Then Job answered,
“Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
Allow me, and I also will speak; After I have spoken, mock on.
As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
“Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.
What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’
Behold, their prosperity is not in their hand. The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
“How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out, that their calamity comes on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?
How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
“Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
“Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.
For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,
that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, That they are led out to the day of wrath?
Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done?
Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.
The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”
Geneva Bible translators 1599 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 7, 11, 13, 14, 16, 20, 22, 23, 25, 26, 28, 29, 30, 31, 33, 34 Your diligent marking of my words shall be to…
Your diligent marking of my words shall be to me a great consolation.
Geneva Bible (1599) marginal notes — public domain.
John Trapp 1656 · Public Domain On vv1–34 Job 21:1 But Job answered and said,
Job 21:1 But Job answered and said,
Ver. 1. But Job answered and said] Disproving and refuting that proposition of theirs concerning the infelicity of the ungodly by reason, by experience, and by divine authority; all which evince and evidence that neither is prosperity a proof of men’s innocence, nor adversity a mark of their wickedness, as Zophar and his fellows would have it. And that they might not any more interrupt him, nor think him too rough, he useth a gentle preface, craving attention, and pressing them thereunto by many arguments in the first six verses.
John Trapp, A Commentary or Exposition upon All the Books of the Old and New Testament (1647–1656) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Matthew Poole 1685 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Or, this shall be your consolations, i.e. I shall…
Or, this shall be your consolations, i.e. I shall accept of your patient and diligent attention to me, instead of all those consolations which you owed to me in this condition, and which I expected from you.
Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible (1683–1685) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Matthew Henry 1710 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 17, 27 Job here recommends himself, both his case and his…
Job here recommends himself, both his case and his discourse, both what he suffered and what he said, to the compassionate consideration of his friends. 1. That which he entreats of them is very fair, that they would suffer him to speak (Job 21:3) and not break in upon him, as Zophar had done, in the midst of his discourse. Losers, of all men, may have leave to speak; and, if those that are accused and censured are not allowed to speak for themselves, they are wronged without remedy, and have no way to come at their right. He entreats that they would hear diligently his speech (Job 21:2) as those that were willing to understand him, and, if they were under a mistake, to have it rectified; and that they would mark him (Job 21:5), for we may as well not hear as not heed and observe what we hear. 2. That which he urges for this is very reasonable. (1.) They came to comfort him. "No," says he, "let this be your consolations (Job 21:2); if you have no other comforts to administer to me, yet deny me not this; be so kind, so just, as to give me a patient hearing, and that shall pass for your consolations of me." Nay, they could not know how to comfort him if they would not give him leave to open his case and tell his own story. Or, "It will be a consolation to yourselves, in reflection, to have dealt tenderly with your afflicted friend, and not harshly." (2.) He would hear them speak when it came to their turn. "After I have spoken you may go on with what you have to say, and I will not hinder you, no, though you go on to mock me." Those that engage in controversy must reckon upon having hard words given them, and resolve to bear reproach patiently; for, generally, those that mock will mock on, whatever is said to them. (3.) He hoped to convince them. "If you will but give me a fair hearing, mock on if you can, but I believe I shall say that which will change your note and make you pity me rather than mock me." (4.) They were not his judges (Job 21:4): "Is my complaint to man? No, if it were I see it would be to little purpose to complain. But my complaint is to God, and to him do I appeal. Let him be Judge between you and me. Before him we stand upon even terms, and therefore I have the privilege of being heard as well as you. If my complaint were to men, my spirit would be troubled, for they would not regard me, nor rightly understand me; but my complaint is to God, who will suffer me to speak, though you will not." It would be sad if God should deal as unkindly with us as our friends sometimes do. (5.) There was that in his case which was very surprising and astonishing, and therefore both needed and deserved their most serious consideration. It was not a common case, but a very extraordinary one. [1.] He himself was amazed at it, at the troubles God had laid upon him and the censures of his friends concerning him (Job 21:6): "When I remember that terrible day in which I was on a sudden stripped of all my comforts, that day in which I was stricken with sore boils, - when I remember all the hard speeches with which you have grieved me, - I confess I am afraid, and trembling takes hold of my flesh, especially when I compare this with the prosperous condition of many wicked people, and the applauses of their neighbours, with which they pass through the world." Note, The providences of God, in the government of the world, are sometimes very astonishing even to wise and good men, and bring them to their wits' end. [2.] He would have them wonder at it (Job 21:5): "Mark me, and be astonished. Instead of expounding my troubles, you should awfully adore the unsearchable mysteries of Providence in afflicting one thus of whom you know no evil; you should therefore lay your hand upon your mouth, silently wait the issue, and judge nothing before the time. God's way is in the sea, and his path in the great waters. When we cannot account for what he does, in suffering the wicked to prosper and the godly to be afflicted, nor fathom the depth of those proceedings, it becomes us to sit down and admire them. Upright men shall be astonished at this, Job 17:8. Be you so."
Matthew Henry's Commentary on the Whole Bible (1708–1710) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Gill 1763 · Public Domain On vv1–33 But Job answered and said. In reply to what…
But Job answered and said. In reply to what Zophar had asserted, concerning the prosperity of the wicked being only for a short time, Job 20:5; the contrary to which he most clearly proves, and that in many instances their prosperity continues as long as they live; that they die in it, and it is enjoyed by their posterity after them.
; the contrary to which he most clearly proves, and that in many instances their prosperity continues as long as they live; that they die in it, and it is enjoyed by their posterity after them.
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Job 21:2
job 21:2
job 21:2
job 21:2Hear diligently my speech,.... The following oration or discourse he was about to deliver concerning the prosperity of wicked men; to which he desires their closest attention, that they might the better understand the force of his reasoning, the evidences and proof of fasts he should give; whereby, if their minds were open to conviction, they would clearly see their mistake, and that truth lay on his side:
and let this be your consolations; or "this shall be your consolations" (k); meaning, either that they would receive instruction and benefit by his discourse, which would yield them pleasure and comfort; and to an ingenuous mind, to be convinced of an error, to have mistakes rectified, and to get knowledge of the truth, it is a real satisfaction, and affords pleasure; or else, that whereas their end in paying him a visit was to comfort him, and they had taken methods, as they thought, in order to it, but in Job's opinion to very little purpose, yea, they were, as he says, miserable comforters; now he observes, that if they would but be silent, and attentively listen to what he had to say, that would be in the room of all comforts they could give unto him; it would be a consolation to him, and be reckoned by him, instead of all they could give, or could propose to him, if he might have but this favour, to be heard with candour, diligence, and attention.
(k) "et hoc erit consolationes vestrae", Beza, Mercerus; so Jarchi; "idque pro consolatione vobis", Tigurine version; "pro consolationibus vestris", Schultens.
John Gill's Exposition of the Whole Bible (1746–1763) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
John Wesley 1765 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 21, 22, 25, 26, 27, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Job's preface to his answer, ver. 1-6. He describes…
Job's preface to his answer, ver. 1-6. He describes the prosperity of wicked men, ver. 7-13. Hardening them in their impiety, ver. 14-16. He foretells their final ruin, ver. 17-21. He observes a great variety in the ways of God, ver. 22-26. He shews, that tho' sinners are always punished in the other world, they often escape in this, ver. 27-34.
John Wesley, Explanatory Notes Upon the Whole Bible (1754–1765) — public domain. Text via the GEBible commentary corpus.
Adam Clarke 1810 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Job expresses himself as puzzled by the dispensations of…
CHAPTER XXI
Job expresses himself as puzzled by the dispensations of Divine
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Providence, because of the unequal distribution of temporal
goods; he shows that wicked men often live long, prosper in
their families, in their flocks, and in all their substance,
and yet live in defiance of God and sacred things, 1-16.
At other times their prosperity is suddenly blasted, and they
and their families come to ruin, 17-21.
God, however, is too wise to err; and he deals out various lots
to all according to his wisdom: some come sooner, others later,
to the grave: the strong and the weak, the prince and the
peasant, come to a similar end in this life; but the wicked
are reserved for a day of wrath, 22-33.
He charges his friends with falsehood in their pretended
attempts to comfort him, 34.
NOTES ON CHAP. XXI
Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Bible (1810–1826) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Joseph Benson 1811 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 5, 6, 7, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 21, 22, 23, 25, 27, 29, 31, 32, 33, 34 Job 21:1. But Job answered and said — It…
Job 21:1. But Job answered and said — It has been thought strange that Job should never resume the argument of a resurrection, which was so full of piety and conviction; but, when resuming the dispute with his friends, should stick to that he first set out with. Whether this be the case or not, we shall see in the course of our observations. But if it be, a very sufficient reason may be assigned for it. For, if one such appeal as this, made in the most solemn manner, would not convince them of his innocence, he had reason to think it would be much the same, if he had repeated it a second and a third time. He had, therefore, no other resource left, but to follow the argument with which he had begun; namely, to combat the false principle upon which they were so forward to condemn him: and this he does effectually throughout the present chapter, by showing that many wicked men live long and prosperously, and at last die in apparent peace, and are buried with great pomp; which shows that this life is not the proper state of retribution, but that men shall be judged and recompensed hereafter. See Peters and Dodd.
Joseph Benson's Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1811–1818) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Albert Barnes 1834 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Hear diligently - Hebrew “Hearing hear” - that is,…
Hear diligently - Hebrew “Hearing hear” - that is, hear attentively. What he was about to say was worthy of their solemn consideration.
And let this be your consolations - That is, “You came to me for the professed purpose of giving “me” consolation. In that you have wholly failed. You have done nothing to sustain or comfort me; but all that you have said has only tended to exasperate me, and to increase my sorrow. If you will now hear me attentively, I will take that as a consolation, and it shall be in the place of what I had a right to expect from you. It will be “some” comfort if I am permitted to express my sentiments without interruption, and I will accept it as a proof of kindness on your part.”
Albert Barnes' Notes on the Bible (1834–1885) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword/MySword module.
Haydock's Catholic Bible Commentary 1859 · Public Domain On vv2, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 21, 23, 24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Do. "After your opinion." (Menochius) --- Symmachus, "hear." Septuagint,…
Do. "After your opinion." (Menochius) --- Symmachus, "hear." Septuagint, "may this be for your consolation," (Hebrew) which I shall receive from you, or which you may make use of, if you should be afflicted (Calmet) as I am. (Haydock) --- Job undertakes to show that the wicked are sometimes suffered to enjoy a long prosperity.
George Leo Haydock (1774–1849), Haydock's Catholic Family Bible and Commentary, 1859 edition — public domain. Excludes Psalms (Douay-Rheims chapter numbering differs from Protestant) and Deuterocanonical books (Catholic canon only).
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures 1864 · Public Domain On v1 B.—JOB: That which experience teaches concerning the prosperity of…
B.—JOB: That which experience teaches concerning the prosperity of the ungodly during their life on earth argues not against but for his innocence:
Job 21
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1. Introductory appeal to the friends:
Job_21:1-6
1 But Job answered and said:
2 Hear diligently my speech,
and let this be your consolations.
3 Suffer me that I may speak;
and after that I have spoken, mock on.
4 As for me, is my complaint to man?
and if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?
5 Mark me, and be astonished,
and lay your hand upon your mouth.
6 Even when I remember I am afraid,
and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.
2. Along with the fact of the prosperity of the wicked, taught by experience (Job_21:7-16), stands the other fact of earthly calamity befalling the pious and the righteous:
Job_21:7-26
7 Wherefore do the wicked live,
become old, yea, are mighty in power?
8 Their seed is established in their sight with them,
and their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear,
neither is the rod of God upon them.
10 Their bull gendereth and faileth not;
their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
11 They send forth their little ones like a flock,
and their children dance.
12 They take the timbrel and harp,
and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
13 They spend their days in wealth,
and in a moment go down to the grave.
14 Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us,
for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.
15 What is the Almighty that we should serve Him?
and what profit should we have, if we pray unto Him?
16 Lo, their good is not in their hand!
the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
17 How oft is the candle of the wicked put out?
and how oft cometh their destruction upon them?
God distributeth sorrows in His anger.
18 They are as stubble before the wind,
and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
19 God layeth up His iniquity for His children:
He rewardeth him, and he shall know it.
20 His eyes shall see his destruction,
and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what pleasure hath he in his house after him,
when the number of his months is cut off in the midst?
22 Shall any teach God knowledge?
seeing He judgeth those that are high.
23 One dieth in his full strength,
being wholly at ease, and quiet.
24 His breasts are full of milk,
and his bones are moistened with marrow.
25 And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul,
and never eateth with pleasure.
26 They shall lie down alike in the dust.
and the worms shall cover them.
3. Rebuke of the friends because they set forth only one side of that experience, and use it to his prejudice
Job_21:27-34
27 Behold, I know your thoughts,
and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me.
28 For ye say, Where is the house of the prince?
and where are the dwelling-places of the wicked?
29 Have ye not asked them that go by the way?
and do ye not know their tokens?—
30 that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction?
they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.
31 Who shall declare his way to his face?
and who shall repay him what he hath done?
32 Yet shall he be brought to the grave,
and shall remain in the tomb.
33 The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him,
and every man shall draw after him,
as there are innumerable before him.
34 How then comfort ye me in vain,
seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
1. The obstinacy of the friends, who show neither the desire nor the inclination to solve the mystery of Job’s sufferings in a friendly spirit, and in such a way as would not wound his feelings, drives Job to come out in theoretic opposition to the narrow and external interpretation of the doctrine of retribution advocated by them, and to change his reply from the essentially personal character which it had previously borne into a strict criticism of their doctrine. Having first calmly but bitterly challenged their attention to that which he had to communicate to them (Job_21:2-6), he urges against them the mysterious fact that often the ungodly revel in superfluity of prosperity to the end of their life, while on the contrary the pious are often throughout their earthly life pursued by misfortune (Job_21:7-26). In view of a distribution of prosperity and adversity so unequal, and so much at variance with the moral desert of men, it was decidedly unjust, nay malicious and false on the part of the friends to undertake to brand him as a wicked man on account of his misfortune (Job_21:27-34). The whole discussion which brilliantly demonstrates Job’s superiority over the friends in respect to the stand-point of ethical perception and experience, and which serves to introduce the last turn which the colloquy takes, and which is decisive of his complete victory, is divided into five strophes, of five verses each, the first strophe covering the exordium (Job_21:2-6), the remaining four constituting the Second Division [the former two of these strophes again being occupied with the fact, the latter two with the argument showing the fact to be irreconcilable with their theory of retribution; Dillm.]; followed by two strophes of four verses each [rebuking the one-sidedness of the friends] constituting the Third Division (Job_21:27-34.)
2. First Division (and strophe): Exordium: Job_21:2-6. Job announces that he is about to speak of a mysterious and indeed an astounding phenomenon, which demands the entire attention of the friends.
Job_21:2. Hear, I pray, hear my speech! and let this be instead of your consolations—or: “in order that this may supply the place of your consolations, may prove to me a comfort instead of them, seeing that they so poorly accomplish their purpose” (comp. Job_15:11; Job_16:2). [A fine touch of irony: attentive silence would be a much more real comfort than all their ineffectual talk!]
Job_21:3. Suffer me (שָׂאוּנִי, with Kamets before the tone, comp. Jon_1:12; 1Ki_20:33; Gesenius § 60 [§ 59] Rem. 1)—and then will I speak (I, אָֹֽגֹכִי, in contrast with the “you” of the Imper., although without a particularly strong accent); and after that I have spoken, thou mayest mock (תלעיג, concessive, Ewald § 136, e). The demand for a patient hearing of his rebuke, which reminds us somewhat of the saying of Themistocles—“Strike, but hear me!” (Plutarch, Themist. c. 11), is specifically addressed in the second half to Zophar, whose last discourse must have grieved him particularly, and who in fact after the rejoinder which Job now makes had nothing more to say, and could only leave the mocking assaults on Job to be resumed by his older companions. [So in Job_16:3 Job had singled out Eliphaz in his reply, and again in Job_26:2-4, he singles out Bildad].
Job_21:4. Does my complaint go forth from me in regard to man?i.e. as for me (אָנֹכִי emphatically prefixed, and then resumed again in שׂיחי, Gesen. § 145 [§ 142], 2), is my complaint directed against men? is my complaint (שִׂיחִי as in Job_7:13; Job_9:27; Job_10:1), concerning men, or is it not rather concerning something that has a superhuman cause, something that is decreed by God? That in this last thought lies the tacit antithesis to לְאָדָם is evident from the second member: or why should I not be impatient? lit. “why should my spirit not become short,” comp. Job_6:11; Mic_2:7; Zec_11:8; Pro_14:29. That which follows gives us to understand more distinctly that it was something quite extraordinary, superhuman, under the burden of which Job groans, and concerning which he has to complain. [The rendering of the last clause found in E. V. Lee, Wemyss, etc.: “And if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?” is both less natural, in view of the antecedent probability that וְאִם is cor-related to the ה interrogative, less simple, and less satisfactory in the meaning which it yields. E.].
Job_21:5. Turn ye to me and be astonished, and lay the hand on the mouth,viz.: as being dumb with astonishment, comp. Job_29:9; Job_40:4—וְהָשַׁמּוּ Imper. cons. Hiph. from שָׁמַם (comp. Job_17:8; Job_18:20) [with Pattach for Tsere in pause], obstupescite. According to the reading הֳשַׁמּוּ (Imper. Hoph. of the same verb) [as some regard it even with the punctuation הָשַׁמּוּ = hoshammu] the meaning is not essentially different.
Job_21:6. Verily if I think on it I am confounded (וְנִבְהָלְתִּי apodosis; comp. Job_7:14) and my flesh seizes on horror. In Heb. בְּשָׁרִי is subject; comp. the similar phraseology in Job_18:20. פָּלַּצוּת, from פָּלַץ Job_9:6, means convulsive quaking, terror, as in the New Testament ἐκθαμβεῖσθαι καὶ ἀδημονεῖν (Mar_14:33). It is to be noted how by these strong expressions the friends are prepared to hear something grave, fearful, astounding, to wit a proposition, founded on experience, which seems to call in question the divine justice, and to the affirmation of which Job accordingly proceeds hesitatingly, and with visible reluctance.
3. Second Division: First Half: The testimony of experience to the fact that the wicked are often, and indeed ordinarily prosperous: Job_21:7-16.
Second Strophe: Job_21:7-11. Why do the wicked live on—instead of dying early, as Zophar had maintained, Job_20:5. The same question is propounded by Jeremiah, Job_12:1 seq.; comp. Psalms 73. Mal_3:13 seq. Become old, yea, strong in power, or: “are become old (lit. advanced in years, comp. עַתִּיק) and mighty in possessions.” In regard to גָּבַר הַיִל (with accus. of specification) comp. the equivalent phrase הִשְׂגָּה הַיִל, Psa_73:12; and in regard to חַיִל see above Job_15:29; Job_20:15; Job_20:18.
