All flesh would 'die together and mankind would return to dust,' completing the thought experiment of verse 14 by depicting universal annihilation. This verse emphasizes the common human condition—that all, regardless of status or righteousness, are equally vulnerable and temporary. The return to dust echoes Genesis 3:19 and the Psalms, positioning human mortality as the fundamental fact that should inform all other considerations. Elihu seems to be suggesting that Job's complaint about injustice is voided by the larger reality that all are dust and depend wholly on God's mercy, an argument from perspective rather than from direct theodicy. Yet the verse raises a troubling corollary: if all are equally dust and equally dependent on God, then the differentiation between the righteous and the wicked becomes cosmically insignificant, undermining the very retributive system Elihu seeks to defend. The imagery of universal dust, while humbling, does not actually answer whether individual suffering is just or unjust.

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