35:9-13 Job complained that God did not regard the cries of the oppressed against their oppressors. This he knew not how to reconcile the justice of God and his government. Elihu solves the difficulty. Men do not notice the mercies they enjoy in and under their afflictions, nor are thankful for them, therefore they cannot expect that God should deliver them out of affliction. He gives songs in the night; when our condition is dark and melancholy, there is that in God's providence and promise, which is sufficient to support us, and to enable us even to rejoice in tribulation. When we only pore upon our afflictions, and neglect the consolations of God which are treasured up for us, it is just in God to reject our prayers. Even the things that will kill the body, cannot hurt the soul. If we cry to God for the removal of an affliction, and it is not removed, the reason is, not because the Lord's hand is shortened, or his ear heavy; but because we are not sufficiently humbled.

Verse 12. - There they cry. "There," smitten by calamity, they do at last cry to God. But none giveth answer. They "ask, and receive not." Why? Because of the pride of evil men. Because, i.e., they ask proudly, not humbly; they claim relief as a right, not as a favour; they approach God in a spirit that offends him and prevents him from granting their requests.

There they cry,.... As brutes do, and as in, Job 35:9; by reason of their oppressions, but not under a due sense of the hand of God upon them, nor of his being their only helper, and saviour, and deliverer;

but none giveth answer; to them, either God or men, and they lie groaning and howling under their oppression;

because of the pride of evil men; this is either to be connected with "they cry", and then the sense is, that they cry by reason of the oppressions of wicked men, who, through the pride of their hearts, and to show their superior power and authority, persecute and distress them, Psalm 10:2. And it is because of this they cry out, being distressed by them, and not through any sense of sin they have committed, as the reason of God's suffering them to be thus oppressed: or "with none give answer"; God gives them no answer to their cry, because pride is not withdrawn from them, which is one end he has in afflicting men; because they are not humbled under the mighty hand of God, and are not brought to a sense of sin and humiliation for it, and acknowledgment of it. And another reason follows:

12. There—rather, "Then" (when none humbly casts himself on God, Job 35:10). They cry proudly against God, rather than humbly to God. So, as the design of affliction is to humble the sufferer, there can be no answer until "pride" gives place to humble, penitent prayer (Ps 10:4; Jer 13:17).

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