Job_21:8. Their posterity is establishedנָכוֹן here not—“standing in readiness,” as in Job_12:5; Job_15:23, but “enduring, firmly established, as in (Psa_93:2) before them round about them, surrounding them in the closest proximity; this is the meaning of עִמָּם, not: “like themselves” (Rosenm., Umbreit, Sohlottm., Vaih., [Fürst, Noyes] etc.), in behalf of which latter signification to be sure Job_9:26 might be cited; but the parallel expression—“before their eyes”—in the second member, favors rather the former sense. [And their offspring before their eyes. צֶאֱצָאִים, as in Job_5:25—“is exactly expressed by our issue, though perhaps the reduplication rather implies issue’s issue.” Carey]. Job, having been himself so ruthlessly stripped of his children, makes prominent above all else this aspect of the external prosperity of the wicked, that namely which is exhibited in a flourishing posterity, a fine trait of profound psychological truth! [To be noted moreover is the pathetic repetition of the thought in both members of the verse, and its no less pathetic resumption in Job_21:11. This picture of a complete and peaceful household, with its circle of joyous youth fascinates the bereaved father’s heart exceedingly, and he dwells on it with yearning fondness!]
Job_21:9. Their houses [are] peace (שָׁלֹום, the same as בְּשָׁלוֹם; comp. Job_5:24 [where see rem. in favor of the more literal and forcible rendering obtained by not assuming the preposition at all; E.] Isa_41:3) without fear. מִפַּחַד, like מִבְּשָדִו Job_19:26; (comp. Job_11:15; Isa_22:3) and the rod of Eloah cometh not upon them, i. e. to punish them; comp. שֵׁבֶט in Job_9:34; Job_37:13 [How different from the fate of his own “house!” No such “Terror,” no such “Scourge” as that which had made his a ruin!—E.].
Job_21:10. From the state of the household the description turns to that of the cattle, with the peculiarity that here exceptionally the sing takes the place of the plur., which is used almost throughout to designate the wicked (so again below Job_21:19, and in like manner Job_24:5; Job_24:16 seq.). His bull gendereth and faileth not (Zöckler lit.—“his bull covereth and impregnates”]. שׁוֹר, in itself of common gender, is here indicated as a masc. both by the contrast with פָּרָה in b, and by its predic. עִבַּר, “to cover, to gender” (comp. עָבוּר “produce fruit,” Jos_5:11-12). The additional strengthening clause וְלֹא יַגְעִל, neque efficit ut ejiciat (semen) indicates that the impregnation is successful. The second member is entirely parallel.—His cow calveth easily (פִּלֵֹט, synon. withהִמְלִיט ,מִלֵּט, Isa_34:15; Isa_66:7) and miscarries not, neque abortum patitur, comp. Gen_31:38; Exo_23:26.
Job_21:11. Once more Job recurs to the fairest instance of earthly prosperity, the possession of a flourishing troop of children. On עֲוִילִים comp. above on Job_19:18 [where however the word suggests, as it does not necessarily here, a bad quality in the children themselves; Bernard’s rendering “they send forth their wicked little children,” introduces an incongruous element into the picture, which Job contemplates here as a pleasing and attractive one.—E.] As to שִׁלֵּחַ, “to send forth, to let loose,” see Isa_32:20.
Third Strophe: Job_21:12-16. They (the wicked) sing loud with the playing of timbrel and harp; hence with joyous festivity, as in Isa_5:12—יִשְׂאוּ (scil. קוֹל) lit. “they raise their voice,” i. e., in loud jubilations or songs of joy; comp. Isa_42:11—בְּתוֹף וְכִנּוֹר, used as in Psa_49:5 [4] of the musical accompaniment; hence, “with, to the timbrel and harp.” On the contrary the reading preferred by the Masora and several Rabbis, כְּתֹף ו׳ would signify “at, during the playing of the timbrel, etc.” (כְּ of the proximate specification of time, as in כָּעֵת [“about the time”], כִּמְעָט, etc.). Concerning עוּגָב, instead of which several MSS. and Ed’s have in Job_30:31עֻגָב, and in Psa_150:4עֻגָּב, comp. Delitzsch on Gen_4:21; Winer, Realwörterb. II., 123 seq. [“The three musical instruments here mentioned are certainly the most ancient, and are naturally the most simple, and indeed may be regarded as the originals of every species of musical instrument that has since been invented, all which may be reduced to three kinds—string instruments, wind instruments, and instruments of percussion; and the כִּנּוֹרharp, the עוּגָב, pipe, and the תֹּף, tabor, may be considered as the first representatives of each of these species respectively.” Carey, see illustrations in Carey, p. 453 seq., and Smith Bib. Dict. under “Harp, Timbrel, and Organ”].
Job_21:13. They spend in prosperity their days.—So according to the K’ri יְכַלּוּ (lit. “they complete, finish,” comp. Job_36:11; Psa_90:9), while the K’thibh יְבַלּוּ would be, according to Isa_65:22 = “they use up, wear out” (usu conterunt) [which is more expressive than the K’ri, signifying not only that they bring their life to an end, but that they use it up, get out of it all the enjoyment that is in it.—E.]. In either case the affirmation is made in direct contradiction to the opposite descriptions of Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar, as e. g., Job_15:32; Job_18:14; Job_20:11.—And in a moment (בְּרֶגַע like our “in a trice” [Germ.: “im Nu”], hence quickly, easily, without a struggle) they sink down to Sheol,—they thus enjoy a quick death, free from suffering, having fully enjoyed their life even to the end. The connection does not allow us to understand it of an “evil sudden death,” but rather requires the idea of a euthanasy.—יֵחַתּוּ might in itself be the Imperf. Niph. of חתת: “they are frightened down” [others, e. g., Bernard; “they are crushed, or hurled down”], to which however the Accus. lociשְׁאוֹל is ill suited. More correctly the form is derived from נחת, the Imperf. of which is written either יִנְחַת, or יֵחַת. It may be read here either יֵחָתוּ (for יֵחֲתוּ—so Ewald, Hirzel), or with reduplication of the ת in pause [Dageshforte emphatic, Green, § 24, c] after the Masora; comp. Gesen. Lehrgeb., p. 45; Ewald, § 93, d.
Job_21:14 seq. And yet they say unto God, “Depart from us,”etc., etc., i. e., notwithstanding their prosperity [“the fut. consec.וַיּאֹמְרוּ does not here denote temporally that which follows upon and from something else, but generally that which is inwardly connected with something else, and even with that which is contradictory, and still occurring at the same time;” Del.], which should constrain them to gratitude towards God, they will know nothing about Him, yea, they account the service of God and prayer to Him as useless. פָּגַע בְּ, precibus adire; comp. Rth_1:16; Jer_7:16; Jer_27:18.
Job_21:16. After the frivolous words of the ungodly Job here resumes his own description, and concludes the section in which he states his proposition.—Behold, not in their hand stands their prosperity.—This is not an objection assumed by Job to be made by his opponents, as below in Job_21:19 (Schnurrer, Schlottm., Kamph.) [Noyes, Elzas], but an expression of Job’s own conviction, who intends herewith to set forth that not they, but God Himself is in some mysterious way the cause of their prosperity, by which he would indicate the difficulty of the problem, with which he is here occupied in general. The sentence is not an expression of Job’s disapprobation of the view of life prevalent among the wicked (Ewald) [Carey, Wordsworth], for such an expression of disapprobation first appears in b, and the position of the words in a shows clearly that the main emphasis lies on בְּיָדָם. The interrogative rendering of the clause, “Behold! is not their prosperity in their hand?” (Rashi, Hirzel, Heiligst., Welte, Hahn [Renan]) is contradicted by the use of הֵן לֹא, not הֲלֹא at the beginning. [Moreover the connection with b according to such a rendering is strained.—E.]—The counsel of the wicked be far from me!—The same formula of detestation recurs in the following discourse of Eliphaz, Job_22:18—רָֽחֲקָח מֶנּי is used in a precative or optative sense (Ewald, § 223, b); it is thus essentially equivalent to the formula elsewhere in use—חֲלִילָה לִי. [“It is the perf. of certainty, which expresses that which is wished as a fact, but with an emotional exclamative accent.” Del.]. In respect to עֵצָח, here in the sense of fundamental maxim, disposition, view of life, comp. Job_5:13; Job_10:3; Job_18:7. Job thus persists decidedly here again in his refusal in any way to renounce God; comp. Job_1:11; Job_2:5. [This strong repudiation by Job of the practical atheism of the wicked is of especial importance to the moral problem of the book.—E.].
4. Second Division: Second Half. Antithetic demonstration of the preceding proposition derived from experience, with reference to the opposite affirmations of the friends, and their possible reproaches.
Fourth Strophe: Job_21:17-21. [The views of the friends in regard to retribution denied both as to the fact and the principle].
Job_21:17 involves a reference to certain expressions which Bildad had used in Job 18 in justification of his doctrine, particularly to his description of the “extinguishing of the light of the wicked” (Job_18:5), and of the sudden destruction (אֵיד—“prop pressure of suffering” Del.) of the same (Job_18:12), but only to call in question the correct application of these figures.—How oft does the lamp of the wicked go out, and their destruction break upon them?—In Job’s mind this “how oft” (כַּמָּה, comp. Psa_78:40) is naturally equivalent to “how rarely;” for he decidedly doubts the general correctness of those affirmations of Bildad Moreover the influence of this interrogative “how oft” extends to the third member of the verse [which accordingly is not to be rendered affirmatively, as in E. V., “God distributed sorrows in His anger”—a rendering which changes the meaning of the entire context, making it an assertion by Job that God does punish the wicked as the friends had taught—whereas on the contrary Job is asking how often was this the case?—E.]: (how often) does He distribute sorrows in His anger? The subject is God (comp. Job_20:23). The particular affirmation of his opponents, to which Job here alludes, is the close of Zophar’s last speech (Job_20:29), the חֵלֶק of which is distinctly enough echoed here in the יְחַלֵּק. The retrospective reference to this passage would be still more definite if we were to derive חֲבָלִים from חֶבֶל, measuring-line (so the Targ., Ewald, Hirz., Dillmann [Schlott., Renan, Fürst]), and explain it to mean “lots, heritages” (comp. Psa_16:6). It is more natural, nevertheless, (with the LXX. Vulg., Gesenius, Rosenm. [E. V., Good, Lee, Noyes, Ber., Rod., Elz.], etc., to take the word in its ordinary sense = “sorrows, calamities” (plur. of חֵבֶל). [“The plur. does not occur in that tropical sense (of “lots”), and if it were so intended here, חַבְלֵיהֶם, or חֲבָלִים לָהֶם might at least be expected.” Del.]. Also the translation “snares, gins,” (Stickel, Hahn, Delitzsch) yields a meaning good in itself, and would have, moreover, the special recommendation of furnishing a retrospective reference to Job_8:10-12, the same passage of Bildad’s discourse to which a and b look. The expression—“to distribute snares”—is however altogether too harsh, and the assumption that such an unusual expression is occasioned by the collateral reference to Job_18:10 seq., and to Job_20:29, is altogether too artificial.
Job_21:18 (over which the influence of כַּמָּה continues to extend): How often are they as Straw (chopped straw) [a figure occurring only here: the figure of chaff is more frequent. Del.] before the wind, and as chaff (Psa_1:4; Isa_17:13) which the whirlwind snatches away? An allusion to Zophar’s description, Job_20:8-9, if not as regards the expressions, still as regards the sense.
Job_21:19. “God lays up his calamity for his (the wicked man’s) children!” (אוֹנוֹ from אָוֶן in the signification “calamity;” comp. Job_11:11; Job_15:35.) [There is possibly a play on the word אונו, which may be rendered either “his wealth,” or “his calamity.”—His treasure is the coming wrath! און also means “iniquity,” and some (E. V., Del., etc.) render it so here. Here, however, the “evil” which is the punishment of “evil” best suits the context.—E.] This is an objection of the opponents, which links itself to similar affirmations by Eliphaz (Job_5:4) and Zophar (Job_20:10), and which Job himself here formulates, in order forthwith to refute it: (Rather) let Him recompense it to him (or, in view of the emphasis belonging to the word bearing the principal tone: “to him let Him repay it”) that he may feel it (יָדַע here sentire, to feel, to be sensible of, as in Isa_9:8; Hos_9:7; Eze_25:14). In a manner quite similar the prophets Jeremiah (Job_31:29 seq) and Ezekiel (Job 18) controvert the similar doctrine of the vicarious expiation of the guilt of parents by their posterity. [Job’s view is that retribution can be such only when it falls on the offender himself. It may affect others—although Job does not say that himself—it must reach him. E.]
Job_21:20 continues the refutation of that false theory of substitution or satisfaction, and illustrates at the same time how the evil doer is to ידע or “feel” the divine punishment.—כִּיד “destruction,” (lit. “a thrust, blow,” plaga), only here in the Old Testament; synonymous with the Arabic caid. The figure of drinking the divine wrath has immediate reference to Zophar’s description, Job_20:23. [“The emphasis lies on the signs of the person in עֵינָו and יִשְׁתֶּה May his own eyes see his ruin; may he himself have to drink of the divine wrath.” Del.]
Job_21:21 gives a reason for that which he has just said against that perverted theory by calling attention to the stolid insensibility of the evil-doer, as a consummate egoist, in respect to the interests of his posterity. For what careth he for his house after him: lit. “for what is his concern, his interest (חֵפֶץ here, as in Job_22:3; comp. Isa_58:3) in his house after him” (i.e., after his death)? אַחֲרָיו is in close union with בְּבֵיתוֹ (comp. e. g.Gen_17:19) not with חֶפְּצוֹ. If the number of his months is apportioned to him; or “while [or when] the number, etc.” The whole of this circumstantial clause, which is a partial echo of Job_15:20 (comp. Job_14:5), expresses the thought, that the selfish pleasure-seeking evil-doer is satisfied if only his appointed term of life remains to him unabridged. This general meaning may be maintained whether, in accordance with Pro_30:27, we explain חָצַץ to mean: “to allot, to appoint,” thus rendering it as a synonym of חָצָה (Job 40:30 [Job_41:6]; so Targ., Gesen., Ewald, Dillm.); or, which is less probable, we take it as a denominative from חֵץ, “arrow,” in the sense of “casting lots, disposing of by lot” [from the custom of shaking up arrows for lots—a doubtful sense for the Hebrew] (so Cocceius, Rosenm., Umbreit, Hirzel, etc.); or whether, finally, we assign to the word the meaning of “cutting off, completing” (Gesenius in Thes., Stickel, Delitzsch [E. V. Good, Ber., Noy., Schlott., Con., Rod., Ren., Fürst] etc.)—to which latter interpretation, however, the expression—“the number of his months”—is not so well suited, for a number is not properly cut off. [In any case the addition of E. V., “when the number of his months is cut off in the midst,” is erroneous; for even if we assign to the verb the signification—“cut off”—the meaning of the clause is cutting off at the end, not in the midst. What is the evil-doer’s concern in his house, when he himself is no more? The other meaning given above however—“to apportion”—gives a more vivid representation of his brutal selfishness, his unconcern even for his own flesh and blood, provided he himself have his full share of life and its enjoyments. What careth he for his house after him, if the full number of his own months be meted out to him? E.] The number of חֻצָּצוּ is determined by the subordinate [but nearest] term of the subject, by virtue of an attraction similar to that in Job_15:20 (Gesen. § 148 [§ 145], 1) [Green, § 277].
Fifth Strophe: Job_21:22-26 : [The theory of the friends involves a presumptuous dictation to God of what He should do, seeing that His present dealings with men, and their participation of the common destiny of the grave, furnish no indication of moral character].
Job_21:22. Shall one teach God knowledge. לְאֵל as containing the principal notion is put emphatically first. In respect to the dative construction of verbs of teaching (as in Greek διδάσκειν τινί τι) comp. Ewald, § 283, c.: Seeing He judgeth those that are in heaven: lit: “and He nevertheless judges (וְהוּא, circumstantial clause) the high” [Carey: “dignities.” The LXX read דמים, φόνους]. The “high” are simply the heavenly spirits, the angels as inhabiting the heights of heaven (מְרוֹמִים, comp. Job_16:19; Job_25:2; Job_31:2), not the celestial heights themselves, as Gesenius explains, with a reference to Psa_78:69, a reference, however, which is probably unsuitable. Still less does it mean “the proud” (Hahn, Olshausen), a signification which רָם by itself, and without qualification never has. This proposition, that God exercises judicial power over the exalted spirits of heaven, Job advances here all the more readily, that the friends had already appealed twice in similar words to the same fact of the absolute holiness and justice of God (Job_4:18; Job_15:15). They had indeed done this with the intent of supporting their narrow-minded doctrine of retribution, while on the contrary Job, by the same proposition would put their short-sighted theory to the rout, and direct attention to the unfathomable depth and secresy of God’s counsels, and of the principles of His government.
Job_21:23-26 demonstrate this unfathomableness and incomprehensibleness of the divine judgments (Rom_11:33) by two examples, which are contrasted each with the other (Job_21:23, Job_21:25 : זֶה־זֶה, “the one—the other”), of one man dying in the fulness of his prosperity, of another who is continually unfortunate, but whom the like death unites with the former, notwithstanding that their moral desert during their life was altogether different, or directly opposite in character. The assumption of many ancient and some modern commentators, as e. g. Hahn, that by the prosperous man described in Job_21:23 seq. a wicked man, and by the unfortunate man described in Job_21:25 a pious man is intended, without qualification, is arbitrary, and hardly corresponds with exactness to the poet’s idea. The tendency of the parallel presented is rather in accordance with Job_21:22, to show, in proof of the mysteriousness of the divine dealings and judgment, that what happens outwardly to men in this life is not necessarily determined by their moral conduct, but that this latter might be, and often enough is directly at variance with the external prosperity.
Job_21:23. The one dies in the fulness of his prosperity; lit. “in bodily prosperity,” in ipsa sua integritate. In respect to עֶצֶם “self” [essence, the very thing] comp. Gesen. § 124 [§ 122], 2, Rem. 3; and in respect to תֹּם, “integrity in the physical sense, bodily, in general external well being,” comp. the word מְתֹם generally used elsewhere in this sense, Psa_38:4 [3], 8 [7], and also תְּמִימִיםPro_1:12—שַׁלְאֲנָן in the second member, which is not found elsewhere is an alternate form of שַׁאַנָן, “unconcerned,” enlarged by the introduction of a liquid [comp. זלעף from זעף, æstuare, and בלסם, βάλσαμον, from בשׂם; Del.]. According to Rödiger, Olsh., it is possibly just an error in writing for שַׁאֲנָן, the form given above in Job_12:5. שָׁלֵיו stands here for the more frequent defective form שָׁלֵו, Job_20:20; comp. Jer_49:31.
Job_21:24. His troughs are full of milk. Most moderns, following the lead of the Talmudic מַעֲטָן “olive-trough,” as well as the authority of the Targ. and many Rabbis, take עֲטִינִים correctly in the sense of “vessels, troughs” [“milk-pails,” Luther, Wolfsohn, Elzas; “bottles,” Lee; “skins,” Carey (i. e. undressed skins, the abundance of milk making it necessary to use these)], to the rejection of interpretations which are in part singularly at variance, such as “cattle-pastures” (Aben-Ezra, Schult. [Renan, Weymss] etc., “veins” (Fürst), “jugular veins” (Saad.), “sides” (Pesh.) [Noyes, Con.], “bowels” (LXX., Vulg. [“breasts,” Targ., E. V.; “loins,” Rodwell; “sleek skin,” Good. “The assumption that עטיניו must be a part of the body is without satisfactory ground (comp. against it e. g. Job_20:17, and for it Job_20:11); and Schlottm. very correctly observes that in the contrast in connection with the representation of the well-watered marrow one expects a reference to a rich, nutritious drink.” Delitzsch]. The meaning of this member of the verse accordingly reminds us in general of Job_20:17, which description of Zophar’s Job here purposely recalls, in like manner as in “the marrow of the bones,” in b he recalls Job_21:11 of the same discourse. [And the marrow of his bones is well-watered]. In respect to “well-watered,” an agricultural or horticultural metaphor, comp. Isa_58:11.
