Job 20

Job 20:10

10. His children shall seek to please 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 goodwill and assistance of the most destitute and abject. Scott, Parkhurst. God many times suffers an estate got by oppression to prosper for a little while: but there is a curse attends it, which descends upon the estate like an encumbrance; and parents, when they think they entail an estate, often entail poverty upon their children. Abp. Tillotson.

Job 20:12

12. — though he hide it under his tongue;] As a glutton that gets a sweet morsel between his teeth is loth to lose the taste of it, and therefore does not hastily swallow it down; thus does the carnal man deal with his sin: he keepeth it close, and hideth it under his tongue. Caryl.

Job 20:14

14. Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, &c.] As meat mixed with poison, his sin will at last be his ruin. Bp. Wilson. — the gall of asps] Ælian says, that the poison of asps is extremely subtle, and extends its effects very rapidly over the whole body. Hence the proverb, “bite of an asp,” to express an incurable wound. With this verse is connected ver. 16, where “the viper” answers to several Eastern names, which are very near to the original Hebrew word, and which signify a serpent remarkable for a quick and penetrating poison. Script. illust. Expos. Ind.

Job 20:15

15. He hath swallowed down riches,] The original word is very forcible: it denotes vast avidity and rapacity; being a metaphor from a ravenous beast devouring his prey. Compare Jer. li. 34. Scott. — he shall vomit them up again.] He shall be forced to restore with sorrow his ill-gotten riches. God, by His providence, shall take them away, with plagues that will attend the loss of them. Bp. Wilson.

Job 20:16

16. He shall suck the poison of asps:] His ill-gotten riches shall prove as great and as deadly a torture,

Job 20:17

17. He shall not see the rivers, &c.] He shall not see the plenty and happiness which he proposed to himself. He shall have no satisfaction in what he gets by his industry. Such is the certain fruit of injustice and oppression. Bp. Wilson. — the brooks of honey and butter.] We in these cooler countries have no great notion of butter being described as so extremely liquid: it appears among us in a more solid state. But as the plentiful flowing of honey, when pressed from the comb into jars, in which it is wont to be kept, may be compared in strong language to a little river; so, according to the Eastern management, butter is equally fluid, and may be described in the same way, when poured from the skin, in which it is made, into jars for the purpose of being preserved. Harmer. The Eastern butter is a kind of thick cream, not solid, like our lumps of butter. This butter and honey compose the same mess of food, and are eaten mixed together. D’Arvieux says of the Arabs, “One of their chief breakfasts is cream, or fresh butter, mixed in a mess of honey: these do not seem to suit very well together, but experience teaches that this is no bad mixture, nor disagreeable in its taste, if one is a little accustomed to it.” Thevenot also says, “The Arabs knead their bread-paste afresh, adding thereto butter, and sometimes also honey.” See the same mixture noticed in Isai. vii. 15, 22. Fragments to Calmet.

Job 20:20

20. — he shall not feel quietness in his belly,] “Neither is his belly satisfied,” as the Latin Vulgate translates it. His vice is described: it is an insatiable appetite of rapine. Scott. 22. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits:] The greater his supply of worldly goods, the more he shall be distressed. Bp. Patrick. The state and portion of the wicked. Before CHRIST about 1520.

belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.

Job 20:24

24. He shall flee from the iron weapon, &c.] When he desires and hopes to avoid a less danger, he shall fall into a greater. Bp. Hall.

“He would flee from the weapons, but the brasen bow shall strike him through.” The word rendered “weapons,” signifies arms, or weapons of every sort, as the bow, shield, arrows, &c. Ezek. xxxix. 9; and is here put for the armed host, that is, 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, Ps. vii. 12, 13. Compare chap. vi. 4; xv. 24; see also the note on chap. xviii. 14. 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. Scott.

Job 20:25

25. It is drawn and cometh out of the body; &c.] He is mortally wounded by these judgments: horrors of conscience seize upon him, because he cannot live, and dares not die. Clark.

Job 20:26

26. All darkness shall be hid in his secret places.] Unforeseen danger shall arise, which he never suspected; and none of his house shall prosper. Bp. Wilson.

Rather “a total darkness shall be reserved for his treasures;” that is, he shall for ever be as much deprived of them, as if they were still buried in the bowels of the earth; see ver. 21. Dr. Durell.

— a fire not blown shall consume him.] A fire not kindled by man, but sent down from heaven, in the just judgment of God, shall consume him, as thou, O Job, hast, not long since, had lamentable proof. Bp. Hall.

Job 20:27

27. The heaven shall reveal his iniquity;] The heaven, by thunder, lightning, or tempests, shall declare itself his enemy; and the earth, by wild beasts or serpents, or some other way, shall make war against him. Bp. Patrick.

Job 20:28

28. — in the day of his wrath.] That is, of God’s wrath upon him: perhaps more properly, though less strictly, “in the day of his sufferings;” that is, of the criminal’s punishment. Script. illust. Expos. Ind.

Job 20:29

29. This is the portion of a wicked man from God, &c.] The posterity of the wicked do many times inherit the fruit of their fathers’ sins and vices; and that, not only by a just judgment of God, but from the natural course and consequence of things. And in this sense that expression of Job in the following chapter is often verified, that “God layeth up the iniquity of wicked men for their children,” chap. xxi. 19. And experience tes-