Verse-by-Verse Bible Commentary
Job 35:11

Clarke's Commentary

Verse Job 35:11. Who teacheth us more than the beasts — "The ox knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib; but Israel doth not know me, my people do not consider; " Isaiah 1:3. Beasts, bards, fowls, and in many cases pond-fishes, know and seem thankful to the hand that feeds them; while man, made much more noble than they, gifted with the greatest powers, privileged with the most important benefits, considers not the Lord, nor discerns the operation of his hand. Quadrupeds, reptiles, and fowls, have more gratitude to their masters than man has to his God.

Bridgeway Bible Commentary

The justice of God (34:1-35:16)

When Job does not reply to Elihu’s challenge, Elihu turns to the onlookers and repeats some of Job’s rash statements about the injustice of God (34:1-6). Let them judge for themselves. Surely such words prove Job’s wickedness (7-9).
God is not unjust, says Elihu, and no one can tell him what to do. He is the governor of the universe (10-13). He is the source of all life and, if he wished, he could bring all life to an end (14-15). God governs perfectly and shows no special favour to the rich and powerful (16-20). Unlike earthly judges, God does not have certain set times to hear evidence, nor does he carry out investigations. He sees and knows everything, and punishes the guilty according to his perfect knowledge (21-28). No one can compel God to explain why he acts or why he keeps quiet. Whether the issues concern individuals or nations, people must simply accept God’s justice (29-30).
Elihu asks Job to think about this question: if a person acknowledges his wrongdoing and promises to repent, but then demands that God reward him with favour, is that really repentance (31-33)? Not only is Job unrepentant, but he adds to his former sins by his rebellious words against God. Elihu concludes that Job deserves no relief from his sufferings (34-37).
Believing that Job has said the godly are no better off than sinners, Elihu sets out to give his reply (35:1-4). He argues that since God is infinitely higher than his human creatures, people’s sin cannot harm him nor their goodness benefit him. Therefore, Job’s suffering cannot be because of any unnatural action on God’s part. It must be solely because of Job’s wickedness (5-8).
Many cry to God for help when they are in trouble, but other times they ignore him, in spite of all he does for them. Consequently, God does not answer their prayers (9-13). How much less will he answer the prayers of Job, who rudely complains that God refuses to meet him and show his approval of him. Actually, says Elihu, God has been very patient with Job. He should have punished him even more severely because of his irreverent speech, but Job has only responded with yet more empty talk (14-16).

Coffman's Commentaries on the Bible

MORE OF ELIHU'S VAIN REASONING

"By reason of a multitude of oppressions they cry out; They cry for help by reason of the arm of the Almighty. But none saith, Where is God my Maker? Who giveth songs in the night, Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, And maketh us wiser than the birds of the heavens? There they cry, but none giveth answer, Because of the pride of evil men. Surely God will not hear an empty cry, Neither will the Almighty regard it. How much less when thou sayest thou beholdest him not, The cause is before him, and thou waitest for him! But now, because he hath not visited in his anger, Neither doth he greatly regard arrogance; Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vanity; He multiplieth words without knowledge."

"They cry for help by reason of the arm of the Almighty" "What Elihu is saying here is that when men do pray (as Job has been doing) it is merely because of their suffering, and not because of any true desire for God."Ibid.

"None saith, Where is God my Maker" "This means that they do not pray with that trust in their prayers which is pleasing to God."The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 440. The plurals here should not mislead us. Elihu is accusing Job.

"Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth. and maketh us wiser than the birds of the heavens?" We appreciate Pope's rendition of this: "Teaches us BY the beasts of the field… BY the birds of the heavens."The Anchor Bible (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, 1982), Job, p. 227. The allegation here is that the type of prayer Job has been praying, due to pain only, "Does not raise man any higher than the animal creation."The New Bible Commentary, Revised, p. 440.

"There they cry, but none giveth answer" Here is the problem of unanswered prayer; and Elihu has the glib answer ready, the wrong one, of course.