Job_21:25. The other dies with a bitter soul (comp. Job_3:20; Job_7:11; Job_10:1), and has not enjoyed good; lit. “and has not eaten of the good” (or “prosperity,” טוֹבָה as in Job_9:25) with בְּ partitive, as in Psa_141:4; comp. above Job_7:13 [אָכַל בְּ perhaps like רָאָה ב conveying the idea of enjoyment, as Schlottmann suggests. Not, however, of full enjoyment, but rather tasting of it.—Not as in E. V. “and never eateth with pleasure;” against which lies (1) The customary usage of בְּ partitive after verbs of eating and drinking; (2) The objective meaning of טוֹבָה, which cannot be taken of subjective pleasure.—E].
Job_21:26. Together [or: beside one another] they lie down in the dust (of the grave), and worms cover them.—רִמָּה, decay, worms, as above in Job_17:14. Comp. our proverbial expressions in regard to the equality of the grave, the impartiality of death, etc.
5. Third Division: A rebuke of the friends on account of their one-sided judgment touching the external prosperity of men, a judgment which was only unfavorable as regards Job: Job_21:27-34.
Sixth Strophe: Job_21:27-30.—Behold I know your thoughts [מהשבות, counsels, plans], and the plots (מְזִמּוֹת, sensu malo, as in Pro_12:2; Pro_14:17; Pro_24:8) [“is the name he gives to the delicately developed reasoning with which they attack him”: Delitzsch; the schemes which they invent to wound him, the painful dilemmas into which they would entrap him: E.] with which ye do violence to me: with the intent namely of presenting me at any cost as a sinner. [“By the construction of חמם with על the notion of falling upon and over-powering is indicated.” Schlottm.].
Job_21:28, hypothetical antecedent with כִּי, is related to Job_21:29 as its consequent, precisely like Job_19:28 to Job_21:29. [So Ewald. Del., Dillm. But such a construction seems neither natural nor forcible. The causal rendering: “For ye say, etc.,” is simpler and stronger. It was from just such taunts as the following that Job knew their spirit, and detected their insidious plots against his reputation and his peace. The causal rendering is adopted by E. V. Good, Wem., Noy., Words., Schlott., Con., Rod., Carey, Elzas, etc. E. ]. If, [or, when] ye say: “Where is the house of the tyrant? (נָדִיב, sensu malo, as in Isa_13:2, not in the neutral sense, as above in Job_12:21) [a title of honor, similar in use to our nobleman, generosus, for which, in its personal application to Job here, “tyrant” seems too strong a rendering. Neither here, nor in Is. l.c., is such a rendering called for. In this member the prominent idea is station, rank: the moral character of the נדיב is indicated in the following member. E.], and where the tent inhabited by the wicked? lit., “the tent of the habitations of the wicked,’ by which possibly a spacious palatial tent is intended, with several large compartments within it (such as the tents of the Bedouin sheikhs are to this day), which can be recognized from afar by their size. [משׁכנות “is not an externally, but internally multiplying plur.; perhaps the poet by בית intends a palace in the city, and by אהל משׁכנוה a tent among the wandering tribes, rendered prominent by its spaciousness, and the splendor of the establishment” Del.]. It is to be noted moreover how distinct an allusion there is in the question to the repeated descriptions of the destruction of the tent of the wicked by Eliphaz and Bildad (Job_15:34; Job_18:15; Job_18:21).
Job_21:29. Have ye not inquired then [שְׁאֶלְתֶּם for שְׁאַלתֶּם; see Green, § 119, 2] of those who travel: lit. “the wanderers, passers by, of the way;” comp. Lam_1:12;. Psa_80:13, etc. [“People who have travelled much, and therefore are well acquainted with the stories of human destinies.” Del.]. Andtheir tokens ye will at least not fail to know;i. e. that which they nave to tell of examples of prosperous evil-doers and righteous ones in adversity (they, who have travelled much, who know about other lands and nations!) that you surely will not disregard, controvert, or reject? תְּנַכֵּרוּ, Piel of נכר, expresses here, as in Deu_32:27 : 1Sa_23:7; Jer_19:4, the negative sense of “ignoring, denying,” while occasionally, e. g. in Elihu’s use of it, Job_34:19, it signifies also to “acknowledge” (a meaning elsewhere found in the Hiphil). [So here E. V. Lee, Conant, Ewald, Schlott.—according to which rendering the second member is a continuation of the question begun in the first]. אוֹהוֹת, “tokens,” means here “things worthy of note, remarkable incidents, memorabilia, anecdotes of travel.”
Job_21:30 gives in brief compass the substance and contents of these lessons of travel: That in the day of destruction (אֵיד, as in Job_21:17) the wicked is spared (i. e. is held back from ruin; חשׂךְ as in Job_16:6; Job_33:18), in the day of overflowing wrath they are led away:i. e. beyond the reach of the devastating effect of these outbursts of divine wrath (עֲבָרוֹת as in Job_40:11), so that these can do them no harm. The Hoph. הוּבַל, which is used below in Job_21:32 of being escorted in honor to the grave, expresses here accordingly, in like manner as in Isa_55:12, being led away with a protecting escort (as, for example, Lot was conducted out of Sodom). [Noyes gives to the verb here the same application as in Job_21:32, and explains: He is borne to his grave in the day of wrath; i. e. he dies a natural, peaceful death]. The only unusual feature of this construction, which in any case is much to be preferred as a whole to that of Ewald [Rodwell] “on the day when the overflowings of wrath come on” is the לְיוֹם, instead of which we might rather look for בְּיוֹם, “in the day.” It is nevertheless unadvisable, in view of the context, to translate the second member—as e. g. with Dillman [E. V., Con., Carey]—“they are brought on to the day of wrath;” for such a proposition could not possibly, be attributed to the travellers, but at most to the friends; it would thus of necessity follow a very abruptly [and unnaturally]; neither would any essential relief be obtained from a transposition of Job_21:30 and Job_21:29 as suggested by Delitzsch. [Zöckler overlooks, however, the explanation of those (such as Scott, Carey, Conant, Wordsworth, Barnes, etc.) who regard the whole of this verse as expressing, through the travellers of Job_21:29, Job’s own conviction that the wicked are reserved for future retribution, that they are led forth to a day of wrath hereafter; that accordingly present exemption from the penalty of sin proves nothing as to a man’s real character. Such an explanation, however, is to be rejected for the following reasons: (1) It is at variance with the drift of the book’s argument. (2) It is inconceivable, if Job held so clearly and firmly to the doctrine of future retribution, as this view of the passage before us would imply, that he did not make more use of it in his discussions. (3) It is inconsistent with the connection (a) Why should he produce this view here as a foreign importation? Why should he rest it on experience? Observe that the proposition—the wicked are spared in times of calamity is a deduction from experience, for the truth of which Job might well appeal to the testimony of those who by much observation and experience could testify to the fact. But surely the doctrine of a future retribution must rest on other authority—the witness of conscience, the testimony of a divine revelation, the consensus of the wise and holy (not merely of the עוֹבְרֵי דֶרֶךְ) in all ages and lands. (b) It is inconceivable that Job having carried his hearers forward to the retribution of the Hereafter as the solution of the mystery of the present should proceed to speak (as he does in the verses immediately following) of the present prosperity and pomp of the wicked, and of the continuance of the same to and upon the grave, in the same strain as before. Especially does the conclusion reached in Job_21:33 seem strange and unsuitable, if we suppose the sublime truth of a full retribution to be declared in Job_21:30—E.]
Seventh Strophe: Job_21:31-34. Who to His face will declare His way? and hath He done aught—who will requite it to Him? This inquiry evidently proceeds not from the travellers, whose utterance has already come to an end in Job_21:30, but from Job himself. Moreover it concerns not the sinner, but God, the unsearchably wise and mighty disposer of men’s destinies, whose name is not mentioned from reverential awe. So correctly Aben-Ezra, Ewald, Hirzel, Heiligst., Dillm. Regarded as the continuation of the discourse of the travellers (as it is taken by the majority of commentators) [so Del., Schlott., Renan, Scott, Good, Lee, Bernard, Rod., Words., Elzas, Merx], the verse must naturally be referred to the wicked man, characterizing his unscrupulous arbitrary conduct, which no one ventures to hinder or punish. But for this view the expression מִי יְשַׁלֶּס־לוֹ, “who will requite it to him?” would be much too strong. Moreover a sentiment of such a reflective cast would be strange in the mouth of the travellers from whom we should expect directly only a statement of fact (אוֹתוֹת Job_21:29). [Referred to God the meaning would be: Who will challenge the divine conduct? He renders no account of His actions. His reasons are inscrutable; and however much His dealings with men seem to contradict our notions of justice, our only recourse is silence and submission. But against this interpretation it may be urged: (1) It requires too many abrupt changes of subject. Thus we should have for subject in Job_21:30 the wicked man, in Job_21:31 God, in Job_21:32 the wicked again, and this while in Job_21:31 and Job_21:32 the subject is indicated only by personal pronouns. It is highly improbable that וְהוּא in Job_21:31 b, and וְהוּא in Job_21:32 a are used of different subjects. (2) The expressions are unsuitable to the thought attributed to them, especially the clause מִי יְשַלֶּס־לוֹ, which, as Delitzsch argues, used of man in relation to God, has no suitable meaning. On the other hand the application to the wicked gives a smooth connection, at the same time that the expressions are entirely appropriate to describe his career of lawless impunity. The והוא of Job_21:32 moreover acquires by this application its proper emphasis (see on the verse). To the objection made above—that a moral reflection of the sort would be inappropriate in the mouth of travellers, it may be replied that it is not properly a reflection, but a statement of fact, the fact, namely, of the evildoer’s exemption from responsibility and punishment. On the contrary, so far from being called to account, or properly punished, he escapes in the day of calamity (Job_21:30), he defies the world (Job_21:31), and is buried with honor (Job_21:32). Carey thinks that Job here “makes evident allusion to a custom that prevailed among the ancient Egyptians, whose law allowed any one to bring an accusation against a deceased person previously to his interment (and even kings themselves were not exempted from this death judgment); if the accusation was fully proved, and the deceased was convicted of having led a bad life, he was obliged to be placed in his own house, and was debarred the customary rites of interment, even though the tomb had been prepared for him.” Less simple and probable than the explanation given above. E.]
Job_21:32 seq. continue the report of those who had travelled much, not however (any more than in Job_21:30) in their ipsissimis verbis strictly quoted, but in such a way that Job fully appropriates to himself that which they say (to wit, their vivid representation of the brilliant career of the wicked), so that accordingly even Job_21:31 need not be regarded as properly an interruption of that report. And he (וְהוּא pointing back to the רַע Job_21:30 [emphatic, according to the view which regards the רַע as also the subject of Job_21:31. He—the same who lives that lawless, defiant, outwardly successful life, is the favorite of fortune to the very last. Feared in his life, he is again honored in his death. E.] is borne away to burial, in full honor, and with a great procession; comp. on Job_21:30; also Job_10:19; Job_17:1. [“Like משׁכנות above, קברות is also an amplificative plural.” Del. It would thus mean “a splendid tomb”]. And on a monument he (still) keeps watch: as one immortalized by a statue, or a stone monument. This is not to be specially understood in accordance with the Egyptian custom (in that case the reference here being to pyramids; comp. on Job_3:14), but in accordance with a custom, still prevalent in the East, specially among the Bedouin Arabs, of building large grave-mounds, or a domed structure towering above the grave (קֻבָּה) in memory of the honored dead. In such a lofty monument the dead man keeps watch, as it were, over his own resting-place, without its being necessary to suppose that he was particularly represented by a statue, or a picture on the wall (like those in Egyptian vaults, to which Schlottm. refers here by way of comparison). [“Possibly there is also here some allusion to inscriptions warning off those who would desecrate the tomb, similar to those found on the sarcophagus of Eschmunazar, king of Sidon.” Renan]. This explanation is in striking harmony not only with well-known customs of the east, but also with the etymologically established signification of גַּדִּישׁ = heap, tumulus, monumentum (comp. גַּל, Gen_31:46 seq.). It agrees not less with that which was previously spoken by Bildad to precisely the opposite effect in respect to the memory of the evil-doer after his death in Job_18:17, where the latter presupposes the complete extinction of the name of the ungodly, whereas Job on the contrary makes the same not only not to sleep the sleep of death, but rather to watch, as though he continued to live. [And Noyes accordingly renders: “Yea, he still survives upon his tomb. He enjoys as it were a second life upon his tomb, in the honors paid to his memory, his splendid monument, and the fame he leaves behind him.”]. The more striking the above points of agreement, the less necessary is it to fatigue ourselves in company with the ancient versions and Böttcher (Proben, etc., p. 22) in finding how גַּדִּישׁ could be taken in the sense of “heaps of sheaves,” and still obtain a sentiment suited to the context.1 Equally unnecessary is it (with Böttcher de infer, p. 40, [Conant], Hahn, Rödiger, etc.) to take ישקר impersonally; “watch is held over his grave-mound, etc.” a rendering with which the suffix-less גַּדִּישׁ (not גְּדִישׁוֹ) would agree but indifferently. [“Moreover,” says Delitzsch, “the placing of guards of honor by graves is an assumed, but not proved, custom of antiquity.” The rendering of E. V. “and shall remain in the tomb,” is feeble as well as incorrect.].
Job_21:33. Soft lie upon him the clods [or sods] of the valley (Job_38:38). Lit., “sweet are to him the clods of the valley,” those, namely, beneath which he rests. Valleys are particularly desired in the East as places of burial; witness the valleys around Jerusalem, abounding as they do in graves. The favorite custom of the Arabs of burying their distinguished dead on eminences, is accordingly not referred to here (comp. Del. on Job_21:32). [“These words also seem to suppose that the person who is buried may partake, in some respects, of the prosperous state of the tomb which contains him. Such an idea seems to have been indulged by Sultan Amurath the Great, who died in 1450, [and who in the suburbs of Prusa] ‘now lieth in a chappell without any roofe, his grave nothing differing from the manner of the common Turks; which, they say, he commanded to be done, in his last will, that the mercie and blessing of God (as he termed it) might come unto him by the shining of the sunne and moone, and falling of the raine and dew of heaven upon his grave.’ Knolles’Hist. of the Turks, p. 332.” Noyes]. And after him draws (יִמְשֹׁךְ intransitive as in Jdg_4:6) all the world:viz. by imitating his example, by entering on the same path of a life spent in earthly enjoyment and luxury, which he, and an unnumbered multitude of others before him (as the third member says) had already trod. Thus rendered the sentence undoubtedly expresses an exaggeration; in the כָל־אָדָם there lies an unjust accusation of misanthropic bitterness against the great mass of men. [For a somewhat similar misanthropic, or at least cynical bitterness, comp. what Bildad says in Job_8:19.] This same characteristic however corresponds perfectly to the exasperated and embittered temper of Job; whereas on the contrary to interpret “all the world draws after him” of a large funeral procession (Vaih., [Wemyss, Carey] etc.), yields when compared with 32a an inappropriate tautology, and to refer it to those who follow after him through sharing the same fate of death and burial (Delitzsch [Noyes]) seems altogether too vapid in the present connection.
Job_21:34. Conclusion: with a reference to Job_21:27. How then (וְאֵיךְ, quomodo ergo, stronger than the simple אֵיךְ) can you comfort me so vainly (comp Job_9:29)? Of your replies there remains (over nothing but) falsehood! Lit. “and as for your replies (absolute case, Ewald, § 309, b)—there remaineth over falsehood.”—מָעַֹל, scil. בָּאֱלֹהִים, “a perfidious disposition towards God” (comp. Jos_22:22), and for that same reason also towards one’s neighbor. By this is intended the same intriguing, malicious, deceitful eagerness to suspect and to slander, with which in Job_21:27 he had reproached his opponents.
DOCTRINAL AND ETHICAL
1. The significance of this discourse of Job’s in respect to the progress of the colloquy lies in the fact that it marks the transition from the predominantly personal treatment of the problem, which has thus far obtained on the part both of the friends and of Job to a discussion dealing more immediately with the subject-matter, and for that reason more calm, less passionate in its tone, and more directly preparing the way for the solution. The venomous accusations of the friends, (which in the immediately preceding discourse of Zophar had reached the climax of bluntness and odiousness), do not indeed cease from this point on. Just as little does the tone of bitterness disappear from Job’s replies, which on the contrary at the beginning and close of the present discourse exhibits itself in a manner decidedly marked (in Job_21:2-3; which contain sarcastic allusions to the empty “consolations of the friends”; in Job_21:34, with its reproach of falsehood and unfaithfulness). From this point on however we find, along with these personalities, a tendency, characterized by an ever increasing objectivity, to consider calmly the question of fact involved in the matter in controversy; the result indeed being that Job’s superiority over his opponents as regards their respective points of view becomes more and more obvious. In his former discourse he had discussed only occasionally and incidentally their favorite doctrine concerning the horrible end of the wicked; and in what he had said he had exhibited so little prudence that he had appeared as one who presumptuously challenged the divine righteousness, and had thus only confirmed the friends’ evil opinion of his moral character (see Job_9:22-24; Job_10:3; Job_12:6). Now, however, he proceeds to discuss the question in controversy calmly and thoroughly, opposing to their proposition, that the life of the ungodly must infallibly end in misery, the fact, which experience establishes that it is quite commonly the case that the prosperity of the wicked lasts until their death, while on the contrary the pious are pursued with all sorts of calamities to the grave. In respect to the reflection of an apparent injustice which this experience seems to cast on God, the author of so unequal a distribution of human destinies, Job this time expresses himself with discreet awe and reserve. Instead of assuming the tone of a presumptuous blasphemer, and accusing God of injustice, or tyrannical severity, he treats the contradiction between prosperity and virtue, as it so often exhibits itself in this earthly life, as a dark enigma, not to be solved by human wisdom. And instead of holding up this antagonism before his opponents with frivolous satisfaction or exulting arrogance, he exhibits whenever he approaches the subject deep perplexity and painful agitation (Job_21:5-6), and in the latter part of the description he even points out the mystery which surrounds the phenomenon under consideration as a disciplinary trial for human knowledge, constraining to reverential submission beneath the inscrutable ways of God (Job_21:22; Job_21:31, according to the more correct explanation: see above on the passages). In short, he discourses concerning this mystery as an earnest thinker, resolutely maintaining his religious integrity, and putting the counsel of the ungodly far from him (Job_21:16); and this calm, earnest, dignified treatment accounts for his victory over his opponents, who as may be seen from the following, which is the last stage of the colloquy, are constrained to acknowledge his affirmations in respect to the disproportion between prosperity and moral worthiness in this life as being in great part true, and thus to make a beginning toward a complete surrender.
