Job 36:5–36:14, King James Version
Italic words were supplied in the English translation for clarity.
Job 36:5–36:14
Elihu Links Affliction with Disclosure and Response
God is mighty, and yet he does not despise
Behold, God is mighty, and does not despise. He is mighty in strength and wisdom. He does not preserve the life of the wicked. He gives right to the poor. He does not withdraw his eyes from the righteous. With kings on the throne he sets them forever, and they are exalted.
If they are bound in fetters and held in cords of affliction, then he shows them their work, and their transgressions that they have exceeded. He opens their ear to discipline and commands that they return from iniquity.
Response splits the bound into two futures
If they obey and serve, they spend their days in prosperity and their years in pleasures. If they do not obey, they perish by the sword and die without knowledge. The hypocrites in heart heap up wrath. They do not cry when he binds them. They die in youth, and their life is among the unclean.
Elihu's model is pedagogical: affliction discloses transgression and invites return. That is not Eliphaz's crime catalogue, and it is not nothing. It is still a model that cannot carry Job 1. The righteous man in fetters, in this speech, is being shown his excess. The prologue said Job's ruin was without cause. Prosperity as the wage of obedience is also the old snare in a finer frame.
How this should shape us
Let affliction sometimes become a place of truthful review without making every fetter a transcript of sin. Do not promise pleasures to the obedient or use a sickbed as proof of hypocrisy.
Teach it back
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Job 36:5–36:14, 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 36:5–36:14
Supports: Verse-level controls for Job's difficult Hebrew, syntax, older KJV language, textual issues, speech boundaries, and alternatives in Job 36:5–36:14.
Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 36:5–36:14
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 36:5–36:14
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 36:5–36:14
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 36:5–36:14, 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 36:5–36:14
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 36:5–36:14.
Exact location: Official NET Job PDF, exact translator, study, and textual notes attached to Job 36:5–36:14
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 36:5–36:14
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 36:5–36:14
Open Ausloos on Job and justice ↗