"It is because of the pride of men" The plurals here are misleading; Elihu is accusing Job. When God finally interrupted this devil-originated speech of Elihu. he did not accuse Job of pride, thus revealing Elihu's cocksure answer here as the wild guess of an ignorant man. But Elihu even had another answer.

"Surely God will not hear an empty cry" "Elihu thought that when prayer was not answered, it was because the prayer was empty";Ibid. but he did not explain what he meant by that. The New Testament reveals two great reasons why prayers are not answered. (1) "Ye have not, because ye ask not" (James 4:2). A far greater tragedy than unanswered prayer is the tragedy of unoffered prayer. (2) "Ye ask, and receive not; because ye ask amiss, that ye may spend it in your pleasures" (James 4:3).

"Thou sayest thou beholdest him not" Job indeed had complained of his inability to find God; and Barnes believed that here, "Elihu says that, although God is invisible, yet this should not be regarded as a reason why Job should not confide in him."Barnes' Notes on the Old Testament (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, a 1987 reprint of the 1878 edition),Job, Vol. 2, p. 161.

"Job 35:15 conveys no intelligible idea."Ibid.

"Job opens his mouth in vanity… multiplies words without knowledge" As our version has it, Elihu here is charging Job with all of his irresponsible talk as being able so to speak because God has overlooked his arrogance (Job 35:15). However, it was not Job, but Elihu who was, "Darkening counsel by words without knowledge," (Job 38:2), according to the verdict of Almighty God Himself.

Barnes' Notes on the Whole Bible

Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth - Who is able to teach us mere than the irrational creation; that is, in regard to the nature and design of affliction. They suffer without knowing why. They are subjected to toil and hardships; endure pain, and die, without any knowledge why all this occurs, and without any rational view of the government and plans of God. It is not, or need not be so, says Elihu, when man suffers. He is intelligent. He can understand why he is afflicted. He has only to make use of his superior endowments, and apply to his Maker, and he will see so much of the reason of his doings that he will acquiesce in the wise arrangement. Perhaps there is an implied reflection here on those who suffered generally, as if they manifested no more intelligence than the brute creation. They make no use of intellectual endowments. They do not examine the nature of the divine administration, and they do not apply to God for instruction and help. If they should do so, he would teach them so that they would acquiesce and rejoice in his government and dealings. According to this view, the meaning is, that if people suffer without relief and consolation, it is to be attributed to their stupidity and unwillingness to look to God for light and aid, and not at all to his injustice.

Smith's Bible Commentary

Chapter 35

Elihu continues to speak, he said, Do you think this to be right, that you said, My righteousness is more than God's? ( Job 35:1-2 )

Now Job didn't actually say that, but he is taking Job's words and showing that this would be the conclusion of what Job had said. "Do you think it is right that you said, 'My righteousness is more than God's'?"

For you said ( Job 35:3 ),

Here is what Job actually said,

What advantage will it be unto me? and, What profit shall I have, if I am cleansed from my sin? I will answer thee, and thy companions with thee. Look to the heavens, and see; behold the clouds which are higher than you. If you sin, what do you against him? or if any transgressions be multiplied, what do you do unto him? If thou be righteous, what do you give to him? or what receiveth he of your hand? Thy wickedness may hurt man as you are; and thy righteousness may profit the sons of men ( Job 35:3-8 ).

In other words, Elihu is saying to Job, "What can you add to God or what can you take away from God? If you live a righteous life, what's it going to do, what's it add to God? If you live a sinful life, what does it take away from God?" God is above man. So far above man. What advantage can God have in me living a good life? What does it disadvantage God for me to live a wicked life? You see, I can't really touch God. Now, it touches others if I live a sinful life, others around me may be hurt by it. They may be disadvantaged by my lying or cheating or stealing. Or if I do good, others may be benefited by my good. If I feed the poor or help them out, then they can be benefited. Man can benefit by my righteousness or sinfulness, but what does it do for God? What does it add to God that I live a righteous, holy life? Interesting questions. What can a man add unto God?

