Job 35:2-4

Statement of Job's charge against God that under His rule of the world to be righteous is no advantage to a man. The verses read,

2. Thinkest thou this to be thy right,

And callest thou it, My just cause against God,

3. That thou sayest, What advantage hast thou?

And, What am I profited more than if I had sinned?

Throughout Elihu's speeches there runs the idea of a cause or plea between Job and God. Job is regarded by him as maintaining that he has a right or just cause against God. Elihu here asks if Job considers that the rectitude of his cause will appear in his maintaining that godliness profits a man nothing? the word thisin Job 35:2 refers to the questions in Job 35:3. If Job could successfully maintain this contention his cause against God would be good. Therefore Elihu controverts his assertion, contending that righteousness does avail a man, as it must. Both parties conduct the dispute in a somewhat external way, meaning by the "advantage "of religion the possession of outward goods and immunity from suffering. Job does this of necessity, because he is still entangled in the old theory of retribution, though he is breaking through its meshes on one side. And Elihu in his theoretical argument naturally follows him, without referring to the deeper comforts of religion, the joy in God, with which some of the Psalmists delight themselves in affliction, Psalms 17:15; Psalms 73:23 seq.