Bible Strands
Job 35:2
“Do you think this is just? You say, ‘I am more righteous than God.’
Berean Standard Bible
Follow its threads on the canvas →
Study note
Setting — Elihu speaks to Job in the middle of his rebuttal, posing a direct challenge right after identifying himself as the speaker in Job 35:1 and immediately before questioning Job’s view of spiritual profit in Job 35:3.
The words — The Hebrew verb חָשַׁבְתָּ (cha.shav.ta) translates to “do you consider,” and the phrase צִדְקִי מֵאֵל (tzid.ki me.'el) literally renders “my righteousness [is] more than God.”
The thread — The tension between human judgment and divine authority appears in Matthew 12:36 regarding accountability for speech, and parallels Job 9:17 and Job 10:7 where Job describes his unmerited suffering and asserts his own innocence before God.
Why it lands — The text requires readers to stop measuring God’s actions against human standards of fairness. It demands recognition that human righteousness cannot be weighed above divine authority or justice.
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
Thinkest thou this to be right, that thou saidst, My righteousness is more than God’s?
Cross-references
- Matthew 12:36 But I tell you that men will give an account on the day of judgment for every careless word they have spoken.
- Job 9:17 For He would crush me with a tempest and multiply my wounds without cause.
- Job 10:7 though You know that I am not guilty, and there is no deliverance from Your hand?
- Job 16:17 yet my hands are free of violence and my prayer is pure.
- Job 19:6 then understand that it is God who has wronged me and drawn His net around me.
- Job 27:2 “As surely as God lives, who has deprived me of justice—the Almighty, who has embittered my soul—
- Job 34:5 For Job has declared, ‘I am righteous, yet God has deprived me of justice.
- Job 40:8 Would you really annul My justice? Would you condemn Me to justify yourself?
- Luke 19:22 His master replied, ‘You wicked servant, I will judge you by your own words. So you knew that I am a harsh man, withdrawing what I did not deposit and reaping what I did not sow?