He said,

By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty. But none says, Where is God my maker, who gives songs in the night; Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, and makes us wiser than the fowls of the heaven? There they cry, but none gives answer, because of the pride of evil men. Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it. Although you say that you shall not see him, yet judgment is before him; therefore trust thou in him. But now, because it is not so, he hath visited in his anger; yet he knows it not in great extremity: Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vain; he multiplies words without knowledge ( Job 35:9-16 ). "

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

4. Elihu’s third speech ch. 35

We could chart the differences in Elihu’s first three speeches this way.

Job felt that God should have rewarded him for his innocence, rather than subjecting him to suffering. Elihu replied that man’s sin or innocence does not affect God, and God was silent to Job because Job was proud. As before, Elihu first quoted Job (Job 35:1-3) and then refuted his statement (Job 35:4-16).

Dr. Constable's Expository Notes

Elihu’s defense of God’s freedom 35:4-16

Elihu made two responses to what he inferred was Job’s attitude. First, he claimed that God is under no obligation to react to people’s actions be they good or bad. He is free to respond or not respond as He chooses. God is above the human sphere of life and only reacts to people when He chooses to do so. This is a thought Eliphaz had expressed earlier (Job 22:2-3; Job 22:12). However, Elihu went further by pointing out that people’s actions do affect other people (Job 35:4-8). Therefore, there is an advantage to being holy.

"There is no place in Elihu’s theology for doing God’s will out of love for him. Man affects only his fellow man by being good or bad (Job 35:9). And though God may punish or reward man as Judge, there is no place for him in the role of a Father who can be hurt or pleased by man." [Note: Smick, "Job," p. 1016.]

Second, Elihu spoke to the fact that God does not always provide relief when the oppressed pray to Him (Job 35:9-16; cf. Job 24:12; Job 36:13). He said often these prayers for help spring from a selfish, proud motive rather than from a sincere desire to learn the reason for one’s sufferings. In this respect humans are like animals; we do not ask for this knowledge. Since God may not answer selfish prayers, it is understandable that He was silent in response to Job’s arrogant, impatient petitions. Elihu counseled Job to wait for God to answer rather than becoming frantic.

"Job would get his just deserts in due time." [Note: Habel, p. 189.]

"It is always possible to think of a reason for unanswered prayer. The trite explanation, which we hear all too often, is that ’You didn’t have enough faith’, or ’You prayed from the wrong motive’, or ’You must have some hidden, unconfessed sin’. This diagnosis is always applicable. Everyone who prays is aware of the weakness of his faith; everyone with a scrap of self-knowledge knows that his motives are always mixed; everyone who searches his conscience can find no end of fresh sins to be dealt with. If no prayers could be offered and none answered, until all these conditions were satisfied, none would ever be offered and none answered. The Elihus of this world do not care about the cruelty of their perfectionist advice and its unreality. Their theory is saved; that is what matters." [Note: Andersen, p. 257.]

Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible

Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth?.... Who are taught and know much, especially some of them; but not so much as man, see Isaiah 1:3;

and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven? who are wise to provide food and nests for themselves and their young; and such as are birds of passage, as the turtledove, the crane, the stork, and the swallow, to know the time of their coming and returning, see Jeremiah 8:7. But then neither the beasts not; the fowls, though they are endowed with much knowledge and sagacity, according to their natures, yet not with reason and understanding, as men are, so as to make reflections on things they see and hear, and reason and discourse about them; nor are they capable of being taught and attaining to knowledge and wisdom as men are, by the works of God, of creation, and providence; and by the word of God, the Scriptures of truth, which are able to make men wise unto salvation; and by the Spirit of God, who teaches all things of a spiritual nature. God not only endows men with reason, but with sentiments of religion, which brutes are incapable of: he gives to men wisdom in the hidden part; he puts in them his fear, which is the beginning of wisdom; he makes them wise to know God in Christ, and to know his Son Jesus Christ, whom to know is life eternal; and he gives them knowledge of a future state, and hope of immortality and eternal life. Wherefore it becomes them to bear afflictions and oppressions with a fortitude of mind, and patiently submit to the will of God, and wait his time for deliverance, having called upon him in faith, and left their case with him; but if they only cry, as the brutes do under their burdens, it need not seem strange they are not heard and answered; since God has given them more wisdom and knowledge than they, and therefore should behave after another manner; though sometimes they act a part inferior to them, Judges 1:10.

