“Thy wickedness may hurt a man as thou art; and thy righteousness may profit the son of man.”
Elihu asserts that human wickedness 'concerns only others like you' and human righteousness 'concerns only people,' suggesting that the moral consequences of human action affect only the human community, not God. This verse extends the principle established in verses 6-7 to suggest that human conduct has only horizontal significance—affecting other humans—while being vertically meaningless to God. Elihu uses this claim to suggest that Job's complaint about God's response to his righteousness is misguided because Job's righteousness has significance only in relation to other humans, not in relation to God. Yet the verse raises questions about the very possibility of divine justice: if human conduct has no significance to God, in what sense can God justly reward or punish it? The verse seems to establish a principle that makes divine justice either impossible or arbitrary—God cannot have reasons rooted in genuine response to human conduct because that conduct does not affect him. Elihu's theology, in attempting to establish divine transcendence, threatens to render divine justice incoherent.
Church Fathers on Job 35:8
Thine iniquity will hurt a man, who is like thee, and thy righteousness will profit the son of man. The iniquity of man hurts him, whom it pollutes by perversion. And, again, our righteousness profits him, whom it converts from his wickedness. For those things cannot either hurt, or profit, which cannot either corrupt from what is good, or change from what is evil. The powers above, then, cannot be either hurt, or profiled, because they have already received to be free from…
Nicene & Post-Nicene / Ante-Nicene Fathers translations · public domain
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