2. Notwithstanding this undeniable superiority over his opponents, which Job here already exhibits, his argument presents certain vulnerable points, which expose him to further attacks from them. For in so far as, with manifest one-sidedness, it completely ignores the instances, which occur frequently enough, of a righteous apportionment of men’s destinies, and exhibits the instances of the opposite fact, by a process of abstract generalization, as alone of actual occurrence, it does injustice on the one side to the friends, who are thereby indirectly classified with the wicked who are unworthy of their prosperity; while on the other side it becomes an arraignment of God, who is described as though he gave no proof of a really righteous retribution, but rather decreed continually examples of the contrary. Indeed in one instance, (Job_21:19-21) the speaker seems to be guilty even of formally teaching God, in that he here maintains (in opposition to a familiar application of the theory of retribution set forth in the Law, Exo_20:5; Deu_24:16, an application controverted also by Jeremiah and Ezekiel), that God punishes with justice only where He exacts expiation of the evil-doer himself, and not of his children after him. The consequence that God does not punish where He ought to punish, is but a short remove from this proposition, which is accordingly easily liable to the reproach of speaking unbecomingly of God. The judgment of Job accordingly in the present discourse concerning God and His dealings with men’s destinies is the less pure and correct in so far as it in no wise distinguishes between the God of the present, and the God of the future, as we find him doing in Job_19:25 seq. For this reason, and because the sufferer begins anew to yield to the pressure of his outward and inward sufferings, the hope of a blessed future in the life beyond, which had previously irradiated his misery, is completely obscured.
3. Notwithstanding this partial obscuration of his spiritual horizon, Job in the discourse before us utters much that is beautiful, profoundly true, and heart-stirring. The first discourse pronounced by Job after the inspired pæan of hope in Job_19:25 seq., there may be discerned in it a certain hallowing influence thence proceeding, which justifies in a measure the remark of Sanctius on that passage: “From this point on to the end of the book Job is not the same is he has been heretofore.” His description of the success and abounding prosperity of the ungodly, by its many points of contact with similar moral pictures, such as Psalms 37; Psalms 73; Jer_12:1 seq.; Hab_1:13 seq.; Ecclesiastes 7, etc., commends itself as being perfectly true, and derived from life. Especially does the circumstance that in his observation of the prosperity of the wicked he shows himself continually inclined to restrain himself within the bounds of modesty, and the limitations prescribed by the contemplation of the unsearchable operations of God, give him an indisputable advantage over the description of his opponents (and especially of his immediate predecessor Zophar), which is one-sided in the opposite direction, and for that very reason less true. “The speeches of Zophar and of Job are both true and false,—both one-sided, and therefore mutually supplementary. If, however, we consider further, that Job is not able to deny the occurrence of such examples of punishment, such revelations of the retributive justice of God, as those which Zophar represents as occurring regularly and without exception; that, however, on the other hand, exceptional instances undeniably do exist, and the friends are obliged to be blind to them, because otherwise the whole structure of their opposition would fall in,—it is manifest that Job is nearer to the truth than Zophar” (Delitzsch i. p. 425).
HOMILETICAL AND PRACTICAL
Job_21:6. Zeyss: Because reason cannot comprehend the mystery of affliction, and why God often deals so severely with His children, it comes to pass that even in pious hearts mournful thoughts frequently spring up, and they tremble in their great sorrow; Psa_37:1; Psa_73:12; Jer_12:1, etc.—v. Gerlach: Doubts touching the rectitude of God’s government of the world, have in them that which makes our inmost feelings quiver; the thought makes all the foundations of human existence quake.
Job_21:7 seq. Seb. Schmidt: The happiness of the ungodly is described; and it is shown that they are happy (1) in themselves
Job_21:7; (2) in their children
Job_21:8; (3) in their houses
Job_21:9; (4) in their cattle
Job_21:10; (5) in their flocks
Job_21:11; (6) in a life which is joyous and merry
Job_21:12; (7) in a death which at the last is not sad
Job_21:13. Wohlfarth: What must we bear in mind, in order that we may not err as to God and virtue, when we see the ungodly prosperous, the godly afflicted? If Job recoiled from such a sight, who can blame him, a sufferer sorely tried, and with but imperfect knowledge of God? But a Christian can and will guard himself against such doubts; for he knows that according to God’s sovereign decree outward prosperity has often no relation to a man’s moral worth; that the good things of this world will not long make man happy, and that without a peaceful conscience happiness in this earth is impossible; that frequently the earthly prosperity which the wicked enjoy is the means of their punishment; that the place of retribution is not yet in this world; and that God, whose counsels we cannot penetrate, will notwithstanding assuredly compensate pious sufferers for their earthly losses.
Job_21:22 seq. Starke: In holy fear we should wonder at God’s judgments; but we should by no means sit in judgment upon them, nor inquire after the reason of His conduct; Isa_45:9. v. Gerlach: The righteous and the ungodly have both their various destinies, but these have nothing to do with their position before God; there lies another mystery behind which our short-sighted speeches and thoughts cannot unveil.
Job_21:27 seq. Starke (after Osiander and the Tübingen Bible): The ungodly are often highly exalted in order that afterwards their fall may be so much the greater. Although in this world, occupying high places, they do evil without terror, and are punished by nobody, there will come nevertheless a day of judgment, when their wickedness will be brought to view, and before all the world they will be put to shame.
Footnotes:
[1]Witness the following curious effort of Bernard: “[Honored] as when he watched over his corn-shocks. Just as in his life-time people were obliged (through their fear of him) to salute him humbly, when they passed before him as he stood watching over his shocks of corn, that no poor man might glean an ear, so must they testify their respect to his body when carried to the grave.”
Lange's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures (Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical), ed. John Peter Lange, English translation edited by Philip Schaff (1864–1880) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Robert Jamieson, A. R. Fausset & David Brown 1871 · Public Domain On vv3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 literally, "Begin your mockings" (Job 17:2).
literally, "Begin your mockings" (Job 17:2).
Jamieson, Fausset & Brown — Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible (1871) — public domain (CC PDM 1.0). Text via the HelloAO Bible API.
Daniel D. Whedon 1874 · Public Domain On vv1–34 1. But Job answered — The friends have to…
JOB’S SIXTH REPLY.
1. But Job answered — The friends have to the last adhered to their main proposition, that the wicked are punished in this life. Job now meets it for the first time face to face; devoting the entire speech to its consideration. He more discreetly than before makes an appeal to facts, and shows that in their entire life the wicked are eminently prosperous, and that even in the article of death their lot is easier than that of the righteous. The friends have made appeal again and again to the wisdom of the ancients; he, on the other hand, summons travelers, men of wide knowledge, who testify (Job_21:28-33) that the punishment of the wicked is in the next life — a truth “the friends,” in their dogmatism, have ignored; that in this life the wicked are above law and responsibility to man; and that their memory; instead of perishing, as the friends maintained, lived on in magnificent tombs and the abiding power of an evil life. In thus urging the general prosperity of the wicked, Job has pushed his plea to the extreme of dogmatism, and in argument committed an error similar to that of his opponents, thus leaving a gap in his defence which gives rise to a renewal of the controversy. It is to be remarked that the first of Job’s discourses since his triumph of faith in the nineteenth chapter, (25-27,) like the others yet to follow, is marked by calm and dispassionate argument; by a greater freedom from personalities; by a more confident view of the darkest phases of evil; and by a faith which the darkness around him has no more power to disturb than the shadow of the night has to unsettle the fastnesses of the mountain, all which is in itself an earnest of the victory soon to follow.
Daniel D. Whedon (gen. ed.), Commentary on the Old and New Testaments (1874–1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges 1878 · Public Domain On vv2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 2. your consolations] They believed they were offering him…
2. your consolations] They believed they were offering him the consolations of God (ch. Job_15:11); the consolation he seeks from them is that they listen to him.
The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges (gen. ed. J. J. S. Perowne; Cambridge University Press, 1878–1918) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Ellicott's Commentary for English Readers 1878 · Public Domain On vv1, 2, 4, 8, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 22, 23, 24, 26, 28, 29, 30, 32, 33, 34 (1) But Job answered.—Having, in Job 19, declared his…
XXI.
(1) But Job answered.—Having, in Job 19, declared his belief in a retribution to come, Job now proceeds to traverse more directly Zophar’s last contention, and to show that even in this life there is not the retribution which he maintained there was.
A Bible Commentary for English Readers, edited by Charles John Ellicott (1878–1897) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Pulpit Commentary 1880 · Public Domain On vv1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34 Vers. 1-34. Job answers Zophar, as he had answered…
Vers. 1-34. Job answers Zophar, as he had answered Bildad, in a single not very lengthy chapter. After a few caustic introductory remarks (vers. 24), he takes up the challenge which Zophar had thrown out, respecting the certain punishment, in this life, of the wicked, (Job_20:4-29) and maintains, "in language of unparalleled boldness" (Cook), the converse of the proposition. The wicked, he says, live, grow old, attain to great power, have a numerous and flourishing offspring, prosper, grow rich, spend their time in feasting and jollity nay, openly renounce God and decline to pray to him yet suffer no harm, and when they die, go down to the grave without suffering, "in a moment" (vers. 5-15). To the suggestion that from time to time they are cut off suddenly in a signal way, he answers, "How often is this?" or rather, "How seldom!" (vers. 17, 18). To the further suggestion that they are punished in their children he replies, "How much better if they were punished in their own persons!" (vers. 19-21). As it is, he argues, one event happens to all (vers. 23-26). In conclusion, he observes that common opinion supports his view (vers. 29-33), and denounces as futile the attempts of his comforters to convince him, since his views and theirs respecting the facts of God"s government are diametrically opposed to each other (ver. 34).
Vers. 1, 2. But Job answered and said, Hear diligently my speech, and let this be your consolations. As ye have no other consolation to offer me, at least attend diligently to what I say. That will be some comfort to me, and I will accept it in lieu of the consolations which I might have looked for at your hands.
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Vers. 1-34. Job to Zophar: Audi alteram partem.
I THE SPIRIT OF JOB"S REPLY.
1. Intense earnestness. Indicated by the respectful invitation addressed to his friends to attend to his discourse, the nervous reduplication of the verb "hear," and the assurance that such behaviour on their part would more effectually console him than all their eloquent and laboured harangues. Job"s character of eminent sanctity, Job"s condition of extreme wretchedness, and Job"s condemnation by the three friends, all entitled him to receive from them a generous and patient hearing. Good men and great sufferers are usually in earnest when they do speak, especially when justifying the ways of God to man, and are well worthy of being listened to for both their own sakes and their subject"s. It is one of a saint"s sweetest consolations to be allowed to vindicate the cause of God and truth.
2. Absolute confidence. So satisfied did Job feel that what he was about to advance was in perfect accord with truth and right, that he was completely indifferent to all personal considerations in the declaration of it. It might expose him to further ridicule anti calumnious animadversion, might intensify the suspicions already existing against him, and even lead to angrier and more direct accusations. He was prepared to meet these for the sake of liberty to publish what in his inmost conscience he believed to be the truth. Job"s example is well worthy of imitation. First, let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind that what he purposes to speak is true, and then let him manifest the courage of his convictions by suffering for them if need be.
3. Self-justification. Job vindicates himself against the oft-repeated charge of impatience.
(1) Admitting to his friends that their accusation was substantially correct. His spirit had been "shortened" (ver. 4) by the perplexing enigma of Divine providence over which he had been brooding, as afterwards was that of David, (Psa_37:1) of Asaph. (Psa_73:3) of Jeremiah; (Jer_12:1) as men"s spirits are sometimes shortened, irritated, and rendered impatient, by difficulties, (Num_21:4) temptations, (Jud_1:16:16) afflictions; (Exo_6:9) and as God, more humano, represents his spirit as being shortened, filled with the impatience of compassion, through beholding the misery of man. (Jud_1:10:16)
(2) Denying their right to impute blame to him on that account, seeing that his complaint was directed against, not them, but God (ver. 4). It was not their lack of sympathy with his sufferings that annoyed him, or even their virulent aspersions of his character, but the apparent inequality of God"s dealings with himself. A saint"s greatest trials always come from God. A good man can live without the commiseration or approbation of his fellows, but not without the communion or favour of his God. (Psa_30:5) The hardest problem a sanctified intelligence has to solve is not to account for the oppressions and injustices of man, but to solve seeming inconsistencies in God"s dispensations.
(3) Maintaining the perfect reasonableness of his behaviour in so manifesting shortness of spirit under the awful mystery of Divine providence. If they, his friends, were in any respect different from him, it was because they were incapable of discerning the mystery. They had simply shut their eyes upon the hard problem before which he (Job) staggered, and then affirmed that the problem did not exist. So, often, good people to-day, through lack of intellectual capacity or spiritual sincerity, either do not see or do not steadily look at the difficulties by which earnest seekers after truth are perplexed, and accordingly withhold from these all expression of sympathy for their doubt, and unfeelingly condemn them for their unbelief; whereas could good people only see the difficulties which stand in the way of those whom they call sceptics, infidels, heretics, they would at least commiserate, if they did not participate in, the hesitation and uncertainty they condemn.
4. Profound reverence. Job could not contemplate the awful problem to which he alluded without trembling and bewilderment, The prosperity of the wicked was a theme that filled him with silent astonishment, that dazed his intellect the more he reflected on it, that seized his spirit with a sort of stupefaction seeming as it did on the one hand (i.e. on the theory of the friends) to suggest blasphemous thoughts of God, and on the other hand (i.e. on the hypothesis advanced by him) to foreshadow appalling woes for the wicked. Job, who was not terrified by Eliphaz"s spectre, who was not moved by the prospect of Hades, was overpowered with consternation at what appeared to tarnish the Divine glory or to impair the happiness of man. So Abraham was jealous of the Divine honour, (Gen_18:25) and David was afraid of the Divine judgments upon the wicked. (Psa_119:20) So by all men, and in particular by all saints, should God"s Person be held in reverence, (Psa_89:7) and God"s Word be listened to with awe, (Isa_66:2) and God"s works and ways in both the Church and the world be studied with silent wonder. (Psa_46:10 Hab_2:20 Zep_1:7 Zec_2:13)
II THE ARGUMENT OF JOB"S REPLY. The dogma of Zophar and his companions was contradicted by:
1. The facts of experience. (Vers. 7-21) In enlarging upon these, Job draws attention to three points.
(1) The prosperity of the wicked (vers. 7-13). This he represents as:
(a) Long-continued, "the wicked" being permitted "to live and become old" (ver. 7). Eliphaz had affirmed that the ungodly transgressor should die before his time, (Job_15:20, Job_15:32) and Zophar had declared that the joy of the hypocrite was but for a moment. (Job_20:5) These statements, Job asserts, were notoriously incorrect.
(b) Greatly augmented, the wicked" not simply living long and happily, but, as if once more to confute Eliphaz (Job_15:29) and Zophar, (Job_20:15) becoming "mighty in power, "attaining to vast wealth, and therefore to what wealth represents influence, honour, pleasure the three principal ingredients in the world"s cup of felicity,
(c) Firmly established, the good fortunes of the wicked descending to their families, who, in express contradiction to the teaching of Eliphaz, (Job_15:34) Bildad, (Job_18:19) and Zophar, (Job_20:10) grow up to manhood and womanhood, and permanently settle beside the patriarchal tents one of the best and most highly valued blessings a parent can enjoy, as Job formerly knew from personal experience. (Job_1:4, Job_1:5)
(d) Perfectly secured, their houses being safe from fear, or "in peace, without alarm," and having no rod of God upon them (ver. 9), as his had when attacked by Chaldean robbers, and desolated by Divine judgments again in flagrant antithesis to Eliphaz, (Job_15:34) Bildad, (Job_18:15) and Zophar. (Job_20:26)
(e) Richly varied, consisting of material increase (ver. 10), in opposition to Eliphaz (Job_15:29) and Zophar; (Job_20:28) family enlargement (ver. 11), against Bildad; (Job_18:19) and social felicity (ver. 12), instead of the lifelong misery awarded to them by Eliphaz, (Job_15:20) Bildad, (Job_18:11-14) and Zophar. (Job_20:18)
(f) Absolutely uninterrupted, their affluence and ease never ceasing throughout life, but attending them to the grave"s mouth, into which they quietly and quickly drop without experiencing either physical disease or mental misery (ver. 13), thus attaining to the very culmination of mundane felicity a picture widely different from that sketched by Eliphaz, (Job_15:24) Bildad, (Job_18:18) and Zophar. (Job_20:11)
(g) Divinely bestowed, Job adding (ver. 16) that the true source of all the felicity and prosperity enjoyed by the wicked, though not recognized as such by them, was the hand of God, who is the primal Fountain of every benefit conferred on man, whether temporal or eternal, material or spiritual, (Jam_1:17) who makes his sun to shine upon the evil and the good, (Mat_5:45) and who so deals with the ungodly to lead them to repentance. (Rom_2:4)
(2) The impiety of the prosperous (vers. 14-16). This Job depicts in four particulars:
(a) The strangeness of it. On the theory of the friends, these favourites of fortune ought to have been good; "and yet" (ver. 14) they were the opposite. Though designed to engender piety in the heart, material prosperity, in point of fact, seldom does. Yet God"s goodness to the sinner is an aggravation of the sinner"s criminality against God.
(b) The wickedness of it. The prosperous say to God, "Depart from us," not as Peter said to Christ, (Luk_5:8) but rather as the Gadarenes besought him, (Luk_8:37) desiring that God would leave them to the enjoyment of their lusts, as these latter wished to have their swine, not troubling them with either the reproofs of conscience, the checks of Providence, the precepts of his Law, or the prickings of his Spirit. What the sinner most fears the saint most desires the presence and fellowship of God. What makes the wicked man"s hell constitutes the good man"s heaven.
(c) The foolishness of it. The arguments adduced in its support are three: that the ways of God are undesirable which was not the opinion of Enoch, (Gen_5:21-24) or of Noah, (Gen_6:9) of David, (Psa_138:5) of Solomon, (Pro_3:17) of Isaiah, (Isa_55:2) of Jeremiah, (Jer_31:12-14) of St. Paul, (Php_4:4) of St. Peter, (1Pe_1:8) or of St. John, (1Jn_5:3) and certainly not of Christ; (Mat_11:28-30) that the service of God is unreasonable which it cannot be, considering who God is, Elohim, Jehovah, Shaddai, the All-powerful, All-sufficient, Self-existent, wonder-working Supreme, and the relations he sustains to man as Creator, Preserver, Redeemer, Judge; that the worship of God is unprofitable which it is not, since, besides having the promise which belongs to godliness generally, (1Ti_4:8) prayer has the special guarantee that its desires shall be fulfilled, (Mat_7:7 Joh_15:7) while it is inconceivable that a creature could commune with his Creator, or a saint hold fellowship with his Saviour, without experiencing there from, in continually augmenting measure, peace, joy, illumination, holiness, everything comprehended in what is styled "growth in grace.
(d) The repulsiveness of it. The counsel of the wicked Job regards with abhorrence (ver. 16); and so do all truly pious souls.
