Job 20

We are dealing not with the parts or conditions of a problem, but with a living fact and a personal reality. “I am the Resurrection and the Life; whosoever liveth and believeth in Me shall never die”—this carries us beyond the region of premise and inference. We believe, or not, and are blessed or wretched accordingly; but we are not argued into the conviction, or out of it. The faith, however, in its certainty, amounts to sight or knowledge; and hence it is no exaggeration when all Christendom, moving ever toward the grave in the procession of its generations, declares, “I know that my Redeemer liveth.” F. D. H.

Job doth not only profess faith in a Redeemer, but in his Redeemer—my Redeemer liveth. Every word in this confession is precious and weighty. Here he useth an appropriating word, yet he doth not engross the Redeemer to himself, excluding others, but he takes his part with others. Those pronouns, mine, thine, his, are words of love, and drop like honeycomb with sweetness of affection. The first work of faith is to believe that Christ is a Redeemer; the second is to believe and rely upon Christ as a Redeemer; the third is to see an interest in Christ as my Redeemer. Caryl.—Job uses the language of appropriation. He says, “My Redeemer.” And all that we know, or hear, or speak of Him will avail us but little, unless we are really and personally interested in Him as our Redeemer. A cold speculative knowledge of the Gospel, such as a lawyer has of a will or a deed, which he reads with no further design than to understand the tenor and import of the writing, will neither save nor comfort the soul. The believer reads it, as the will is read by the heir, who finds his own name in it, and is warranted by it to call the estate and all the particulars specified his own. He appropriates the privileges to himself, and says, The promises are mine; the pardon, the peace, the heaven of which I read, are all mine. This is the will and testament of the Redeemer, of my Redeemer. The great Testator remembered me in His will, which is confirmed and rendered valid by His death (Heb. 9:16), and therefore I humbly claim, and assuredly expect, the benefit of all that He has bequeathed. Newton, 1725-1807.

I know; it is a matter of the greatest certainty to my soul, that there is a Redeemer for lost sinners; I know He is my Redeemer; I have seen my want of Him, and my certain destruction without His redemption. He liveth; while He lives my hopes cannot die, my soul cannot despair; stripped of all things beside, nothing can separate me from the love of Christ. I know that Christ liveth at the right hand of God, because He lives in my heart by faith. By the word of grace we know there is a Redeemer; by the testimony of the Spirit of truth, through faith, the sinner is enabled to say He is mine, my beloved, my Friend. There are two infallible evidences of this: Christ has both our hearts and our hopes; our heart is set upon Him; our hopes centre in Him. He is precious to our hearts; we have fellowship with Him by faith; we know that He liveth, because we enjoy the comfort of His life and love in our souls; we know Him both as dying for us and also as living in us; He dwells in our hearts by faith; He sends His tokens of love; He draws our affections to Himself. W. Mason.

1. THEN answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said, 2 Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me, Even by reason of my haste that is in me. 3 I have heard the reproof which putteth me to shame, And the spirit of my understanding answereth me. 4 Knowest thou not this of old time, Since man was placed upon earth, 5 That the triumphing of the wicked is short, And the joy of the godless but for a moment?

6. Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, And his head reach unto the clouds; 7 Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: They which have seen him shall say, Where is he? 8 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night. 9 The eye which saw him shall see him no more;

Neither shall his place any more behold him.

10. His children shall seek the favour of the poor, And his hands shall give back his wealth.

11. His bones are full of his youth, But it shall lie down with him in the dust.

12. Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, Though he hide it under his tongue ;

13. Though he spare it, and will not let it go, But keep it still within his mouth ;

14. Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, It is the gall of asps within him.

15. He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again : God shall cast them out of his belly.

16. He shall suck the poison of asps : The viper’s tongue shall slay him.

17. He shall not look upon the rivers, The flowing streams of honey and butter.

18. That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down ; According to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice.

