us choose for us that which is right Job 34:4. It is the language of a panel weighing evidence rather than of a man defending a rule.
His summary of Job's position starts accurately. I am righteous, God has taken away my right Job 34:5 is a fair rendering of the oath in chapter 27 Job 27:2.
Then it slips. Job drinks scorn like water and goes in company with the workers of iniquity, and walks with wicked men Job 34:7–8 — which is not true and edges back toward the friends' method. And the quotation in verse 9 is a distortion: it profits a man nothing that he should delight himself with God.
What Job said was that the wicked prosper and ask why they should serve God Job 21:15, and he distanced himself from them in the next breath: the counsel of the wicked is far from me Job 21:16. Elihu has put the wicked man's conclusion into Job's mouth.
That matters, because it is a version of the accuser's original question. Does Job fear God for nothing? Job 1:9 assumed that piety is a transaction. Elihu is charging Job with saying that the transaction does not pay — and Job's entire refusal to curse God is the evidence that he never held it.
The positive argument is the strongest thing in the four speeches, and it runs from ownership. Who put him in charge of the earth? Or who has appointed him over the whole world? Job 34:13.
Nobody appointed him, so nobody can call him to account — but that is not Elihu's conclusion. His conclusion is the opposite of the cynical one. A ruler who holds office from a superior may bend justice to keep the post; a judge appointed by nobody has no such pressure. God has no constituency to satisfy and nothing to gain by wronging anyone, so far be it from God, that he should do wickedness Job 34:10.
He pushes it further with a startling image. If God were to set his heart on himself and simply withdraw his own breath, all flesh would perish together, and man would turn again to dust Job 34:14–15.
Every living thing continues because God keeps lending it breath. Injustice would be unnecessary; indifference alone would end the world. The fact that anything is alive at this moment is evidence of sustained attention.
And the impartiality is stated in a form the friends never reached. God doesn't respect the persons of princes, nor respect the rich more than the poor, for they all are the work of his hands Job 34:19 — the same argument from a common maker that Job used about his own servants Job 31:15.
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