God recompenses each person 'according to their deeds,' according to Elihu's statement of divine retributive justice. This verse crystallizes the theology that Elihu will defend throughout his discourse: the universe operates on a principle of proportional reward and punishment that makes God the just administrator of cosmic moral order. The impersonal, mechanical quality of this principle—that God 'repays' like a merchant settling accounts—reflects Elihu's confidence in divine calculative justice, yet lacks any nuance regarding hiddenness of sin, degrees of guilt, or the mystery of divine pedagogy. Elihu will develop this theme to argue that Job's suffering must evidence hidden transgression, an argument that presupposes complete transparency between external fate and internal worth. The verse represents the logical structure of retributive theology that will ultimately prove inadequate to explain Job's condition and will be superseded by God's revelation of a cosmos far more complex and profound than any system of cosmic bookkeeping.

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