19. For he hath oppressed and forsaken the poor ; He hath violently taken away an house, and he shall not build it up.

20. Because he knew no quietness within him, He shall not save aught of that wherein he delighteth.

BILDAD (chap. 18) had enlarged upon the certainty of the sinner’s downfall from the moral order in the world and the moral sense in men, which rose up against wickedness. Zophar’s point is slightly different, it is the brevity of the wicked man’s prosperity, which arises from the fact that wickedness brings about its own retribution. He illustrates this theme by drawing the picture of a rapacious, oppressive man of power suddenly brought to destruction and destitution in the midst of his days, with the hand of every one that is wretched against him, and forced to disgorge that which he had greedily swallowed. Job may understand that the fable is narrated of him. Zophar is too much of the “plain, blunt man ;” his meaning is so transparent that he commits himself and his friends into his adversary’s hands. One general idea pervades the speech, the brevity of the wicked man’s prosperity. A. B. D.

1-3. Zophar takes no notice of what Job had said to move their pity or to evidence his own integrity, but fastens upon the reproof he gave them in the close of his discourse, counts that a reproach, and thinks himself therefore obliged to answer, because Job had bidden them be afraid

21. There was nothing left that he devoured not ; Therefore his prosperity shall not endure.

22. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits : The hand of every one that is in misery shall come upon him.

23. When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fierceness of his wrath upon him, And shall rain it upon him while he is eating,

24. He shall flee from the iron weapon, And the bow of brass shall strike him through.

25. He draweth it forth, and it cometh out of his body : Yea, the glittering point cometh out of his gall ; Terrors are upon him.

26. All darkness is laid up for his treasures : A fire not blown by man shall devour him ; It shall consume that which is left in his tent.

27. The heavens shall reveal his iniquity, And the earth shall rise up against him.

28. The increase of his house shall depart, His goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.

29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, And the heritage appointed unto him by God.

of the sword, that he might not seem to be frightened by his menaces. H.

The entire speech of Zophar, after the introductory sentences (vs. 2, 3) is comprised briefly in vs. 4 and 5, and all that follows, to the end, are only illustrations and amplifications of the idea at first enunciated. The wicked shall perish miserably—he shall not be found among men, he shall be chased away as the shadows, and even any who may remember him shall not see him any more—his very name shall rot. The curse of his wickedness shall descend to his children, his youthful transgressions shall ripen their bitter fruits in his later life, and his cherished sins especially shall result in bitterness, disease, disaster, and remorse. The fruit of his iniquitous carefulness shall not remain except as a curse—it shall not cause him to rejoice. His oppressions and violence, though for awhile successful, shall not bring him quiet ; his greediness shall bring him only desolation, and those whom he has spoiled will pursue him with maledictions and vengeance. He shall be cursed in his eating, the sword shall pursue him, a fire not blown (by man) shall devour him ; the created universe shall be against him, and all his substance shall “slip away,” because God is against him. Such is the decree of the Almighty respecting the portion—the heritage—of the wicked man. The doctrine here taught is the same that is seen in all parts of the Bible; but it is here presented with a terrible fulness and forcefulness of expression and an exuberant enumeration of details. Curry.

10. His children shall seek the favor of the poor. This is much stronger than if he had said, “they shall become poor.” It is placing them below poverty itself. They shall court the good-will and assistance of the most destitute and abject. Scott.—God many times suffers an estate got by injustice or wrongdoing to prosper for a little while; but there is a curse attends it, which descends upon the estate like an encumbrance. As, then, you would not transmit a curse to your children and devolve misery upon your family, free your estates from the burden and weight of what is other men’s, lest by God’s just judgment and secret providence that little which you injuriously detain from others carry away your whole estate to them and their family. God’s providence many times makes abundant restitution when we will not. Archbishop Tillotson.

