17 "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?
18 That they are as stubble before the wind, As chaff that the storm carries away?
19 You say, 'God lays up his iniquity for his children.' Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
20 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what does he care for his house after him, When the number of his months is cut off?
22 "Shall any teach God knowledge, Seeing he judges those who are high?
23 One dies in his full strength, Being wholly at ease and quiet.
24 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, And never tastes of good.
26 They lie down alike in the dust, The worm covers them.
27 "Behold, I know your thoughts, The devices with which you would wrong me.
28 For you say, 'Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?'
29 Haven't you asked wayfaring men? Don't you know their evidences,
30 That the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity? That they are led forth to the day of wrath?
31 Who shall declare his way to his face? Who shall repay him what he has done?
32 Yet shall he be borne to the grave, Men shall keep watch over the tomb.
33 The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him. All men shall draw after him, As there were innumerable before him.
34 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, Seeing that in your answers there remains only falsehood?"
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 21
Commentary on Job 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
This is Job's reply to Zophar's discourse, in which he complains less of his own miseries than he had done in his former discourses (finding that his friends were not moved by his complaints to pity him in the least), and comes closer to the general question that was in dispute between him and them, Whether outward prosperity, and the continuance of it, were a mark of the true church and the true members of it, so that the ruin of a man's prosperity is sufficient to prove him a hypocrite, though no other evidence appear against him: this they asserted, but Job denied.
Job 21:1-6
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.
Job 21:7-16
All Job's three friends, in their last discourses, had been very copious in describing the miserable condition of a wicked man in this world. "It is true,' says Job, "remarkable judgments are sometimes brought upon notorious sinners, but not always; for we have many instances of the great and long prosperity of those that are openly and avowedly wicked; though they are hardened in their wickedness by their prosperity, yet they are still suffered to prosper.'
Job 21:17-26
Job had largely described the prosperity of wicked people; now, in these verses,
Job 21:27-34
In these verses,