Job 35:15

This verse is very obscure, and the A. V. competes worthily with the original in darkness. The word translated extremitydoes not occur again, and, if it be a word at all and not a mere error of copyists (the Sept. read "transgression"), its meaning can only be guessed at. The connexion, however, suggests what general meaning the expression must have. Perhaps the easiest way to construe the verse is to take it in connexion with Job 35:16,

15. But now because his anger visiteth not,

And he doth not strictly regard transgression,

16. Therefore doth Job open his mouth in vanity,

He multiplieth words without knowledge.

Because sentence against an evil work is not executed speedily (Ecclesiastes 8:11), and God seems as if He took no knowledge of wrong and oppression, therefore Job draws the futile conclusion (Job 35:2), that there is no advantage in being righteous more than in sinning. Elihu has already accounted for God's refusal to interpose on very different grounds (Job 35:10), grounds which Job would do well to lay to heart. The word rendered "extremity" (fash) may have a correspondent in the Arab. fashshaof which Lane says, "fashshais syn. with fâshaas meaning, He gloriedor boasted and magnified himself, imagining (in himself)what he did not possess." This would suggest such a meaning as prideor arrogancy.

Though this construction of Job 35:15 is simple it is doubtful if it be the true one. Job 35:16 certainly looks independent, and if so Job 35:15 is also complete in itself,

But now because his anger visiteth not,

Therefore he careth nothing for transgression!

the second clause expressing the conclusion which Job draws from God's inactivity and His refraining to punish (first clause), namely that God was indifferent to evil, or as expressed in Job 35:2, that righteousness was of no profit to a man more than sin. The sense remains the same as on the other construction. And Job 35:16, as before, expresses Elihu's verdict regarding Job,

Nay, Job openeth his mouth in vanity,

He multiplieth words without knowledge.