2. The plan of providence. (Vers. 22-26) This Job characterizes as
(1) arranged by Divine wisdom, to maintain a theory out of harmony with which, therefore, was a practical impeachment of the Divine wisdom, an attempt to teach God (ver. 22), who can receive no accession to his knowledge or understanding from any of his creatures, an assumption of ability to prescribe to him the scheme in accordance with which his universe should be governed;
(2) all-embracing in its sweep, comprehending in its provisions and enactments all creatures from the lowest to the highest, "those in heaven," i.e. angels, authorities, and powers, and "the highest" on earth, lordly potentates, mighty magnates, pretentious sages, as well as common serfs and lowly peasants, being subject to his sway, and therefore again, because of its all-inclusive character, scarcely admitting of criticism on the part of puny man;
(3) non-retributive in its character, frequently assigning to the wicked man a life of ease and prosperity (vers. 23, 24), and to the godly man a pilgrimage of poverty ending in a bitter death (ver. 25), all the same as if it were regardless of the difference between virtue and vice, piety and wickedness, holiness and sin; and
(4) indiscriminate in its execution, reducing good and bad alike to the same dead level of quality in the grave (ver. 26), and therefore as unlike as possible to the plan of providence which should have prevailed had the theory of the friends been correct.
3. The testimony of ordinary men. (Vers. 27-33) The "tokens" of them that go by the way," i.e. the observations made by them, abundantly declared six things concerning the ungodly, viz.
(1) that they were not usually overwhelmed with retribution on earth and in time, as the friends asserted (ver. 28), with special reference to Job (ver. 27), whose homestead and family had been engulfed in ruin by swift calamity;
(2) that they were generally exempted from the ills of life, even in a season of widespread adversity (ver. 30), escaping the stroke of evil fortune by which other and better men were prostrated;
(3) that they were commonly allowed to pass through the world without either punishment or reproof (ver. 31), amenable to no human law, suffering no sort of check in their wickedness, because no one was bold enough to bear witness to them of their misdeeds, as Nathan did to David, (2Sa_12:7) Elijah to Ahab, (1Ki_18:17) and John the Baptist to Herod, (Mat_14:4) or powerful enough to exact retribution for their offences;
(4) that honour and prosperity attended them even to their graves, the wicked tyrant"s lifeless body being conducted, as were the corpses of rich men in the days of the Preacher, (Ecc_8:10) and as probably was that of Dives, (Luk_16:22) with immense pomp and magnificent ceremony, to "the vaults or chambers in sepulchral caverns or tombs in which the dead were laid" (Carey), where affectionate friends and relatives shall watch over his tomb (Good, Fry), or he himself shall keep guard over his heap, i.e. over the mound or pile in which he lies buried, looking down upon it in monumental effigy;
(5) that even in the grave they suffer no disadvantage in comparison with other men, "the clods of the valley" being as "sweet" unto them (ver. 33) as to the pious, which may be true so far as the insensate dust is concerned, though of course it is only an imagination that the tenants of the tomb can feel either pain or pleasure, (Ecc_9:5, Ecc_9:6) but implies nothing as to the condition of their souls, which we know to be after death in a situation widely different from that of the righteous; (Luk_16:23) and
(6) that, in so far as death itself may be accounted an evil, it is one which they share in common with the rest of the race, every one in his turn coming after, as innumerable multitudes have already gone before, them (ver. 33).
III THE APPLICATION OF JOB"S REPLY.
1. The consolation of his friends was vain.
(1) It was inefficacious. It did not soothe him in his sorrow or help him to bear his burden, but very much the opposite
(2) It was insincere. It was not really aimed at the comfort of the patriarch at all, but at his condemnation. It exhorted him to penitence instead of aiding him with friendly sympathy.
(3) It was fallacious. It was based on wholly erroneous principles. This Job explicitly asserts.
2. The answers of his friends were wicked.
(1) They were untrue. They misrepresented God by ascribing to him principles of government which he palpably repudiated; and they calumniated him, Job, by imputing to him sins of which he was innocent. Hence to that extent
(2) they were also sinful. They were perfidious attempts to blacken the character of their suffering friend, and to curry favour with the King of heaven.
Learn:
1. That a good man should never weary in contending for the cause of God and truth.
2. That a man who has God and truth upon his side has the best possible allies in debate.
3. That they who have no difficulties in their creeds are not the most likely to be possessed of truth.
4. That the best souls on earth are not necessarily those who have no hard problems to solve.
5. That on the whole continuous prosperity is less desirable as an earthly portion than perpetual adversity.
6. That God confers many of his best gifts upon the worst of men families and flocks upon tyrants, Christ and salvation upon sinners.
7. That great wealth is prone to separate the soul from God.
8. That God"s people should shun the counsel, avoid the company, and abhor the conduct of wicked men.
9. That wicked men"s "Depart from us," will yet be answered by Christ"s "Depart from me.
10. That it is better to be God"s wheat than the devil"s chaff, since though the former may be bruised, the latter shall be blown away.
11. That the God who is able to judge angels is not likely to prove incapable of judging men.
12. That the wicked man"s glory upon earth is little better than the paraphernalia of a funeral procession.
13. That God"s ever-watchful eye is a better guardian of a saint"s dust than gilded mausoleums and monumental columns.
HOMILIES BY E. JOHNSON Vers. 1-34. Diverse interpretations of life.
The friends of Job remain entrenched in the one firm position, as they think it, which they have from the first taken up. No appeals on his part have availed to soften their hearts, or induce a reconsideration of the rigid theory of suffering which they have adopted. But he now, no longer confining himself to the assertion of his personal innocence, makes an attack upon their position. He dwells upon the great enigma of life the prosperity of the wicked through the whole of life, in contrast to the misery and persecution which often fall to the lot of the righteous. In face of these contradictions, it is wrong and malicious of his friends to desire to fix guilt upon him because he suffers.
I INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS TO THE FRIENDS. (Vers. 1-6) He asks for a patient hearing, because he is not about to complain of man, but of a terrible enigma which may well excite the amazement, the dread wonder of men, as being beyond their power to unravel. He speaks as one the very foundations of whose faith are shaken, as he thinks of this painful and Perplexing "riddle of the earth." "Because reason cannot comprehend the mystery of the crees, and why nod deals often so hardly with his children, bitter thoughts will arise from time to time in devout hearts, and cause them to tremble in great dismay" (Zeyss). (See Psa_37:1 Psa_73:12 Jer_12:1) The solid columns of our reason, so to speak, are shaken by doubts of the justice of God"s government of the world.
II APPEAL TO EXPERIENCE: THE PROSPERITY OF THE WICKED, CONTRASTED WITH THE AFFLICTIONS OF THE RIGHTEOUS, IN THIS LIFE. (Vers. 7-26)
1. Traits of godless prosperity. (Vers. 7-16)
(1) The wicked are fortunate in their persons (ver. 7). Instead of being cut off by premature death, as Zophar had maintained, they remain in vigour to a good old age.
(2) In their families. They see their posterity flourishing before them like young scions from the old root (ver. 8).
(3) In their houses. Peace dwells there, free from alarm, and no chastising rod of Providence falls upon them (ver. 9).
(4) In their herds and flocks the great elements of Oriental wealth (vers. 10, 11).
(5) In their merry life. Sportive throngs of children play around them, full of joyous pranks and frolic, while the sound of music charms the ear (vers. 11, 12).
(6) Their easy death. Their days are spent in comfort to the very last, quite in opposition to the gloomy pictures which the friends have drawn of their fearful and violent ends. (Job_11:20 Job_18:14 Job_20:11) They disappear suddenly, painlessly, into the unseen world theirs is a euthanasia (ver. 13)! Such a life may be lived, such a death may be met, without a spark of religion to justify or explain it (vers. 14, 15). They are men, these wicked ones, whose language to God has been, "Depart from us!" Their happiness awakens no gratitude towards its Source; they deem worship and prayer to be useless. Job proceeds with his description, and declares further, to support his position, "Lo, not in their hand stands their good." That is, not they are, but God is himself, the Author of their prosperity; and it is this which makes the problem so dark and hard to solve. "The counsel of the wicked be far from reel" (ver. 16). Here flashes out once more the true, deep faith of the patriarch. Despite all the mystery and all the temptation, he will endure to the end; never will he renounce his God. (Job_1:11 Job_2:5)
2. These lessons of experience confirmed, with reference to the positions of the friends. (Vers. 17-21) Bildad had spoken (Job_18:5, Job_18:12) of the quenching of the light of the wicked man and of his sudden overthrow. Job questions the universal application of this. "How often," etc.? is here equivalent to "How seldom," etc.! How often does God distribute sorrows in his anger? with allusion to Job_20:23 (ver. 17). This doubting questioning still continues in ver. 18, "How often do they become as straw before the wind, and like chaff which the tempest carries away?". (see Job_20:8, Job_20:9) "God lays up for his children his calamity?" referring to Eliphaz"s words (ver. 4) and Zophar"s. (Job_20:10) Job proceeds (ver. 20) to refute this theory of satisfaction by substitution. Let his eyes see his destruction; and of the fiery wrath of the Almighty let him drink!" The allusion is to Zophar. (Job_20:23) And further, against this theory (ver. 21); in his dull insensibility the wicked man cares nought for the fate of his posterity. "For what pleasure is his house after him? what interest or concern has the selfish egotist in the sufferings of his descendants after he is dead and gone? And if this be so, how can it be alleged that the wicked man is punished in his posterity? "If the number of his moons is allotted to him." The thought is that the selfish, pleasure-seeking bad man is content, if only he lives out the full measure of his days. What amidst these perplexities can keep the soul true to God and steadfast in the pursuit of goodness? Experience suggests these doubts; and a larger experience must solve them. The Christian knows that in God"s ordering of life the outward prosperity is often unrelated to moral worth. The good things of this world cannot satisfy; without a good conscience earthly happiness is impossible. Often the worldly prosperity enjoyed by the bad man is the means of his destruction. This is not the scene of final recompense and retribution. Doubtless God, whose counsels are inscrutable, will indemnify pious sufferers for these earthly privations.
3. Restatement of the enigma. (Vers. 22-26) The contrast in men"s destinies to our expectations involves a Divine counsel which we may not presume to understand. "Shall one teach God knowledge, who judges those that are high?" (ver. 22). The friends had brought this thought forward (Job_4:18 Job_15:15) with the view of supporting their narrow theory of retribution. Conversely, Job would refute by the same means this short-sighted view, pointing to the unfathomable depth and mystery of the counsels and laws of God for the government of the world. Two examples illustrate this. One man dies in bodily ease and comfort his troughs full of milk, strong and vigorous to the marrow of his bones (vers. 23, 24). Another dies with bitterness in his soul, and has not enjoyed good (ver. 25).And yet they are united in one common fate, though their moral worth is so different and so contrasted. "With one another they lie on the dust of the grave, and the worms cover them." "Both, heirs to some six feet of clod, are equal in the earth at last" (ver. 26).
III CORRECTION OF HIS FRIENDS FOR THEIR PARTIAL JUDGMENT OF THE OUTWARD CONDITION OF MEN. (Vers. 27-34) He knows their thoughts, and the malice with which they ill-treat him, with the object of proving him by any means, fair or unfair, a hypocrite. "Where," they say, "is the house of the tyrant? and where the tent inhabited by wicked men?" Job alludes still to the repeated descriptions of Eliphaz and Bildad (Job_15:34 Job_18:15, Job_18:21) of the overthrow of the tent of the wicked man (ver. 28). Have they, then, not asked the wanderers by the way, (Lam_1:12 Psa_80:12) and will they mistake their tokens? The instances of prosperous bad men and unhappy good men which these persons can produce they must not misunderstand nor reject them. The "tokens" are the memorable and wonderful events of this kind (ver. 29). Then follow the summary contents of these people"s experiences (ver. 30): "That on the day of destruction the wicked is spared, on the day of wrath they are led away" from its devastating fury, so that they suffer nothing. "Who will show him his way to his face? and if he has acted, who will repay it to him?" (ver. 31). This is Job"s question. It concerns God, the unfathomably wise and mighty Author of the destinies of men. "And he" (alluding to ver. 30) "is brought to burial" in honour and pomp, "and on a mound he keeps watch," like one immortalized in a statue or tomb. His tumulus remains to record his name and memory, while Bildad had described the memory of the wicked as perishing from the earth, his name being forgotten. Ver. 33, "The clods of the valley lie softly upon him the valleys being the favourite burying-places in the East all the world draws after him," treading the same path which multitudes have done before.
CONCLUSION. (Ver. 34) "How will you now so vainly comfort me?" Falsehood only remains from their replies. There is some truth both in Zophar"s and in Job"s speeches. But both represent one side only of the truth. The end of the wicked man is that which Zophar depicts. Yet the temporal prosperity of the wicked, lasting to the latest hour of life, is often seen. Job cannot deny the facts of Zophar; but neither can Zophar deny the exceptions pointed out by Job. The friends are blind to these, because the admission of them would overthrow the whole battery of their attack. Job remains nearer to the truth than Zophar (Delitzsch). The godless are often greatly exalted, to fall the more deeply afterwards. "Raised up on high to be hurled down below" (Shakespeare). "Lofty towers have the heavier fall" (Horace, "Od.," 2:10. 10; Juvenal, "Sat.," 10:104, sqq." on the fate of Sojanus). But it is the belief in a future judgment and a future life which can alone give patience under the anomalies and contradictions of the present. The God who is "upright, true, and all-disposing" hath appointed a day in which he will judge the world in righteousness, and "reward every man according to his works." "This is certain, that God is infinitely just; whether or not we apprehend him, he is so. When we think his ways are imperfect, we should remember that the imperfection is only in our understanding. It is not the ground or the trees that turn round; but the truth is, we are giddy, and think so Because I cannot see the light, shall I say that the sun does not shine? There may be many reasons that may hinder me. Something may cover the eye, or the clouds may cover the sun, or it may be in another horizon, as in the night; but it is impossible for the sun, so long as it is a sun, not to shine It was not for Job"s sin that God afflicted him, but because he was freely pleased to do so; yet there was a reason for this pleasure which was to discover that grace of patience given him by God, to the astonishment of the world and the confutation of the devil" (South). J.
The Pulpit Commentary (1880–1919), ed. H.D.M. Spence-Jones & Joseph S. Exell — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Biblical Illustrator 1887 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 13, 14, 15, 22, 23, 25, 34 But Job answered and said.
Job_21:1-34
But Job answered and said.
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Jobs third answer
There is more logic and less passion in this address than in any of Jobs preceding speeches. He felt the dogma of the friends to be opposed--
I. To his consciousness of rectitude. If their dogma was true, he must be a sinner above all the rest, for his sufferings were of the most aggravated character. But he knew that he was not a great sinner.
1. This consciousness urged him to speak.
2. It gave him confidence in speaking.
3. It inspired him with religious solemnity. The providential ways of God with man are often terribly mysterious. Under these mysterious events solemn silence rather than controversy is most befitting us.
II. To his observation of facts.
1. He saw wicked men about him. He notes their hostility to God, and their devotion to self.
2. He saw such wicked men very prosperous. They prosper in their persons, their property, and their posterity.
3. He saw wicked men happy in living and dying. Job states these things as a refutation of the dogma that his friends held and urged against him.
III. To his historic knowledge. He refers to the testimony of other men.
1. They observed, as I have, that the wicked are often protected in common calamities.
2. That few, if any, are found to deal out punishment to wicked men in power.
3. That the Wicked man goes to his grave with as much peace and honour as other men.
IV. To his theory of providence. Though nothing here expresses Jobs belief in a state of retribution beyond the grave, we think it is implied. I see not how there can be any real religion, which is supreme love to the Author of our being, where there is not a well-settled faith in a future state. Conclusion. Gods system of governing the race has been the same from the beginning. He has never dealt with mankind here on the ground of character. True, there are occasional flashes of Divine retribution which reveal moral distinctions and require moral conduct; but they are only occasional, limited, and prophetic. No stronger argument for a future state of full and adequate retribution it would be possible to have, than that which is furnished by Gods system of governing the world. (Homilist.)
The Biblical Illustrator, edited by Joseph S. Exell (c. 1880s–1900s) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Expositor's Bible 1887 · Public Domain On v1 Job 21
XVIII.
ARE THE WAYS OF THE LORD EQUAL?
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Job 21
JOB SPEAKS
WITH less of personal distress and a more collected mind than before Job begins a reply to Zophar. His brave hope of vindication has fortified his soul and is not without effect upon his bodily state. The quietness of tone in this final address of the second colloquy contrasts with his former agitation and the growing eagerness of the friends to convict him of wrong. True, he has still to speak of facts of human life troublous and inscrutable. Where they lie he must look, and terror seizes him, as if he moved on the edge of chaos. It is, however, no longer his own controversy with God that disquiets him. For the time he is able to leave that to the day of revelation. But seeing a vaster field in which righteousness must be revealed, he compels himself, as it were, to face the difficulties which are encountered in that survey. The friends have throughout the colloquy presented in varying pictures the offensiveness of the wicked man and his sure destruction. Job, extending his view over the field they have professed to search, sees the facts in another light. While his statement is in the way of a direct negative to Zophars theory, he has to point out what seems dreadful injustice in the providence of God. He is not, however, drawn anew into the tone of revolt.
The opening words are as usual expostulatory, but with a ring of vigour. Job sets the arguments of his friends aside and the only demand he makes now is for their attention.
"Hear diligently my speech,
And let that be your consolations.
Suffer me that I may speak;
And after I have spoken, mock on.
As for me, is my complaint of man?
And why should I not be impatient?"
What he has said hitherto has had little effect upon them; what he is to say may have none. But he will speak; and afterwards, if Zophar finds that he can maintain his theory, why, he must keep to it and mock on. At present the speaker is in the mood of disdaining false judgment. He quite understands the conclusion come to by the friends. They have succeeded in wounding him time after time. But what presses upon his mind is the state of the world as it really is. Another impatience than of human falsehood urges him to speak. He has returned upon the riddle of life he gave Zophar to read-why the tents of robbers prosper and they that provoke God are secure. {Job_12:6} Suppose the three let him alone for a while and consider the question largely, in its whole scope. They shall consider it, for, certainly, the robber chief may be seen here and there in full swing of success, with his children about him, gaily enjoying the fruit of sin, and as fearless as if the Almighty were his special protector. Here is something that needs clearing up. Is it not enough to make a strong man shake?
Mark me, and be astonished,
And lay the hand upon the mouth.
Even while I remember I am troubled,
And trembling taketh hold of my flesh-
Wherefore do the wicked live,
Become old, yea wax mighty in power?
Their seed is settled with them in their sight,
And their offspring before their eyes;
Their houses are in peace, without fear,
And the rod of God is not upon them
They send forth their little ones like a flock,
And their children dance;
They sing to the timbrel and lute,
And rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
They spend their days in ease,
And in a moment go down to Sheol.
Yet they said to God, Depart from us,
For we desire not to know Thy ways.
What is Shaddai that we should serve Him?
And what profit should we have if we pray unto Him?
