Job 35:1 - Joseph Benson’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

Elihu spake moreover Job still keeping silence, perhaps because he was convinced that although Elihu had made a very harsh construction of his words, he was influenced by a good motive in what he had advanced, and had now, in the conclusion, given him very wholesome counsel, and, allowing his integrity, had only charged him with some violent expressions, which had fallen from him when he was in great anguish of spirit; Elihu goes on in this chapter to fix the very same harsh sense upon Job's words. He first puts it to his conscience whether he thought it could be right to gain his acquittal by an impeachment of God's justice; yet, he tells him he must have thought after this manner, otherwise he would never have made use of such an atheistical expression as, “that he had no profit by doing his duty, more than if he had sinned;” referring, probably, to Job 23:11; Job 23:15. That he ought to consider that God was so far above the influence of all human actions, that neither could their good deeds be of any advantage to him, nor could their evil deeds affect him, Job 35:2-7. They might, indeed, affect themselves or their neighbours: they might suffer from the oppressions of men, and cry aloud to God to relieve them; but if this cry was not made with an entire dependance on, and a perfect resignation to, the will of God, it would be quite fruitless: God would not give the least ear to it, Job 35:8-14. Much less ought they, in every affliction, to be flying in the face of the Almighty and shaking off his sovereignty; that they ought rather to wait his leisure with patience; and that Job himself would not have acted in this manner, had he not been hurried away by too great a self-confidence, Job 35:15-16. Heath.