Charles Ellicott Commentary Job 34:10

"Therefore hearken unto me, ye men of understanding: Far be it from God, that he should do wickedness, And from the Almighty, that he should commit iniquity." — Job 34:10 (ASV)

You men of understanding. —Elihu now appeals to the men of understanding, by whom he can hardly mean the three friends of whom he has already spoken disparagingly, but seems rather to appeal to an audience, real or imagined, who are to decide on the merits of what he says. This is an incidental indication that we are scarcely intended to understand the long-continued argument as the record of an actual discussion.

Elihu begins to take broader ground than the friends of Job, since he concerns himself not with the problems of God’s government, but with the impossibility of His acting unjustly (Genesis 18:25).

The reason he gives for this is somewhat strange: it is the fact that God is irresponsible. This means He has not been put in charge over the earth by another; instead, His authority is ultimate and original.

Being so, He can have no personal interests to secure at all risks. He can only have in view the ultimate good of all His creatures. For, on the other hand, if He really desired to slay them, their breath is in His hands, and He would only have to recall it.

The earth and all that is in it belongs to God. It is His own, and not another’s entrusted to Him. His self-interest, therefore, cannot conflict with the welfare of His creatures, because their welfare is the welfare of what is His—and therefore, that in which He Himself has the largest interest.

The argument is a somewhat strange one to us, but it is fundamentally sound, for it recognizes God as the prime origin and final hope of all His creatures, and assumes that His will can only be good, and that it must be the best because it is His. .