Albert Barnes Commentary Job 35:13

"Surely God will not hear an empty [cry], Neither will the Almighty regard it." — Job 35:13 (ASV)

Surely God will not hear vanity—A vain, hollow, heartless petition. The object of Elihu here is to explain why sufferers are not relieved—having his eye, doubtless, on the case of Job as one of the most remarkable of the kind. The solution he offers for this difficulty is that it is not consistent for God to hear a prayer where there is no sincerity. Of the truth of the remark there can be no doubt, but he seems to have taken it for granted that all prayers offered by unrelieved sufferers are thus insincere and hollow. This was necessary in his view to explain the fact under consideration, and this he assumes as being unquestionable. Yet the very point essential to his argument was that, in fact, the prayers offered by such persons were insincere.