Job 35:14 - Meaning and Application

Here is another wrong thing Elihu says Job said: “You say you will not see him” (Job 35:14). He means, first, that Job was complaining he could not understand God’s harsh dealings or see their purpose (Job 23:8, Job 23:9). He also means that Job had nearly given up hope of seeing God’s kindness again or enjoying better days, much like Hezekiah’s words, “I will not see the Lord” (Isa 38:11).

People are often like this. In good times, we think our comfort will last forever. In hard times, we think our trouble will never end. But both thoughts are foolish. We act as if tomorrow must be exactly like today, which makes as little sense as saying fair weather will always stay fair, or that the tide will never change.

Elihu’s answer is that Job had no good reason to speak so hopelessly if he had looked to God rightly. “Judgment is before him” means God knows exactly what he is doing. He acts with perfect wisdom and justice. He has the whole plan of providence, God’s wise rule over all things, before him, while we do not. There is also a day of judgment ahead, when the seeming confusion of providence will be made clear and all its dark parts explained.

Then Job would see the full meaning of these painful events, and he would see God’s face with joy. So Elihu says Job should trust God, depend on him, wait for him, and believe the end will be good. When we remember that God is infinitely wise, righteous, and faithful, and that he is a God of judgment (Isa 30:18), we have every reason to hope for help from him at the right time.

Elihu then says that if Job had not yet seen the end of his troubles, it was because he had not trusted and waited for God as he should (Job 35:15). “Because it is not so” means, in Elihu’s view, that Job’s lack of trust had mixed God’s displeasure with his suffering. Elihu thought God had visited Job in anger because Job had not been willing to trust him, but had held hard thoughts about him.

If there is any anger from God mixed into our afflictions, we must blame ourselves. It is often because we do not respond rightly. We argue with God, become restless and impatient, and distrust his care. That was Job’s case, in Elihu’s view. “A fool’s way destroys his life, yet his heart rages against the Lord” (Pro 19:3).

Elihu believed Job, in his great pain, did not see this as he should, and did not realize that his own posture was part of the problem. So Elihu concludes that Job “opens his mouth in vain” (Job 35:16). He means Job’s complaints and demands for justice are useless, or even his attempts to defend his innocence, because he is not trusting God and waiting for him. Job had said much, and had spoken many words, but Elihu thinks it was all without knowledge and to no purpose, because Job did not comfort himself in God or humble himself before him.

It is vain for us to appeal to God or defend ourselves if we do not seek the purpose of affliction. It is vain to pray for relief if we do not trust God. “The one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind” and should not expect to receive anything from the Lord (Jam 1:7). Or Elihu may be speaking of Job’s whole speech. After showing that some of Job’s words were plainly wrong, he concludes that other parts of the speech were marked by the same ignorance and mistake.

Elihu does not condemn Job as a hypocrite, as his other friends did. He only charges him with speaking rashly when his spirit was provoked, like Moses when he spoke carelessly in anger. When we do that, and who does not stumble in speech?, it is a mercy to be corrected. We should take such correction patiently and kindly, as Job did, not repeating what we have said wrongly, but admitting that we were wrong.