Job 34:10–34:15, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Job 34:10–34:15
Elihu Defends God's Justice and Sustaining Rule
Far be it from God to do wickedness
Elihu tells men of understanding that far be it from God to do wickedness, and from the Almighty to commit iniquity. The work of a man God will render to him, and cause every man to find according to his ways. Surely God will not do wickedly, neither will the Almighty pervert judgment.
Who has given God a charge over the earth? Who has disposed the whole world? If God set his heart on himself, if he gathered to himself his spirit and his breath, all flesh would perish together, and a man would turn again to dust.
Sustaining breath is not the same as a visible paycheck
Elihu is right that creaturely life hangs on God's breath. He is right that a charge of divine wickedness is the most serious sentence a mouth can form. The deed-for-deed rendering, however, is exactly the formula the prologue broke.
Job's undeserved ruin is still on the table. A world that would collapse without God's spirit is not yet a world in which every sore maps to a sin. Elihu defends God's justice by tightening the moral ledger. The book will defend God's justice another way.
How this should shape us
Confess that God is not a criminal and that your breath is borrowed. Do not use that confession to tell a sufferer they have been paid in exact change for secret work.
Teach it back
Explain Job 34:10–34:15 in your own words. Name the speaker, the unit's place in Job, one source-controlled textual or literary observation, one uncertainty, and one harmful use the passage does not authorize.
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Job 34:10–34:15, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 34:10–34:15
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 34:10–34:15.
Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 34:10–34:15
Supports: Book-level and passage-level literary, historical, theological, and pastoral synthesis with speaker distinctions and visible uncertainty.
Enter the Bible Job course, Introductory Issues and Outline: Elihu speeches; applied to Job 34:10–34:15
Supports: Polyphony, retribution critique, justice, Job's response, divine verdict, and the book's interpretive openness.
Ausloos, 'A Matter of Justice,' OTE 36.1 (2023), pp. 151-165, divine speeches and unresolved justice question; applied to Job 34:10–34:15
Sources for This Section
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Biblical text
King James (Authorized) Version — eng-kjv2006
eBible.org and CrossWire Bible Society
USFM archive eng-kjv2006_usfm.zip; source files dated 2026-08-19; downloaded 2026-08-24; archive SHA-256 aec1b3b26c622fd3d963d2bbac963016b9513246ffbfa20da00bb100372ea007; normalized corpus SHA-256 09aef51d90488aa7b9722b3fd9a93f4b25f6bf2064c5fd798fb39673c300ddf2.
Supports: Exact displayed KJV wording, verse order, paragraph metadata, supplied-word markup, and complete thought-unit coverage.
Exact location: Job 34:10–34:15, pinned eng-kjv2006 USFM-derived repository corpus
Open source ↗hebrew text and morphology
Open Scriptures Hebrew Bible: Job
Open Scriptures
Open Scriptures, release 2.2
Supports: Masoretic Hebrew wording and morphology checked at the exact unit without treating morphology as a complete apparatus or interpretation.
Exact location: Open Scriptures MorphHB v2.2, commit 6a5db284c715c18b239422e57bb89684e6a19f00, wlc/Job.xml, OSIS 34:10–34:15
Open the fixed Hebrew Job file ↗translation and translator notes
NET Bible First Edition Notes: Job
Biblical Studies Press
Biblical Studies Press, 2006; current official PDF
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 34:10–34:15.
Exact location: Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 34:10–34:15
Open the official NET Job PDF ↗modern scholarly book course
Job course: summary, outline, background, introductory issues, theological themes, and Bible in the world
Daniel J. Simundson and Kathryn Schifferdecker
Enter the Bible, Luther Seminary, current online edition inspected 2026
Supports: Book-level and passage-level literary, historical, theological, and pastoral synthesis with speaker distinctions and visible uncertainty.
Exact location: Enter the Bible Job course, Introductory Issues and Outline: Elihu speeches; applied to Job 34:10–34:15
Open the Enter the Bible Job course ↗peer reviewed open access literary and theological article
A Matter of Justice: The Openness of the Book of Job
Hans Ausloos
Old Testament Essays 36.1, 2023
Supports: Polyphony, retribution critique, justice, Job's response, divine verdict, and the book's interpretive openness.
Exact location: Ausloos, 'A Matter of Justice,' OTE 36.1 (2023), pp. 151-165, divine speeches and unresolved justice question; applied to Job 34:10–34:15
Open Ausloos on Job and justice ↗