Contrast the picture here with those which Bildad and Zophar painted-and where lies the truth? Sufficiently on Jobs side to make one who is profoundly interested in the question of Divine righteousness stand appalled. There was an error of judgment inseparable from that early stage of human education in which vigour and the gains of vigour counted for more than goodness and the gains of goodness, and this error clouding the thought of Job made him tremble for his faith. Is nature Gods? Does God arrange the affairs of this world? Why then, under His rule, can the godless have enjoyment, and those who deride the Almighty feast on the fat things of His earth? Job has sent into the future a single penetrating look. He has seen the possibility of Vindication, but not the certainty of retribution. The underworld into which the evildoer descends in a moment; without protracted misery, appears to Job no hell of torment. It is a region of reduced, incomplete existence, not of penalty. The very clearness with which he Saw vindication for himself, that is, for the good man, makes it needful to see the wrong doer judged and openly condemned. Where then shall this be done? The writer, with all his genius, could only throw one vivid gleam beyond the present. He could not frame a new idea of Sheol, nor, passing its cloud confines, reach the thought of personality continuing in acute sensations either of joy or pain. The ungodly ought to feel the heavy hand of Divine justice in the present state of being. But he does not. Nature makes room for him and his children, for their gay dances and lifelong hilarity. Heaven does not frown. "The wicked live, become old, yea, wax mighty in power; their houses are in peace, without fear."
From the climax of chapter 19, the speeches of Job seem to fall away instead of advancing. The author had one brilliant journey into the unseen, but the peak he reached could not be made a new point of departure. Knowledge he did not possess was now required. He saw before him a pathless ocean where no man had shown the way, and inspiration seems to have failed him. His power lay in remarkably keen analysis and criticism of known theological positions and in glowing poetic sense. His inspiration working through these persuaded him that everywhere God is the Holy and True. It is scarcely to be supposed that condemnation of the evil could have seemed to him of less importance than vindication of the good. Our conclusion therefore must be that a firm advance into the other life was not for genius like his, nor for human genius at its highest. One more than man must speak of the great judgment and what lies beyond.
Clearly Job sees the unsolved enigma of the godless mans prosperous life, states it, and stands trembling. Regarding it what have other thinkers said? "If the law of all creation were justice," says John Stuart Mill, "and the Creator omnipotent, then in whatever amount suffering and happiness might be dispensed to the world, each persons share of them would be exactly proportioned to that persons good or evil deeds; no human being would have a worse lot than another without worse deserts; accident or favouritism would have no part in such a world, but every human life would be the playing out of a drama constructed like a perfect moral tale. No one is able to blind himself to the fact that the world we live in is totally different from this." Emerson, again, facing this problem, repudiates the doctrine that judgment is not executed in this world. He affirms that there is a fallacy in the concession that the bad are successful, that justice is not done now. "Every ingenuous and aspiring soul," he says, "leaves the doctrine behind him in his own experience; and all men feel sometimes the falsehood which they cannot demonstrate." His theory is that there is balance or compensation everywhere. "Life invests itself with inevitable conditions, which the unwise seek to dodge, which one and another brags that he does not know, that they do not touch him; -but the brag is on his lips, the conditions are in his soul. If he escapes them in one part, they attack him in another more vital part. The ingenuity of man has always been dedicated to the solution of one problem, how to detach the sensual sweet, the sensual strong, the sensual bright, from the moral sweet, the moral deep, the moral fair; that is, again, to contrive to cut clean off this upper surface so thin as to leave it bottomless; to get a one end, without an other end. This dividing and detaching is steadily counteracted. Pleasure is taken out of pleasant things, profit out of profitable things, power out of strong things, so soon as we seek to separate them from the whole. We can no more halve things and get the sensual good, by itself, than we can get an inside that shall have no outside, or a light without a shadow. For everything you have missed you have gained something else, and for everything you gain you lose something. If the gatherer gathers too much, nature takes out of the man what she puts into his chest; swells the estate but kills the owner. We feel defrauded of the retribution due to evil acts, because the criminal adheres to his vice and contumacy, and does not come to a crisis or judgment anywhere in visible nature. There is no stunning confutation of his nonsense before men and angels. Has he therefore outwitted the law? Inasmuch as he carries the malignity and the lie with him, he so far deceases from nature. In some manner there will be a demonstration of the wrong to the understanding also; but, should we not see it, this deadly deduction makes square the account." The argument reaches far beneath that superficial condemnation of the order of providence which disfigures Mr. Mills essay on Nature. So far as it goes, it illuminates the present stage of human existence. The light, however, is not sufficient, for we cannot consent to the theory that in an ideal scheme, a perfect or eternal state, he who would have holiness must sacrifice power, and he who would be true must be content to be despised. There is, we cannot doubt, a higher law; for this does not in any sense apply to the life of God Himself. In the discipline which prepares for liberty, there must be restraints and limitations, gain-that is, development-by renunciation; earthly ends must be subordinated to spiritual; sacrifices must be made. But the present state does not exhaust the possibilities of development nor close the history of man. There is a kingdom out of which shall be taken all things that offend. To Emersons compensations must be added the compensation of Heaven. Still he lifts the problem out of the deep darkness which troubled Job.
And with respect to the high position and success bad men are allowed to enjoy, another writer, Bushnell, well points out that permission of their opulence and power by God aids the development of moral ideas. "It is simply letting society and man be what they are, to show what they are." The retributive stroke, swift and visible, is not needed to declare this: "If one is hard upon the poor, harsh to children, he makes, or may, a very great discovery of himself. What is in him is mirrored forth by his acts, and distinctly mirrored in them. If he is unjust, passionate, severe, revengeful, jealous, dishonest, and supremely selfish, he is in just that scale of society or social relationship that brings him out to himself. Evil is scarcely to be known as evil till it takes the condition of authority." We do not understand it till we see what kind of god it will make, and by what sort of rule it will manage its empire. Just here all the merit of Gods plan, as regards the permission of power in the hands of wicked men, will be found to hinge; namely, on the fact that evil is not only revealed in its baleful presence and agency, but the peoples and ages are put heaving against it and struggling after deliverance "from it." It was, we say, Jobs difficulty that against the new conception of Divine righteousness which he sought the early idea stood opposed that life meant vigour mainly in the earthly range. During a long period of the worlds history this belief was dominant, and virtue signified the strength of mans arm, his courage in conflict, rather than his truth in judgment and his purity of heart. The outward gains corresponding to that early virtue were the proof of the worth of life. And even when the moral qualities began to be esteemed, and a man was partly measured by the quality of his soul, still the tests of outward success and the gains of the inferior virtue continued to be applied to his life. Hence the perturbation of Job and, to some extent, the false judgment of providence quoted from a modern writer.
But the chapter we are considering shows, if we rightly interpret the obscure 16th verse (Job_21:16), that the author tried to get beyond the merely sensuous and earthly reckoning. Those prospered who denied the authority of God and put aside religion with the rudest scepticism. There was no good in prayer, they said; it brought no gain. The Almighty was nothing to them. Without thought of His commands they sought their profit and their pleasure, and found all they desired. Looking steadfastly at their life, Job sees its hollowness, and abruptly exclaims:-
"Ha! their good is not in their hand:
The counsel of the wicked be far from me!"
Good! was that good which they grasped-their abundance, their treasure? Were they to be called blessed because their children danced to the lute and the pipe and they enjoyed the best earth could provide? The real good of life was not theirs. They had not God; they had not the exultation of trusting and serving Him; they had not the good conscience towards God and man which is the crown of life. The man lying in disease and shame would not exchange his lot for theirs.
But Job must argue still against his friends belief that the wicked are visited with the judgment of the Most High in the loss of their earthly possessions. "The triumphing of the wicked is short," said Zophar, "and the joy of the godless but for a moment." Is it so?
"How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
That their calamity cometh upon them?
That God distributeth sorrows in His anger?
That they are as stubble before the wind,
And as chaff that the storm carrieth away?"
One in a thousand, Job may admit, has the light extinguished in his tent and is swept out of the world. But is it the rule or the exception that such visible judgment falls even on the robber chief? The first psalm has it that the wicked are "like the chaff which the wind driveth away." The words of that chant may have been in the mind of the author. If so, he disputes the doctrine. And further he rejects with contempt the idea that though a transgressor himself lives long and enjoys to the end, his children after him may bear his punishment.
"Ye say, God layeth up his iniquity for his children.
Let Him recompense it unto himself, that he may know it.
Let his own eye see his destruction,
And let him drink of the wrath of Shaddai.
For what pleasure hath he in his house after him,
When the number of his moons is cut off in the midst?"
The righteousness Job is in quest of will not be satisfied with visitation of the iniquities of the fathers upon the children. He will not accept the proverb which Ezekiel afterwards repudiated, "The fathers have eaten sour grapes, the childrens teeth are set on edge." He demands that the ways of God shall be equal, that the soul that sinneth shall bear its punishment. Is it anything to a wicked man that his Children are scattered and have to beg their bread when he has passed away? A man grossly selfish would not be vexed by the affliction of his family even if, down in Sheol, he could know of it. What Zophar has to prove is that every man who has lived a godless life is made to drink the cup of Shaddais indignation. Though he trembles in sight of the truth, Job will press it on those who argue falsely for God.
And with the sense of the inscrutable purposes of the Most High burdening his soul he proceeds-
"Shall any teach God knowledge?
Seeing He judgeth those that are high?"
Easy was it to insist that thus or thus Divine providence ordained. But the order of things established by God is not to be forced into harmony with a human scheme of judgment. He who rules in the heights of heaven knows how to deal with men on earth; and for them to teach Him knowledge is at once arrogant and absurd. The facts are evident, must be accepted and reckoned with in all submission; especially must his friends consider the fact of death, how death comes, and they will then find themselves unable to declare the law of the Divine government.
As yet, even to Job, though he has gazed beyond death, its mystery is oppressive; and he is right in urging that mystery upon his friends to convict them of ignorance and presumption. Distinctions they affirm to lie between the good and the wicked are not made by God in appointing the hour of death. One is called away in his strong and lusty manhood; another lingers till life becomes bitter and all the bodily functions are impaired. "Alike they lie down in the dust and the worms cover them." The thought is full of suggestion; but Job presses on, returning for a moment to the false charges against himself that he may bring a final argument to bear on his accusers.
Behold, I know your thoughts,
And the devices ye wrongfully imagine against me.
For ye say, Where is the house of the prince?
And, Where the tents in which the wicked dwelt?
Have ye not asked them that go by the way?
And do ye not regard their tokens-
That the wicked is spared in the day of destruction,
That they are led forth in the day of wrath?
So far from being overwhelmed in calamity the evildoer is considered, saved as by an unseen hand. Whose hand? My house is wasted, my habitations are desolate, I am in extremity, ready to die. True: but those who go up and down the land would teach you to look for a different end to my career if I had been the proud transgressor you wrongly assume me to have been. I would have found a way of safety when the storm clouds gathered and the fire of heaven burned. My prosperity would scarcely have been interrupted. If I had been what you say, not one of you would have dared to charge me with crimes against men or impiety towards God. You would have been trembling now before me. The power of an unscrupulous man is not easily broken. He faces fate, braves and overcomes the judgment of society.
And society accepts his estimate of himself, counts him happy, pays him honour at his death. The scene at his funeral confutes the specious interpretation of providence that has been so often used as a weapon against Job. Perhaps Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar know something of obsequies paid to a prosperous tyrant, so powerful that they dared not deny him homage even when he lay on his bier. Who shall repay the evildoer what he hath done?
"Yea, he is borne to the grave,
And they keep watch over his tomb;
The clods of the valley are sweet to him,
And all men draw after him,
As without number they go before him."
It is the gathering of a countryside, the tumultuous procession, a vast disorderly crowd before the bier, a multitude after it surging along to the place of tombs. And there, in natures greenest heart, where the clods of the valley are sweet, they make his grave-and there as over the dust of one of the honourable of the earth they keep watch. Too true is the picture. Power begets fear and fear enforces respect. With tears and lamentations the Arabs went, with all the trappings of formal grief moderns may be seen in crowds following the corpse of one who had neither a fine soul nor a good heart, nothing but money and success to commend him to his fellow men.
So the writer ends the second act of the drama, and the controversy remains much where it was. The meaning of calamity, the nature of the Divine government of the world are not extracted. This only is made clear, that the opinion maintained by the three friends cannot stand. It is not true that joy and wealth are the rewards of virtuous life. It is not always the case that the evildoer is overcome by temporal disaster. It is true that to good and bad alike death is appointed, and together they lie down in the dust. It is true that even then the good mans grave may be forsaken in the desert, while the impious may have a stately sepulchre. A new way is made for human thought in the exposure of the old illusions and the opening up of the facts of existence. Hebrew religion has a fresh point of departure, a clearer view of the nature and end of all things. The thought of the world receives a spiritual germ; there is a making ready for Him who said, "A mans life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth," and "What doth it profit a man to gain the whole world, and forfeit his life?" When we know what the earthly cannot do for us we are prepared for the gospel of the spiritual and for the living word.
William Robertson Nicoll, ed., The Expositor's Bible (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1887–1910) — public domain. 65 of 66 books (1 Corinthians is not separately keyed, as that volume carries no machine-parseable verse references); section-level commentary keyed to the opening verse. Introductory and overview sections not keyed to a specific passage are excluded.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary 1892 · Public Domain On v1 The ungodly, instead of experiencing the miseries indicated by…
JOB’S REPLY TO ZOPHAR’S SECOND SPEECH
The ungodly, instead of experiencing the miseries indicated by Zophar, often, perhaps generally, enjoy continued ease and prosperity in this life.
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I. Introduction (Job_21:2-6).
1. Bespeaks earnest attention (Job_21:2). “Hear diligently my speech.” Men of wisdom and experience, especially pious sufferers, worthy to be seriously listened to. Solemn and weighty truths to be heard with corresponding attention. Heb., “Hear, hear.” Serious matters call for double or diligent hearing. Deep attention to be given to truths concerning God’s mysterious providence, still more to those regarding a provided Saviour and the great salvation (Heb_2:1). An aggravated sin when God stretches out His hand and no man regards it (Pro_1:24).
A reason given for such attention: “And let this be (or, ‘and this shall be’) your consolations.” Allusion to Zophar’s boasted consolations (ch. Job_15:11). Sometimes mourners more relieved by our listening to their sentiments than by uttering our own. Better to be silent in the presence of the afflicted than to dispute or censure. Consolation due to sufferers from their friends. A brother born for adversity. Professed comforters may become real tormentors.
2. Solicits patience (Job_21:3). “Suffer me that I may speak.” Patience especially due to sufferers. Persons who speak much themselves generally most impatient of others. The Scripture rule—“Swift to hear, slow to speak.”—“And after that I have spoken, mock on.” A troubled spirit often cased by utterance. Sad when those who ought to be comforters in our affliction become mockers (ch. Job_17:2). One of Job’s greatest trials to be mocked by his friends (ch. Job_12:4). As much patience required to endure mockings as scourgings (Heb_11:36).
3. Justifies his displeasure (Job_21:4). “As for me, is my complaint to man? And if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?” (margin, “shortened;” same word rendered “discouraged,” Num_21:5; “grieved,” Jdg_10:16; “vexed,” Jdg_16:16; “straitened,” Mic_2:7; “hasty,” Pro_14:29; “anguish,” Exo_6:9). Sorrow contracts the heart as joy enlarges it (Psa_119:32). The flesh is soon angry, while grace is long suffering. Job complains not to man, but to God, as the author of his troubles. His complaint both of God and to God; the former the complaint of the flesh, the latter that of the spirit. Grace teaches to look away from instruments and second causes to God Himself. So David (2Sa_16:10).
Job justifies his displeasure on the ground that God dealt so hardly with him. His language too much that of the prophet at Nineveh and Elijah under the juniper-tree. The flesh always and in all alike. Thinks that under severe trouble we “do well to be angry.” Grace enables us to kiss the rod that smites us, and to say, “Abba, Father; not my will, but Thine be done.” Jesus rather than Job our pattern in affliction. Our privilege in Christ to be strengthened with all might, according to God’s glorious power, unto all patience and long-suffering with joyfulness (Col_1:11).
4. Invites solemn attention to the astounding fact of suffering saints and prosperous sinners (Job_21:5). “Mark me and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth” [in silent awe and wonder]. God’s dealings in Providence to be regarded with reverence and awe. Habakkuk’s experience (Hab_3:16); David’s (Psa_119:120). The sufferings of saints and prosperity of sinners a subject mysterious and inscrutable till read in the light of inspired Scripture (Psa_13:3). Anomalies in God’s government awaiting the explanations of eternity.
Expresses his own feelings in reference to this mysterious fact and its influence upon himself (Job_21:6). “Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.” Our own experience, as well as that of others, often to be remembered with trembling (Lam_3:19-20). The part of grace not only to tremble at God’s word, but God’s works (Isa_66:2). The speaker to be duly affected himself by the truths he addresses to others. Must weep himself if be would have his hearers weep.
II. Problem proposed. Commences with a question implying an undoubted fact (Job_21:7).
“Wherefore do the wicked live (or, enjoy life), become old, yea mighty in power” (or wealth). Three facts implied regarding the ungodly in this life:—
1. They “live;” are permitted to continue in life and to enjoy it.
2. In many instances “become old;” ordinarily viewed as an element of prosperity and a mark of Divine favour. The hoary head not always found in the way of righteousness.
3. “Become mighty in power” and substance; enjoy great worldly prosperity (Psa_78:12). Such facts hardly to be expected under the government of a righteous God. The perplexity and almost despair of Asaph (Psa_73:2-13). The 73rd Psalm a commentary on this chapter of Job. Such facts suggest inquiry as to the cause. Scripture furnishes the reply. (See Rom_2:4; 1Ti_1:16; Psa_73:18; Ecc_8:11-13; Luk_2:35, &c.; Psa_16:4; Rom_9:22). The present not the only state of man’s existence. This life a state of probation and discipline, not of retribution. The present a time of forbearance and mercy; God waiting for the sinner’s repentance in order to be gracious to him. God’s goodness intended to lead to repentance. The ungodly spared in order to have time for repentance; “the long-suffering of God is salvation;” not willing that any should perish (2Pe_3:9-15). Their prosperity an exercise for the faith of the godly. A standing evidence of a time of future retribution. A monument to the glory of the Divine patience and long suffering. Renders the impenitence of men inexcusable and justifies all their future punishment. Demonstrates the inferiority of earthly to heavenly blessings.
III. Description of the prosperity of the ungodly (Job_21:8-13).
1. In relation to their children (Job_21:8). “Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.” Their children obtain a firm and prosperous position in the world, and that while they themselves still live to see and enjoy it. Important elements in a man’s earthly felicity:—
(1) To have a numerous offspring;
(2) To see his children prosperous and established in the world;
(3) To have them continuing to live with or near him;
(4) To live to see and rejoice in their earthly prosperity and happiness. Some of these elements formerly enjoyed by Job, though no longer so. The happiness of the ungodly, in relation to their children, again touched upon under another aspect in Job_21:11. “They send forth their little ones (out of doors, under a guardian or guide), and their children dance” (frisk sportively as lambs in the pasture). Pleasing picture of domestic happiness and prosperity. The children viewed as still young and under their parents’ guardianship. Healthy, happy, frolicking children a pleasant spectacle, especially to parents’ eyes. A large ingredient in the cup of earthly bliss. Homes lighted up with children’s innocent hilarities the gift of a gracious God.
2. Domestic security and freedom from affliction and trouble (Job_21:9). “Their houses are safe from fear (of any hostile attack or elemental violence), neither is the rod of God upon them.” The contrast to the case of Job and his children. Sons experience chastisement from which slaves are exempt. Freedom from afflictions and trials no mark of a child of God. The ungodly “have no changes, therefore they fear not God” (Psa_55:19). Ill sign for a man when God will not spend a rod upon him [Brookes].
