Job 34:10-15

God is Not Unjust

34:10 “Therefore, listen to me, you men of understanding. ¹ 

Far be it from ²  God to do wickedness,

from the Almighty to do evil.

34:11 For he repays a person for his work, ³ 

and according to the conduct of a person,

he causes the consequences to find him. ⁴ 

34:12 Indeed, in truth, God does not act wickedly,

and the Almighty does not pervert justice.

34:13 Who entrusted ⁵  to him the earth?

And who put him over ⁶  the whole world?

34:14 If God ⁷  were to set his heart on it, ⁸ 

and gather in his spirit and his breath,

34:15 all flesh would perish together

and human beings would return to dust.

[34:10]  ¹ tn Heb “men of heart.” The “heart” is used for the capacity to understand and make the proper choice. It is often translated “mind.”

[34:10]  ² tn For this construction, see Job 27:5.

[34:11]  ³ tn Heb “for the work of man, he [= God] repays him.”

[34:11]  ⁴ tn Heb “he causes it to find him.” The text means that God will cause a man to find (or receive) the consequences of his actions.

[34:13]  ⁵ tn The verb פָּקַד (paqad) means “to visit; to appoint; to number.” Here it means “to entrust” for care and governing. The implication would be that there would be someone higher than God – which is what Elihu is repudiating by the rhetorical question. No one entrusted God with this.

[34:13]  ⁶ tn The preposition is implied from the first half of the verse.

[34:14]  ⁷ tn Heb “he”; the referent (God) has been specified in the translation for clarity.

[34:14]  ⁸ tc This is the reading following the Qere. The Kethib and the Syriac and the LXX suggest a reading יָשִׂים (yasim, “if he [God] recalls”). But this would require leaving out “his heart,” and would also require redividing the verse to make “his spirit” the object. It makes better parallelism, but may require too many changes.