25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, And never tastes of good.
"Therefore I will not keep silent. I will speak in the anguish of my spirit. I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.
Hushai said moreover, You know your father and his men, that they are mighty men, and they are fierce in their minds, as a bear robbed of her cubs in the field; and your father is a man of war, and will not lodge with the people.
"Why is light given to him who is in misery, Life to the bitter in soul,
He will not allow me to take my breath, But fills me with bitterness.
When he is about to fill his belly, God will cast the fierceness of his wrath on him. It will rain on him while he is eating.
The heart knows its own bitterness and joy; He will not share these with a stranger.
What shall I say? he has both spoken to me, and himself has done it: I shall go softly all my years because of the bitterness of my soul. Lord, by these things men live; Wholly therein is the life of my spirit: You restore me, and cause me to live. Behold, [it was] for [my] peace [that] I had great bitterness: But you have in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; For you have cast all my sins behind your back.
Moreover he said to me, Son of man, behold, I will break the staff of bread in Jerusalem: and they shall eat bread by weight, and with fearfulness; and they shall drink water by measure, and in dismay: that they may want bread and water, and be dismayed one with another, and pine away in their iniquity.
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,