3. Success in business and freedom from worldly losses (Job_21:10). “Their bull gen-dereth and faileth not; their cow calveth and casteth not her calf” (by an untimely birth). Matters in which human skill and industry seem to have but little to do. As if a blessing rested on all the work of their hands, and on all their belongings. Their very cattle prosperous and fruitful. People in everything fortunate, and, as the world say, lucky.
4. Enjoyment of music and festivity (Job_21:12). “They take (or ‘lift up’ [their voice] to) the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at (or, trip merrily to) the sound of the organ” (or pipe—musical instruments of greatest antiquity [Gen_4:21; Gen_31:27]; the “organ” with us a comparatively modern invention). The life of the persons in question one, to a large extent, of festivity and enjoyment. Their dwellings abundantly enlivened with the sound of music, vocal and instrumental. The ungodly no strangers to the hilarity of music and dancing. “The harp and viol, the tabret and pipe, are in their feasts, while they regard not the work of the Lord” (Isa_5:12). “They chant to the sound of the viol and invent to themselves instruments of music like David, but are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph” (Amo_6:5-6). Musical instruments an invention of the descendants of Cain (Gen_4:21). Yet
Music
one of God’s choicest earthly blessings. Its influence beneficial on the individual and the household. Its effects on man’s nature manifold and important. Rests fatigue. Relieves pain. Subdues passion. Soothes suffering. Mitigates sorrow. Allays nervous irritation. Resists melancholy. Saul’s evil spirit yielded to the sweet sounds of David’s harp (1Sa_16:23). Inspires courage and inspirits the brave. The rousing strains of Highland bagpipes helped to win the day at Waterloo. Music powerful in the conflict of life. A means of moral culture. Assists devotion. Calms and elevates the mind for the communication and reception of Divine truth. The prophet calls first for the aid of a minstrel (2Ki_3:15). Music a Divine art and heavenly employment. Heaven filled with music. Something of divinity in music more than the ear discovers [Sir T. Browne]. The beneficial effect of soft and sweet sounds, especially of sacred music, upon the sick, an acknowledged fact. Music “whispered to the weary spirit” sometimes the only sound to be endured by the sick and sorrowful. Music to be consecrated to the glory of its Divine Author. “A table without music little better than a manger” [Epictetus]. Especially true of the song of praise and thanksgiving. Music, like other Divine gifts, often desecrated to the service of the god of this world. The Enemy’s object to make a sinful and worldly life as agreeable as possible. Helps men to forget death and a judgment to come in the sweet sounds of earthly music. Nero played on his harp while gazing on Rome in flames, the probable effect of his own wickedness.
5. A joyous life and an easy and painless death. Job_21:13.—“They spend their days in wealth (prosperity or pleasure), and in a moment go down to the grave” (without any painful, lingering disease, or without inward terrors of conscience). A case probably at least as frequent as that described in such tragic terms by Zophar (chap. Job_20:16-28). Exemplified in the rich fool (Luk_12:16-20), and in Dives (Luk_16:19-22). Observe—
(1). The main concern of a godless man is about his wealth or worldly happiness. In regard to wealth, his care is—
(1) To get it;
(2) To keep it;
(3) To enjoy it.
(2). An easy death after a prosperous life one of the desires of the ungodly, and frequently experienced by them. Such a death a blessing to the godly; to the ungodly a curse. An uneasy death-bed a thousand times better than an undone eternity.
(3). A godless life often finished with a sudden and unprepared for death. The sinner’s greatest misery only to discover his misery when too late to escape it. To a believer sudden death is sudden glory.
IV. The hardening effect of this prosperity on the wicked themselves
Job_21:14.—“Therefore they say (in works if not. in words): Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways. What is the Almighty that we should serve Him? And what profit should we have if we pray to Him?” (Heb.: “If we meet Him?”—i.e., in a way of prayer). God’s goodness often perverted by the ungodly to an end the opposite of that intended. That goodness improved leads men to repentance; abused, drives them farther from it. Un-sanctified wealth a blessing perverted into a curse. Riches, with the heart in them, separate men still farther from God. One effect of Divine grace is that men “fear the Lord and His goodness.” The tendency of fallen human nature is to grow proud and independent of God in prosperity. “Jeshurun waxed fat and kicked” (Deu_32:15). The terrible enmity of the carnal mind against God perhaps most conspicuous in prosperity. Ordinarily, gifts and kindness attract and attach to the giver.—The text an awful exhibition of man’s
Natural Depravity
That depravity displayed—
1. In ingratitude and enmity towards God. “Depart from us.”
2. In dislike to God’s ways. “We desire not,” &c.
3. In pride and independence in regard to God. “What is the Almighty?” &c.
4. In infidelity and unbelief. “What profit should we have?” &c.
These verses a comment on David’s testimony concerning the ungodly in every age “The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God” (Psa_14:1). An illustration of the Apostle’s language in reference to the unrenewed: “Alienated from the life of God;” “Without God in the world” (Eph_2:12; Eph_4:18). The history of mankind, the literature of every land, and the observation of every day, a humbling confirmation of the patriarch’s description of—
“An impious world,
Who deem religion frenzy, and the God
Who made them an intruder on their joys.”
From the whole passage observe—
1. The misery of the ungodly that they are far from God, and desire to be still farther. “They say unto God: Depart from us.” To be weary and impatient of God’s presence the strongest evidence of a wicked heart. What constitutes the joy and desire of a saint is the torment and aversion of an impenitent sinner. Awful result to the ungodly man when God grants him the wish of his unrenewed heart.
2. Impenitent men do not desire to know God’s wags, much less to walk in them. “We desire not the knowledge of Thy ways.” God’s ways are—
(1) His own doings and procedure;
(2) The conduct He prescribes to His intelligent creatures. The mark of a gracious heart to desire to know God’s ways; still more to walk in them. Men’s sin and misery not to know God’s ways; still more not to have the desire to know them.
3. God’s service founded on a just consideration of the Almighty. “What is the Almighty that we should serve Him?” Ir-religion the result of spiritual blindness and ignorance of God. The Almighty infinitely worthy to be served—
(1) For what He is in Himself—good, holy, just, wise, faithful, and powerful;
(2) For what He is to us—our Creator, Preserver, Benefactor, and in Christ our Redeemer.
4. The part of infidelity and ungodliness to question the utility of prayer. “What profit should we have if we pray to Him?” God’s purpose and plan to give to the humble and believing asker (Eze_36:37; Mat_7:7; Php_4:6-7; Jas_1:5-6; Jas_4:2-3). For answer to the question: “What profit should we have?” &c, ask—
(1) Those who live a life of prayer;
(2) A dying bed;
(3) The day of judgment. If religion costs something, the want of it one day found to cost much more. The mark of a depraved nature to ask, not “What is right?” but “What profit should we have?” The profitable only found in the right. Duty first; utility next.
5. The whole Bible and the history of the Church of God on earth an answer to the question of infidelity in the text.
Abraham’s servant prayed to God, and God directed him to the person who should be a wife to his master’s son and heir (Gen_24:10-20).
Jacob prayed to God, and God inclined the heart of his irritated brother, so that they met in friendship and peace (Gen_32:24-30; Gen_33:1-4).
Samson prayed to God, and God showed him a well of water, where he quenched his burning thirst, and so lived to judge Israel (Jdg_15:18-20).
David prayed, and God defeated the counsel of Ahithophel (2Sa_15:31; 2Sa_16:20-23; 2Sa_17:14-23).
Daniel prayed, and God enabled him both to tell Nebuchadnezzar his dream and the interpretation of it (Dan_2:16-23).
Nehemiah prayed, and God inclined the heart of the King of Persia to grant him leave of absence to visit and rebuild Jerusalem (Neh_1:11; Neh_2:1-6).
Esther and Mordecai prayed, and God defeated the purpose of Haman, and saved the Jews from destruction (Est_4:15-17; Est_6:7-8).
The believers in Jerusalem prayed, and God opened the prison-doors and set Peter at liberty, when Herod had resolved upon his death (Act_12:1-12).
The profit from prayer, however, not confined to direct answers.
Paul prayed that the thorn in the flesh might be removed, and his prayer brought a large increase of spiritual strength, while the thorn, perhaps, remained (2Co_12:7-10). Prayer like the dove that Noah sent forth, and which blessed him not only when it returned with an olive leaf in its mouth, but when it never returned at all.
The question which the Patriarch puts into the mouth of the ungodly and infidel in his day boldly repeated in our own; as indicated in the famous prayer-test lately proposed by a Professor in one of the Scotch Universities, and a leading member of the British Association for the Promotion of Scientific Knowledge.
Observe in regard to—
Prayer
(1.) The profit from prayer taught by the natural instinct of the human race. Natural to men, even the most ungodly and unenlightened, to think of calling upon some superior Being in the time of danger or of trouble. The erection of the altar to the unknown God at Athens due to this feeling on the part of the Athenians. The conduct of the heathen sailors in the ship which was to convey Jonah to Tarshish, an indication of the feelings and views of humanity (Jon_1:5).
(2.) Profit from prayer a natural and necessary conclusion from the acknowledged fatherhood of God. An instinct of nature for a child to apply to a father in difficulty or distress.
(3.) Answers to prayer only desirable when our prayers are according to the will of God. If otherwise, answers to prayer rather a bane than a blessing. “He gave them their request, but sent leanness into their souls” (Psa_106:15).
(4.) One part of the Holy Spirit’s office to leach those who are under His guidance what to ask for (Rom_8:26-27).
(5.) Profit from prayer on the part of those who are living in rebellion against God, a matter of the merest mercy. The practice of sin a sufficient reason why prayer may not be answered. Righteous with God to say as He did to the Jews: “Yea, when ye make many prayers I will not hear; your hands are full of blood” (Isa_1:15). Iniquity only regarded in the heart sufficient to hinder answers to prayer (Psa_66:18).
(6.) Access to God and assurance of answers to prayer the precious fruit of the incarnation, death, and intercession of the Son of God (Heb_4:16). Christ, or the Son of God in our nature, the only and divinely-constituted medium of communication between fallen men and a righteous and holy God. The ladder which Jacob saw in his dream at Bethel, with the angels of God ascending and descending upon it (Gen_28:12; Joh_1:51).
(7.) True prayer a “meeting” with God. (Heb.) “What profit if we meet with Him?” Prayer vain if not a meeting with God. Christ the meeting-place between a Holy God and sinful man (Heb_4:14-16.) Figured by the mercy-seat (Eze_22:26). Christ the only way to the Father, and only Mediator between God and men (Joh_14:6; 1Ti_2:5). God’s love to man manifested in His providing Christ as a meeting-place between Himself and sinners. In and through Christ, men able now to meet with God on a throne of grace; apart from Christ, God only to be met with on a throne of judgment. Men must either meet with God in prayer now, or meet with Him in judgment hereafter. A meeting with God on the part of men certain and inevitable, sooner or later. The question is, of what nature shall the meeting be? May be one to our unspeakable joy, or to our everlasting sorrow. To meet with God in prayer through Christ now, is life; to meet with Him in judgment without Christ hereafter, is death. Madness to put away a meeting with God till we can only meet with Him as an angry Judge. God, in Christ, a Father waiting with open arms to receive His penitent and praying children; God, apart from Christ, a consuming fire to devour His impenitent and prayerless adversaries. A sinner’s blessedness to meet with God as, in Christ, reconciled and reconciling the World to Himself.
V. Job’s protest against a life of prosperous ungodliness (Job_21:16). “Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked, is far from me.” Observe—
1. Worldly prosperity and earthly blessings not less a good because abused—a good, though not the chief good. The part of sin—
(1) to pervert what is good in itself into an evil;
(2) To make a temporal good the chief good instead of an eternal one.
2. The good enjoyed by the ungodly neither a satisfying nor a lasting one; “their good is not in their hand,”—a thing neither to be grasped nor retained. Mighty difference between the good of the believer and the worldling. The one substance, the other shadow; the one lasting and eternal, the other momentary and perishing. The ungodly unable to retain their prosperity and happiness a moment beyond God’s pleasure. A thousand accidents able to rob them of it at any moment. No real good in their hand, and still less in their hope.
3. Care to be taken not to be influenced by the prosperity of the godless and worldly.
(1) By consideration of the truth and reality of their case; their prosperity only temporary, and their happiness unreal; “their good not in their hand;”
(2) By steadfast repudiation of their principles and life. “The counsel of the wicked is far from me.” Consider, in regard to—
The counsel of the wicked
First: what it is. The principles upon which they act and by which their life is governed. These are—
(1) To make the enjoyment of the present life their chief good,—their first if not their only aim—take care for this life, and let the next take care of itself.
(2) To gain that enjoyment in any way they can with safety:—if honestly, well; if not, in any way you can.
(3) To depend on their own endeavours for what they desire, instead of God:—“Mine own hand hath gotten me this wealth.”
(4) To ignore God and eternity, heaven and hell, either as having no existence or no relation to themselves. The worldling’s creed—no reality but what is visible or cognizable by themselves. The seen and sensible only substance, all else shadow and moonshine.
(5) To despise the provision of a Saviour. Not this man, but Barabbas;
(6) To care for one’s self and immediate connections, and leave others to do the same. Attend to number one.
Second: Job’s conduct in regard to this counsel. “The counsel of the wicked is far from me.” The principles and practice of the ungodly, not only to be put away, but far away from us. Safest to stand at the greatest distance from sin. Joseph kept far from it, and had God’s blessing in the dungeon. David went near it and got broken bones. Sin an infectious plague; therefore not to be approached. The surest way not to walk in the counsel of the wicked is to keep far from it. “Enter not into the path of the wicked; avoid it, pass not by it, turn from it and pass away.” Occasions of sin to be avoided as well as sin itself. The harlot’s door to be avoided. He who carries gunpowder must keep far away from sparks. God only keeps from acts of sin those who keep from occasions of it. Look not intently on what you may not love entirely. (Brookes.) The counsel of the wicked to be put far from us—
(1) In out judgment. To be viewed in its real character. Condemned and repudiated as what it really is—wicked, abominable, destructive.
(2) In our will and purpose. Our language to be, what have I to do with idols? (Hos_14:8). To choose with Mary the good part. To say with David: “Depart from me, ye evil-doers; for I will keep the commandments of my God.” “I have sworn, and I will perform it, that I will keep thy righteous judgments” (Psa_119:106; Psa_119:115). So Daniel “purposed in his heart that he would not defile himself with the king’s meat” (Dan_1:8).
(3) In our practice. Purpose to become practice. The man only blessed who “walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly” (Psa_1:1). Our life to be governed by opposite principles.
Third: why is the counsel of the ungodly to be put far from us? From its character and issues. The principles of the ungodly and worldly are—
(1) Foolish and unreasonable. Only the fool says in his heart, no God. Absurd only to believe what we see. Madness to prefer the enjoyment, of a day to that of a life-time; the enjoyment of a short life-time to that of an endless eternity. The part of a fool to make careful provision for the body and neglect the soul which shall eternally survive it.
(2) Wicked. Intensely wicked to ignore and repudiate the God that made, preserves, and every moment sustains us; a God possessed of every excellence—the Author of our Being and our Well-being.
(3) Destructive. Certain and endless ruin the result of a sinful and worldly life,—of despising God and rejecting His Son, Jesus Christ, “All they that hate me love death.” What is sown here is reaped hereafter (Gal_6:7-8; Psa_16:4; Is Job_1:11; Rom_3:16; Rom_6:21; Rom_6:23; Joh_8:21; Joh_8:24).
Fourth: How is the counsel of the wicked to be put far away from us? Not easily. The counsel of the wicked is—
(1) Natural to a depraved heart. The carnal mind enmity against God. To follow the counsel of the wicked is to swim with the stream.
(2) Popular. The way of the multitude. To put it far away is to be singular. Not always easy to come out and be separate.
(3) Pleasing to the flesh. Sin wears a serpent’s skin. The forbidden fruit pleasing to the eye, and sweet to the taste. The principles and practice of the wicked and worldly only to be put far away from us—
(1) By a change of heart. A corrupt tree only brings forth evil fruit. “Out of the heart proceed evil thoughts,” &c. “Ye must be born again.” Except a man be born of water and of the Spirit, he cannot see the kingdom of God.
(2) By acceptance of the offered Saviour and reliance on His grace. In looking to Him who died for our sin we are delivered from its power, and receive strength to overcome it. The cross of Christ our only deliverance from the counsel of the ungodly (Gal_6:14).
(3) By the due use of means. (i.) Prayer. Spiritual strength given to waiting upon God and in answer to prayer (Isa_40:22-31; Eze_36:25-27; Eze_36:37). (ii.) Reading and meditation in the Scriptures (Psa_17:4; Psa_119:11; Joh_15:3; Joh_18:17). (iii.) Contemplation of the Saviour’s character and cross (2Co_3:18; Gal_6:14). (iv.) Consideration of the character and consequences of sin.
Job’s practical renunciation of the counsel of the ungodly already a fact. Resolution is to become reality. The future to be translated into the present,—“Let it be” to become “it is.”
VI. The final misery of the ungodly, notwithstanding present prosperity (Job_21:17). “How oft is the candle of the wicked put out.” May be read either as a question implying the rarity of the case, or as an exclamation implying its frequency. The “candle,” or prosperity, of the wicked, extinguished by death, though frequently before it. Job’s main assertion, that the wicked often live, become old, and die in prosperity and ease. Yet their end destruction not the less. Asaph stumbled at the prosperity of the wicked till he went into the sanctuary and understood their end (Psa_73:17).—“How oft cometh their destruction upon them.” Not always, nor even usually, visited with signal judgment and a miscrable death. Occasional cases as warnings, and as indications of a future judgment. Examples: the Deluge; destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha; Haman; Saul, Herod.—“God distributeth sorrows in His anger. Observe—
1. Continuance of outward prosperity consistent with secret wrath. The abuse of Divine gifts the greatest provocation of Divine anger. God’s wrath certain against ungodliness, however long its manifestation may be withheld. God angry with the wicked every day. Wrath treasured up against the day of wrath.
(2) The sorrows of the ungodly often sent in anger; those of the godly always in love. Those the most terrible sorrows that are distributed in God’s anger.
(3) Sorrows distributed by God as well as mercies. All sorrows distributed by a Divine hand; only, some distributed in anger, others in love. Trouble not from the dust. Wisely meted out, whether in mercy or in judgment. The cup mingled and measured, and sooner or later put into the hand of each. The cup of sorrow held out to a believer by a Father’s hand, to be exchanged ere long for the cup of joy. To he put at last into the hand of the ungodly (Isa_51:22-23; Luk_16:25).
(4) Terrible end of the wicked after a life of prosperity and pleasure (Job_21:18). “They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away, (margin, “stealeth away,” rapidly and unexpectedly as a thief in the night, Mat_24:43; 1Th_5:2; 2Pe_3:10; Rev_16:15). Frequent comparison of the ungodly to the fragments of straw and the chaff separated from the wheat on the open threshing-floor, exposed to the wind on a lofty situation, and thus carried violently, suddenly, and rapidly away by it, while the wheat is left for the garner (Psa_1:4; Isa_29:5; Hos_13:3). Indicates—
(1) God’s long-continued but exhausted patience;
(2) The worthlessness of the ungodly;
(3) Their final separation from the godly;
(4) Their utter and irremediable destruction.