Henry's Complete Commentary on the Bible

      9 By reason of the multitude of oppressions they make the oppressed to cry: they cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty.   10 But none saith, Where is God my maker, who giveth songs in the night;   11 Who teacheth us more than the beasts of the earth, and maketh us wiser than the fowls of heaven?   12 There they cry, but none giveth answer, because of the pride of evil men.   13 Surely God will not hear vanity, neither will the Almighty regard it.

      Elihu here returns an answer to another word that Job had said, which, he thought, reflected much upon the justice and goodness of God, and therefore ought not to pass without a remark. Observe,

      I. What it was that Job complained of; it was this, That God did not regard the cries of the oppressed against their oppressors (Job 35:9; Job 35:9): "By reason of the multitude of oppressions, the many hardships which proud tyrants put upon poor people and the barbarous usage they give them, they make the oppressed to cry; but it is to no purpose: God does not appear to right them. They cry out, they cry on still, by reason of the arm of the mighty, which lies heavily upon them." This seems to refer to those words of Job (Job 24:12; Job 24:12), Men groan from out of the city, and the soul of the wounded cries out against the oppressors, yet God lays not folly to them, does not reckon with them for it. This is a thing that Job knows not what to make of, nor how to reconcile to the justice of God and his government. Is there a righteous God, and can it be that he should so slowly hear, so slowly see?

      II. How Elihu solves the difficulty. If the cries of the oppressed be not heard, the fault is not in God; he is ready to hear and help them. But the fault is in themselves; they ask and have not, but it is because they ask amiss,James 4:3. They cry out by reason of the arm of the mighty, but it is a complaining cry, a wailing cry, not a penitent praying cry, the cry of nature and passion, not of grace. See Hosea 7:14, They have not cried unto me with their heart when they howled upon their beds. How then can we expect that they should be answered and relieved?

      1. They do not enquire after God, nor seek to acquaint themselves with him, under their affliction (Job 35:10; Job 35:10): But none saith, Where is God my Maker? Afflictions are sent to direct and quicken us to enquire early after God,Psalms 78:34. But many that groan under great oppressions never mind God, nor take notice of his hand in their troubles; if they did, they would bear their troubles more patiently and be more benefited by them. Of the many that are afflicted and oppressed, few get the good they might get by their affliction. It should drive them to God, but how seldom is this the case! It is lamentable to see so little religion among the poor and miserable part of mankind. Every one complains of his troubles; but none saith, Where is God my Maker? that is, none repent of their sins, none return to him that smites them, none seek the face and favour of God, and that comfort in him which would balance their outward afflictions. They are wholly taken up with the wretchedness of their condition, as if that would excuse them in living without God in the world which should engage them to cleave the more closely to him. Observe, (1.) God is our Maker, the author of our being, and, under that notion, it concerns us to regard and remember him, Ecclesiastes 12:1. God my makers, in the plural number, which some think is, if not an indication, yet an intimation, of the Trinity of persons in the unity of the Godhead. Let us make man. (2.) It is our duty therefore to enquire after him. Where is he, that we may pay our homage to him, may own our dependence upon him and obligations to him? Where is he, that we may apply to him for maintenance and protection, may receive law from him, and may seek our happiness in his favour, from whose power we received our being? (3.) It is to be lamented that he is so little enquired after by the children of men. All are asking, Where is mirth? Where is wealth? Where is a good bargain? But none ask, Where is God my Maker?