11. No truth more grows upon men, in the light of modern research, than the immutability of law. All its voices affirm together that “not a jot or tittle shall fail;” that the “uttermost farthing” shall be required. “Transgression carries its penalty in it, as the acorn carries the oak,” says a scientific skeptic; unconsciously reiterating the thought of James, “Sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.” The force once set in motion, and unhindered, goes on, as we are told, “unhasting, unresting,” never wasting, never turning aside, never intermitting. The law works unflinchingly outward, carrying the contagion of plague or the breath of spring, alike to all. It works as stubbornly inward, transmuting act into habit, and pricking habit indelibly into the blood—and sinking it into the very marrow—so that literally, and not figuratively only, a man’s “bones are full of the sins of his youth.” J. B. Thomas.

12-14. The great force of a vicious habit is strongly marked in this and the following verses. The pleasure which a corrupt mind feels in the indulgence of its criminal inclination is compared to an epicure’s high enjoyment of some delicious morsel. Scott.—When the pursuit of money grows to a monster passion of the soul, the mind dwindles, the affections wither, and sometimes even the nerve of hunger itself ceases to act, leaving the wretched miser to perish by starvation fast by his heap of gold. So if a man lives for the table, the organs of the mouth and chin change their expression, the eye grows dull, the gait heavy, the voice takes a coarse animalized sound, and the higher qualities of intelligence he may once have manifested will be manifested nowhere, save as purveyors to the organs of taste and the gastric energy. H. B.

17. He shall be disappointed in his expectations, and shall not find that satisfaction in his worldly wealth which he vainly promised himself; he shall never see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter. The world is not that to those who love and court it which they fancy it will be. The enjoyment sinks far below the raised expectation. H.—These figurative expressions undoubtedly represent some part of his punishment. Rivers, honey, and milk are Oriental emblems of felicity. It is possible that the utter loss of all his former abundance and enjoyments may be intended. But probably a worse punishment is here threatened; even exclusion from “the seats of the blessed.” The blessings of religion and the future happiness of good men are represented in Scripture by these pleasant images.

24. The word rendered “weapon” signifies arms or weapons of every sort, and is here put for the armed host of evils. God is at war with him. The Scripture arms the Divine Being with a sword, a bow and arrows to represent His vengeance. All his efforts to ward off the calamities which fall upon him will be ineffectual. The Arabian writers are very fond of the idea of a bow, and frequently use it to represent extraordinary, inevitable, and destructive calamities from the hand of God.

26. This is one of those terrible images by which the Scripture represents the future punishments of the wicked. It is unquenchable fire; for it is not kindled by the breath of man, but of God. While he himself is suffering the wrath of God in another world vengeance pursues the family he left in this world to utter extermination.

28. The effect of the combined operations of the heavens and the earth against him is the swift and violent dissipation of his whole estate. The increase of his house shall roll away, like torrents, in the day of His wrath. Scott.

29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God. He will have it at last, as a child has his portion, and he will have it for a perpetuity, it is what he must abide by; this is the heritage of his decree from God; it is the settled rule of His judgment, and fair warning is given of it. O wicked man, thou shalt surely die! (Ezek. 33:8.) H.—They chose to obey their own passions and lusts in the place of God, and He leaves them to the unrestrained tyranny of their evil tendencies. They would not live to Him, but lived to themselves cultivating selfishness in all its forms; He assigns to them a condition in which selfishness reigns supreme in every being, where every evil bias of the human heart is allowed to bring forth its fruit without restraint in its bitterest intensity. What can be more awful than such a state of existence? Every element of happiness has been excluded, and nothing is left but unsatisfied appetite wrought up to madness, envy, malice, rage, cruelty, implacable and unmerciful, all acting without control and each seeking nothing but the misery of all. And more than this, every one is conscious that he is receiving nothing but the result of his own choice. Wayland.

We have here a most admirable account of great wicked men; the only fault in Zophar was in misapplying it to Job; as if God could not in justice afflict any but wicked men. Bishop Wilson.—Like all the speakers in this second round of debate, Zophar concludes by pointing with an impressive gesture to the picture he has drawn. Job should see himself there. He finishes by saying “from God.” This forces Job into the arena; he has no help, however unwilling he may be, but face this argument (21:27), and he shows that that which comes “from God” (21:22) is something very different. A. B. D.