VII. A sinful life often punished in its consequences on the sinner’s children (Job_21:19). “God layeth up his iniquity (or the punishment of it) for his children; he rewardeth him and he shall know (or feel) it. His eyes shall see his destruction (implying more than mere destruction itself; he shall have full and bitter experience of it; or shall see it approaching and yet be unable to escape from it), and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty [as before he drank iniquity, which is the cause of it]. For what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off in the midst?” Perhaps an objection to his statement here anticipated and answered. If God does not punish the ungodly man in this life, yet, say the three friends, He punishes him in his children after him. But, replies Job, the punishment ought to be inflicted on himself; and he, not his children, ought, according to your principles, to feel it. His eyes ought to see his own destruction. For what has he to do with his family after him when he his dead? Observe—
(1) An undeniable truth that a man’s sins often entail their consequences on his children. Embodied in the second commandment (Exo_20:5). Temporal consequences often entailed apart from sins in the children. The parents’ sins frequently inherited by the children, and their consequences along with them. A man in some degree punished in the person of his children. His children closely bound up with him as part of himself. A natural desire that it should be well with them after his death. His children’s suffering after his death an aggravation of his own.
(2) Sin, however, mainly punished in the person himself who commits it. Hence, that punishment not always inflicted in this life, as Zophar and his friends maintained. No less certainly however in the next, as maintained by Job.
VIII. Assertion of God’s infinite wisdom and knowledge (Job_21:22). “Shall any teach God knowledge? Seeing he judgeth those that are high.” God, unable to receive any accession to His wisdom or knowledge from the most intelligent of His creatures. The highest intelligences under His government and control. God universally acknowledged as the Judge and Ruler of heaven and earth (Gen_18:25). Angels, devils, and men of every rank, under His sway and jurisdiction. Hell and destruction naked and open before Him. The hearts and counsels of men and angels exposed to His view. The expulsion of fallen angels an example of His judging “those that are high.” The judge of angels not to be directed by puny men (Rom_11:34; 1Co_2:16). He who judges angels needs no instruction how to deal with men. Hence—
(1) The case of each safe in his hands;
(2) No room for questioning or cavilling on the part of any of His creatures in reference to His providential dealings with them.
IX. Sovereignty and inscrutableness of Divine Providence. Men variously dealt with both in life and death without apparent reference to character and desert (Job_21:23). “One dieth in his full strength [with unimpaired health and vigour], being wholly at ease and quiet [in the hey-day of prosperity]. His breasts (margin, ‘milk pails’) are full of milk (or, his vessels, intestines, or sides are full of fat), and his bones are moistened with marrow. And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul (with an experience the opposite of the former, grief and pain pursuing him to the end), and never eateth with pleasure” (or, “never enjoys pleasure,”—a sufferer during his whole life) Varieties everywhere in men’s experience, both in life and in death. These varieties often and generally due rather to the sovereignty of the Divine Disposer than to the character and merits of individuals. Love and hatred not to be discovered by the external events in our lot. One event to all (Ecc_9:2).—Death equally the end of all (Job_21:25). “They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them,” Lessons from this unversality of death:—
(1) Contentment with one’s lot. External differences only for a short period of this present life. These assigned now in infinite wisdom, and all forgotten in the grave.
(2) Humility. The dust our final resting-place. Worms by-and-by our principal covering;
(3) Necessity of immediate preparation and constant readiness for death. Nothing more certain than death, and more uncertain than the time and circumstances. The grave a resting-place for the body; the soul, immortal and immaterial, has its dwelling elsewhere. Its place in the spirit-world according to its character and deeds in this. After death the judgment (Mat_25:31-46; Rom_2:6-10). In the eternal world the rich and poor often change places. Lazarus comforted, Dives tormented (Luk_16:25).
X. Job’s remonstrance with his friends on their erroneous and uncharitable views (Job_21:27-30).
1. Exposes their secret cogitations regarding him (Job_21:27). “Behold I know your thoughts, and the devises which ye wrongfully imagine against me. For ye say [within yourselves], where is the house of the prince (the rich or munificent chief—alluding to Job himself, whose house was now desolate, and that of his eldest son in ruins)? and where are the dwelling-places of the wicked?” [margin, “the tent of the tabernacles;” Heb., the tent of the dwelling-places; either that of the rich chief in the midst of those of his household and clan, [chap. Job_38:19] or his house as divided into various apartments). The secret surmise of Job’s friends that the desolation of his own house, and that of his son, was a Divine retribution. From this desolation they injuriously conclude they had been wicked men. The errors of the Jews in Christ’s day, in reference to the slaughtered Galilæans and the disaster in Siloam (Luk_13:1-5.) That of the Miletians, in regard to Paul and the viper which fastened on his hand (Act_28:4).
2. Refers them to the testimony of men of travel and observation (Job_21:29). “Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens?” (or, “acknowledge their testimonies,”—the examples met with in their travels, and related by them to others, or their written communications, which are proofs of what I now advance). In the early ages of the world, and still to a great extent in the East, most of the information as to events in other lands obtained by travellers. That information, however, probably to some extent committed early to letters, here called “tokens,”—signs or marks (Gen_4:15). Moses directed by God to write the song he delivered before his death, as well as the law of commandments (Deu_31:19-24). Letters among the earliest inventions. Probably at first hieroglyphics, or figures of animate or inanimate objects. (See ch. Job_19:23-24).
3. Testimony of travellers in relation to the wicked (Job_21:30). “That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction (spared often and long in this world, even in the midst of calamities that overtake others, though sure to be punished in the next, if not ultimately in this, as in the case of Pharaoh)? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath” (or, “they are led [as in a pompous procession] to the day of wrath,” which sooner or later overtakes them; or, “they are led [in safety] in the day of wrath” which comes upon the community; margin, the day of wraths—great or accumulated wrath, as Rev_6:17). Job’s first position—God destroys, by external calamities, the righteous and the wicked indiscriminately (ch. Job_9:22-23). His second—The wicked are often spared in the midst of such calamities,—spared in ease and prosperity,—and spared long. Rests his assertions on facts. These facts not invalidated by occasional examples of the contrary. These in perfect harmony with, and even when rightly viewed, a confirmation of, a future retribution. Every day of wrath in this world points its finger to a still greater one in the next.
XI. Returns to the prosperity and power of the wicked as following them even to the grave
The ungodly often so powerful as to escape all reproof and punishment for their crimes in this world (Job_21:31). “Who shall declare his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done?” None bold enough for the one, or powerful enough for the other. The case of John the Baptist in relation to Herod the Tetrarch, a rare one, especially in those early times. Job_21:32.—“Yet shall he (or ‘even this man’) be brought (conveyed in pomp and honour) to the grave. (Margin, ‘graves,’ the place of graves; or the sepulchral grot, with its various apartnents and numerous niches for the dead; or an eminent and magnificent grave—a large and splendid mausoleum, perhaps a pyramid); and shall remain in the tomb,” (Margin, “shall watch in the heap;” shall appear still to live at his tomb, as embalmed and preserved from corruption, or as represented by his statue or other memorial; or “watch shall be kept [by others] at his tomb,” to preserve it and do him honour). Honour not only attends him in life, but follows him to the tomb both in and after his death. So “the rich man died and was buried,” i.e. had a large and splendid funeral; nothing said of the burial of Lazarus (Luk_16:22). The pompous funeral of the wicked also a noticeable object in the days of the royal preacher (Ecc_8:10). Job_21:33.—“The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him.” Buried, like great men, at the foot of a mountain where the winter stream keeps moist the sods that cover him. He has a pleasant restingplace for his remains, and the sod lies softly upon him. Apparently as enviable in his death as he had been in his life. Himself still supposed to enjoy in the spirit-world the honour done to his earthly remains, and the agreeable circumstances which attend them. Pleasing delusion of the imagination! The experience of the rich man in hell (Hades or the spirit-world) the opposite of that suggested by his costly funeral and beautifully adorned grave.—“And every man shall draw after him as there are innumerable before him.” His death no solitary case. Death the common lot of fallen humanity, without respect to character or conduct. The wicked abundantly accompanied in the spirit-world. Company however no alleviation. The second desire of the rich man in Hades, that his five brethren might not come also to that place of torment (Luk_16:28). The presence of others rather an aggravation than a relief.
XII. Conclusion (Job_21:34). The friend’s consolation vain because grounded on false principles. “How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing that in your answers there remaineth falsehood” (Margin, “transgressions,” opposition to the truth, or, malice and evil intent). Consolation, to be of any value, to be grounded on right principles. Must be—
(1) True, in the matter; according to the Word of God, the only infallible standard.
(2) Suitable in its application; adapted to the circumstances of the case, and of the individual addressed. Truth misapplied becomes error.
(3) Loving, in its manner—truth spoken in love. Truth, spoken harshly and uncharitably, irritates rather than heals the wounded spirit. “Falsehood” n the answers and arguments of Job’s friends, inasmuch as they maintained—
(1) That God acts, in His government of the world, in a way which He does not; uniformly visiting the sins of the ungodly upon them in the present life, and rewarding the godly with worldly prosperity and ease.
(2) That, according to these principles, those who are great sufferers must be great sinners.
(3) That the only way to be delivered from such suffering, and to enjoy such prosperity, is by acknowledgment of sin and a turning from it to God,—to be with that view immediately made by the sufferer, and therefore by Job himself. Malice or evil intent in their answers; their aim being to make Job a grievous transgressor in the sight of God, and one who was suffering justly the punishment of his sins—the “devices the wrongfully imagined against him” (ch. 21). Their offence not only against truth but charity.
The Preacher's Complete Homiletical Commentary (gen. ed. Joseph S. Exell; Funk & Wagnalls, c. 1892) — public domain (pre-1929). A full-Bible homiletical/sermon-outline anthology covering 65 of 66 books (2 John is absent from the source module). Text from a community e-Sword module.
The Sermon Bible 1900 · Public Domain On v1 I. No man can hold the Christian view of…
Job 21:15
I. No man can hold the Christian view of God’s personality and dominion without his whole intellectual nature being ennobled. The finer and clearer our conceptions of the Divine idea, the nobler and stronger must be our intellectual bearing and capacity.
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II. Not only is there ennoblement of the nature of a man as a whole by his acceptance of the Christian idea of the nature of God: there is a vital cleansing and purification of a man’s moral being; a new sensitiveness is given to his conscience; he goes directly to the absolute and final standard of righteousness; he knows the wrong, afar off and avoids it.
III. It is always profitable to base life upon religious faith. He who walks by sight only walks in a blind alley. Even in matters that are not distinctively religious, faith will be found the inspiration and strength of the most useful life. We cannot get rid of religion unless we first get rid of faith; and when we get rid of faith, we give up our birthright and go into slavery for ever.
Parker, City Temple, vol. iii., p. 73.
References: Job 21:15.—F. E. Paget, Helps and Hindrances to the Christian Life, vol. ii., p. 116; A. P. Peabody, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xi., p. 330; D. G. Watt, Ibid., vol. xxiv., p. 70. Job 21:19.—Expositor, 3rd series, vol. iv., p. 433. Job 21:23-26.—W. J. Keay. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xix., p. 285. Job 21:29-31.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 410. Job 21—S. Cox, Expositor, 1st series, vol. viii., p. 1; Ibid., Commentary on Job, p. 274. Job 22:5.—New Manual of Sunday-school Addresses, p. 105. Job 22:15-17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 859; G. Brooks, Outlines of Sermons, p. 130.
The Sermon Bible, ed. William Robertson Nicoll (1888–1900) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
J. R. Dummelow 1909 · Public Domain On v1 Job's Sixth Speech
Job's Sixth Speech
Zophar, like the other friends, had insisted on the certain retribution for sin which befalls the wicked in this life. Now at length these views draw from Job a direct contradiction. It is his manner to wait till the three friends have spoken before he demolishes their case.
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1-21. Job declares that as a matter of common observation bad men often go prosperously through life without any sign of God's displeasure.
4. To man] RM 'of man.' It is of God that Job complains. And if, etc.] RV 'And why should I not be impatient?'
6. Job trembles at the thought of the bold arraignment of God's government which he is about to make, or possibly at the remembrance of how unrighteous that government seems to him.
8. Unlike Job, who had lost all his children at a stroke.
12. Timbrel] a small drum still used in Palestine. Organ] RV 'pipe.'
13. In a moment] without prolonged illness or pain, such as that from which he himself suffers.
14. Therefore] better, 'though' or 'yet.'
16. Lo, their good, etc.] It may mean, They cannot control their fortunes: it must be God who has prospered them. Is far] rather, 'be far.' Job repudiates the devices of sinners. Possibly the whole v. is an objection uttered by the friends.
17, 18. The vv. should be read as questions, the words 'How oft' being prefixed to each sentence. The answer implied is 'very seldom.'
19. RV 'Ye say, God layeth up his iniquity for his children. Let him recompense it unto himself that he may know it.' The friends may argue that retribution may, at all events, fall upon the wicked man's children. To which Job replies that the sinner ought to suffer personally. Possibly, however, we should read in the first line, 'Let him not lay up iniquity for his children.'
21. Pleasure] better, 'interest.'
22-26. It is presumptuous for the friends to settle what are the rules by which God decides the fate of men, God who judges even the angels.
24. Breasts] mg. 'milk-pails.'
And his bones, etc.] RV 'And the marrow of his bones is moistened': he is strengthened and refreshed.
27-34. Job says he knows that the friends' remarks are aimed at him. He is to take warning from the sure doom of the sinner. But experience does not justify their conclusions.
28. Prince] here probably means 'tyrant.'
29, 30. The meaning is: Have you not asked the traveller who has seen the world what are his conclusions on the subject? Are you not familiar with the examples he quotes? He would tell you that the wicked is spared in the day of destruction, and led away (safely) in the day of wrath.
31. Who boldly rebukes or punishes the tyrant?
32. RM 'He is borne to the grave and keepeth watch over the tomb'; i.e. he is buried with honours. Perhaps we should read, 'they keep watch.'
33. After his life of happiness he rests in the sweet-smelling earth. His career of successful wickedness draws many to imitate him, as indeed he had himself many to anticipate him.
34. Job concludes that the arguments of the friends are worthless, since he has shown that the wicked do not get their deserts.
So ends the second cycle of debate, the main theme of which is the assertion denied by Job, that trouble overtakes the evildoer. Job does not deal with this in his first and second speeches, which centre about his own calamities, and rise to the conviction that after his death God will reverse the verdict upon him, and that in Sheol he shall himself know of this vindication. In his third speech he asserts against the friends the prosperity of the wicked.
J. R. Dummelow, A Commentary on the Holy Bible (Macmillan, 1909) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
C. I. Scofield 1917 · Public Domain On vv13, 19 Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5")
grave
Heb. "Sheol," (See Scofield "Hab 2:5")
The Scofield Reference Bible (1917 edition), notes by C. I. Scofield — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Arno C. Gaebelein 1922 · Public Domain On v1 CHAPTER 21 Job’s Reply
CHAPTER 21 Job’s Reply
1. Hear my solemn words--then mock on (Job 21:1-6)
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2. His testimony concerning the experiences of the wicked (Job 21:7-26)
3. Your answers are nothing but falsehoods (Job 21:27-34)
Job 21:1-6. This answer shows that Job gets the upper hand over his accusing friends in this controversy. In a masterly way he meets their arguments. He wants them to hear diligently, and if they choose, after he has spoken, they may mock on. He is not complaining to man, or making his appeal to these human friends. He begins to look for another helper, even to God.
Job 21:7-26. Zophar’s eloquent words concerning the wicked are taken up by Job and he proves that experience shows another side besides the one Zophar had made so prominent. The wicked often live to a ripe old age and possess great power. They have large families and their houses are safe from fear; nor is the chastening hand of God upon them. They prosper and all goes well with them; their cattle increase. They sing to the timbrel and to the harp and rejoice at the sound of the pipe. They love pleasure and have a good time. Then suddenly Job changeth the description. They spend their days in prosperity--but in a moment they go down to Sheol. It reminds us of Asaph’s great Psalm (73) in which he describes the prosperity of the wicked: “When I thought to know this it was too painful for me; until I went into the sanctuary of God; then understood I their end. Surely Thou didst set them in slippery places; Thou castedst them down to destruction.”
Job declares they reject and defy God; they laugh at the thought of praying to Him. Then he gives his own, personal testimony “the counsel of the wicked is far from me.” In this he shows his friends that they are wrong in classing him with the wicked. Then he continues in unfolding the problem of the wicked and how God deals with them.
Job 21:27-34. Without enlarging upon the final statements of his answer, we only remark that Job shows that his friends have not only failed to convince him, but their answers are insincere and nothing but falsehoods. The victory is on his side; yet the problem, “why do the righteous suffer and how can their suffering be harmonized with a righteous God,” remains as unsolved as before.
Arno C. Gaebelein, The Annotated Bible (1913–1922) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
Paul E. Kretzmann 1924 · Public Domain On vv1, 7, 27 Job Appeals for Consideration
Job Appeals for Consideration
v. 1. But Job answered and said, in setting aside the insinuations of Zophar,
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v. 2. Hear diligently my speech and let this be your consolations. What Job was about to state was to take the place of the bungling attempts of his friends to set matters right. At the same time attentive silence would provide more real comfort than all their empty talk.
v. 3. Suffer me that I may speak, they should consent to his speaking, enduring it once more; and after that I have spoken, mock on, this last being addressed to Zophar on account of his cutting statements. v. 1. As for me, is my complaint to man, that is, was it in regard to man, did it concern men, being directed against them? And if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled? It was an extraordinary, superhuman burden under which Job was groaning, bearing which he might well have become impatient.
v. 5. Mark me and be astonished and lay your hand upon your mouth, being awed into silence by the intensity of Job’s suffering.
v. 6. Even when I remember, I am afraid, his own thinking of it made him stand confused and aghast with astonishment, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh, his body shaking with terror. "It is to be noted how by these strong expressions the friends are prepared to hear something grave, fearful, astounding, to wit, a proposition, founded on experience which seems to call in question the divine justice, and to the affirmation of which Job accordingly proceeds hesitatingly and with visible reluctance. " (Lange. )
Paul E. Kretzmann, Popular Commentary of the Bible (1921–1924) — public domain. Text from a community e-Sword module.
unfoldingWord translationNotes 2017 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv1, 4, 7, 10, 13, 16, 19, 22, 25, 27, 29, 31, 34 Connecting Statement:
Connecting Statement:
Job begins to answer Zophar's accusations.
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Put up with me
"Allow me" or "Be patient with me"
mock on
"you can continue mocking me." Job is using sarcasm to imply that his friends would ignore what he would say and continue to mock him. (See: Irony)
translationWords
Job
suffer
mock
unfoldingWord translationNotes — © Distant Shores Media and the Door43 World Missions Community, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Source: git.door43.org/Door43/en_tn.
Tyndale Open Study Notes 2022 · CC BY-SA 4.0 On vv2, 6, 8, 17, 19, 22, 24, 25, 26, 28, 33, 34 21:2 Job’s friends insisted that they were delivering God’s…
21:2 Job’s friends insisted that they were delivering God’s own message of comfort (15:11), but Job found no comfort in their words (16:2), so he asked for the consolation of their attentive silence (see 13:5).
Tyndale Open Study Notes — © Tyndale Open Resources, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Text via the HelloAO Bible API.