      2. They do not take notice of the mercies they enjoy in and under their afflictions, nor are thankful for them, and therefore cannot expect that God should deliver them out of their afflictions. (1.) He provides for our inward comfort and joy under our outward troubles, and we ought to make use of that, and wait his time for the removal of our troubles: He gives songs in the night, that is, when our condition is ever so dark, and sad, and melancholy, there is that in God, in his providence and promise, which is sufficient, not only to support us, but to fill us with joy and consolation, and enable us in every thing to give thanks, and even to rejoice in tribulation. When we only pore upon the afflictions we are under, and neglect the consolations of God which are treasured up for us, it is just with God to reject our prayers. (2.) He preserves to us the use of our reason and understanding (Job 35:11; Job 35:11): Who teaches us more than the beasts of the earth, that is, who has endued us with more noble powers and faculties than they are endued with and has made us capable of more excellent pleasures and employments here and for ever. Now this comes in here, [1.] As that which furnishes us with matter for thanksgiving, even under the heaviest burden of affliction. Whatever we are deprived of, we have our immortal souls, those jewels of more worth than all the world, continued to us; even those that kill the body cannot hurt them. And if our affliction prevail not to disturb the exercise of their faculties, but we enjoy the use of our reason and the peace of our consciences, we have much reason to be thankful, how pressing soever our calamities otherwise are. [2.] As a reason why we should, under our afflictions, enquire after God our Maker, and seek unto him. This is the greatest excellency of reason, that it makes us capable of religion, and it is in that especially that we are taught more than the beasts and the fowls. They have wonderful instincts and sagacities in seeking out their food, their physic, their shelter; but none of them are capable of enquiring, Where is God my Maker? Something like logic, and philosophy, and politics, has been observed among the brute-creatures, but never any thing of divinity or religion; these are peculiar to man. If therefore the oppressed only cry by reason of the arm of the mighty, and do not look up to God, they do no more than the brutes (who complain when they are hurt), and they forget that instruction and wisdom by which they are advanced so far above them. God relieves the brute-creatures because they cry to him according to the best of their capacity, Job 38:41; Psalms 104:21. But what reason have men to expect relief, who are capable of enquiring after God as their Maker and yet cry to him no otherwise than as brutes do?

      3. They are proud and unhumbled under their afflictions, which were sent to mortify them and to hide pride from them (Job 35:12; Job 35:12): There they cry--there they lie exclaiming against their oppressors, and filling the ears of all about them with their complaints, not sparing to reflect upon God himself and his providence--but none gives answer. God does not work deliverance for them, and perhaps men do not much regard them; and why so? It is because of the pride of evil men; they are evil men; they regard iniquity in their hearts, and therefore God will not hear their prayers, Psalms 66:18; Isaiah 1:15. God hears not such sinners. They have, it may be, brought themselves into trouble by their own wickedness; they are the devil's poor; and then who can pity them? Yet this is not all: they are proud still, and therefore they do not seek unto God (Psalms 10:4), or, if they do cry unto him, therefore he does not give answer, for he hears only the desire of the humble (Psalms 10:17) and delivers those by his providence whom he has first by his grace prepared and made fit for deliverance, which we are not if, under humbling afflictions, our hearts remain unhumbled and our pride unmortified. The case is plain then, If we cry to God for the removal of the oppression and affliction we are under, and it is not removed, the reason is not because the Lord's hand is shortened or his ear heavy, but because the affliction has not done its work; we are not sufficiently humbled, and therefore must thank ourselves that it is continued.

      4. They are not sincere, and upright, and inward with God, in their supplications to him, and therefore he does not hear and answer them (Job 35:13; Job 35:13): God will not hear vanity, that is, the hypocritical prayer, which is a vain prayer, coming out of feigned lips. It is a vanity to think that God should hear it, who searches the heart and requires truth in the inward part.