Job 34:13-15

The first thought of Elihu is that the earth, the world, is not entrusted to God by another; He himself arranged it all as it is; there is therefore no motive to injustice. This is one side of his idea; the other (Job 34:14) is that the fact of the creation and sustaining of all things and creatures by God is proof of unselfish benevolence, for if God thought of Himself and ceased to send forth His spirit, all flesh would perish.

The Oriental thinker was not a pessimist; to his mind life was not an evil but the highest good, and its continuance proof of goodness in God who gave it and continued it. Neither would it occur to such a thinker, when he argued that there was no temptation to injustice in the Creator, that a temptation might be found in His own malevolent nature. A first cause that was evil could not be supposed by any one in the position of the speakers in this Book. Even when Job touches upon such an idea, as in ch. Job 7:17 seq., Job 10:3 seq., it is for the purpose of shewing the inconsistency of malevolence with God's necessary attributes. Comp. remarks at the end of ch. 10.