Bible Strands
Job 35:15
and further, that in His anger He has not punished or taken much notice of folly!
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Elihu addresses Job directly, challenging the claim that God remains indifferent to human conduct. This occurs within Elihu’s third discourse, immediately following his argument that God’s justice functions beyond visible human reckoning.
The words — פָּקַד (pa.Kad) literally means “to visit or punish,” and יָדַע (ya.Da’) means “to know.” The syntax asserts that God neither actively punishes nor registers folly even when His anger is present.
The thread — The pattern of divine attention to sin appears in Psalms 89:32, where God visits transgression with a rod, and contrasts with the sudden trouble described in Job 4:5. The passage also aligns with the warning in Numbers 20:12 regarding the failure to acknowledge God’s holiness before the people.
Why it lands — The text requires readers to stop interpreting God’s silence as divine neglect or moral apathy. It demands that a reader accept God’s justice and awareness operate on a timeline and standard that defy human calculation.
Drafted by a language model from the text, its original words and its cross-references, then checked against them. It can still be wrong: open the verse in the app to report it.
The Hebrew words
King James Version
But now, because it is not so, he hath visited in his anger; yet he knoweth it not in great extremity:
Cross-references
- Psalms 89:32 I will attend to their transgression with the rod, and to their iniquity with stripes.
- Numbers 20:12 But the LORD said to Moses and Aaron, “Because you did not trust Me to show My holiness in the sight of the Israelites, you will not bring this assembly into the land that I have given them.”
- Job 4:5 But now trouble has come upon you, and you are weary. It strikes you, and you are dismayed.
- Job 9:14 How then can I answer Him or choose my arguments against Him?
- Job 13:15 Though He slay me, I will hope in Him. I will still defend my ways to His face.
- Job 30:15 Terrors are turned loose against me; they drive away my dignity as by the wind, and my prosperity has passed like a cloud.
- Psalms 88:11 Can Your loving devotion be proclaimed in the grave, Your faithfulness in Abaddon?
- Hosea 11:8 How could I give you up, O Ephraim? How could I surrender you, O Israel? How could I make you like Admah? How could I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart is turned within Me; My compassion is stirred!
- Luke 1:20 And now you will be silent and unable to speak until the day this comes to pass, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled at their proper time.”
- Hebrews 12:11 No discipline seems enjoyable at the time, but painful. Later on, however, it yields a harvest of righteousness and peace to those who have been trained by it.