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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.comKeil and Delitzsch Commentary - Job 35:5 - 35:5
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
5 Look towards heaven and see,
And behold the ethereal heights: they are high above thee.
6 If thou sinnest, what dost thou effect with Him?
And if thy transgressions are many, what doest thou to Him?
7 If thou art righteous, what dost thou give Him,
Or what doth He take from thy hand?
8 To man like thee thy godlessness availeth,
And to thee, a son of man, thy righteousness.
Towards heaven he is to direct his gaze, to obtain from the height of heaven a notion of the exaltation of God who dwells above the heavens. The combination הִבִּיט וְרָאָה is like Psa 80:15 and freq. שְׁחָקִים (שָׁחַק, Arab. sḥq, to rub in pieces, make thin, therefore the opposite of עָבִים) are the thin transparent strata of the atmosphere above the hanging clouds. מִן after גָּבַהּ denotes the height that is on the opposite side to the beholder. From the exaltation of God it is then further inferred that it is impossible to exercise any human influence upon Him, by which He might suffer. The pointing wavers here between תִּפְעַל (the common fut. form) and תִּפְעָל(as a contraction of תִּפְעֹל after the form אֶזְעֹם, Num 23:8). Human wrong or right doing neither diminishes nor increases His blessedness; injury or advantage is only on the side of man, from whom it proceeds. Others, whom his conduct affect, are not included in Job 35:8 : righteous or ungodly doing, Elihu means to say, as such and with its consequences, belongs solely to the doer himself, the man “like thee” (לְאִישׁ with Munach, כָּמֹוךָ with Munach), the son of man, i.e., man, capable of evil as of good, and who always, after deciding in favour of the latter or the former, determines his fortune or misfortune, in distinction from God, who ever remains unchangeably the same in His perfect righteousness. What Elihu here says we have already heard from Eliphaz, Job 22:2., and Job even expresses himself similarly in Job 7:20; but to Elihu's mind it all becomes for Job new and powerful motives to quiet submission, for what objection should Job raise in justification of his complaints concerning his affliction against such sentiments as these, that goodness bears its reward and evil its punishment in itself, and that God's reward of goodness is not a work of indebtedness, nor His punishment of evil a work of necessity? Before such truth he must really hold his peace.