Job 21
OGCTODAY’S ENGLISH VERSION
2 Listen to what I am saying;
that is all the comfort I ask from you.
3 Give me a chance to speak and then,
when I am through, sneer if you like.
4 My quarrel is not with mortal men;
I have good reason to be impatient.
5 Look at me. Isn-’t that enough
to make you stare in shocked silence?
6 When I think of what has happened to me,
I am stunned, and I tremble and shake.
7 Why does God let evil men grow old and prosper? 8 Their children and grandchildren
grow up before their very eyes.
9 God does not bring disaster on their homes;
they never have to live in terror.
10 Yes, all their cattle breed
and give birth without trouble.
11** **Their children run and play like lambs
12 and dance to the music of harps and flutes. 13 They live out their lives in peace,
and die quietly without suffering.
14 The wicked tell God to leave them alone;
they don-’t want to know his will for their lives.
15 They think there is no need to serve God,
or any advantage in praying to him.
16 They claim they succeed by their own strength,
but their way of thinking I can-’t accept.
17 Was a wicked man’s light ever put out?
Did one of them ever meet with disaster?
Did God ever punish the wicked in anger
18 and make them like straw blown by the wind
or like dust carried away in a storm?
19 You claim God punishes a child for the sins of his father.
No! Let God punish the sinners themselves,
and show he does it because of their sins.
20 Let sinners bear their own punishment;
let them feel the wrath of Almighty God.
21 When a man’s life is over,
does he really care if his children are happy?
22 Can a man teach God?
Can a man judge Almighty God?
23-24 Some men stay healthy till the day they die;
they die happy and at ease, and their bodies are well-nourished.
25 Others have no happiness at all;
they live and die with bitter hearts.
26 But all alike die and are buried;
they all are covered with worms.
27 I know what spiteful things you think. 28 You ask, Where is the house of the great man now,
the man who practiced evil?
29 Haven-’t you talked with people who travel?
Don-’t you know the reports they bring back?
30 On the day when God is angry and punishes,
it is the wicked man who is always spared.
31 There is no one to accuse a wicked man,
or pay him back for all he has done.
32 When he is carried to the graveyard,
to where his tomb is guarded,
33 thousands join the funeral procession,
and even the earth lies gently on his body.
34 And you! You try to comfort me with nonsense!
Everything you have said is a lie!
QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION 21:1-34
This speech of Job has some distinctive features. Name three of them. Discuss.
How does Job define real consolation?
Give the three answers of Job to the so-called universal principle of retributive justice.
To whom is verse three addressed?
Why is Job impatient with God?
What is meant by laying one’s hand on his mouth? Why does Job shudder?
Are only the righteous happy and prosperous? Discuss the contradiction of this in real life.
Job really attacks and refutes the arguments of Bildad. Show how.
Job sets the security of the wicked against what argument?
The American Dream is invalid in verse ten. Discuss.
Joy, singing, dancing are all expressions of both the righteous and the wicked. Explain.
What is the point of Job 21:13?
What is the basis for totalitarianism? Discuss.
Explain in your own words the meaning of Job 21:16.
Job wants to know how often the wicked suffer. Why?
What is the proverb considered in Job 21:19? How answer it? Cf. Job 21:20.
How does the thought that a dead man has no interest in his home relate to the point of these verses?
There is dissimilarity, but not according to the definition of Job’s friends. What is the real difference among men?
How are all men alike? Discuss.
Isn-’t there any evident connection between happiness and virtue?
Who is the prince of Job 21:28? How will the wayfarer answer this question? Discuss.
The wicked are actually, at times, led to safety instead of wrath. Why?
Who is involved in Job 21:31? What is the point?
Job 21:1-6
F.
INTEGRITY, PROSPERITY, AND THE PRESENCE OF THE HOLY RIGHTEOUS GOD (Job 21:1-34)
Job pleads for a sympathetic hearing. (Job 21:1-6)
TEXT 21:1-6
21 **Then Job answered and said,
2 Hear diligently my speech;
And let this be your consolations.
3 Suffer me, and I also will speak;
And after that I have spoken, mock on.
4 As for me, is my complaint to man?
And why should I not be impatient?
5 Mark me, and be astonished,
And lay your hand upon your mouth.
6 Even when I remember I am troubled,
And horror taketh hold on my flesh.**
COMMENT 21:1-6
**Job 21:1**For the sixth time Job responds to Zophar out of the depths of his realistic experience. Here we vividly see the radical distinction between his experience and the a priori theories of his three friends. Job confronts their thesis that the righteous are happy and the wicked are miserable with a counter claimthat the wicked are often prosperous. This Jobian speech falls into five sections: (1) Job appeals for a hearingJob 21:2-6; (2) The wicked prosperJob 21:7-16; (3) He asks, Do the wicked suffer?Job 21:17-22; (4) Death levels everyone and everythingJob 21:23-26; and (5) Universal experience contradicts the arguments of his three comfortersJob 21:27-34. It is the only fully polemical speech from Job.
**Job 21:2**Eliphaz had identified his words with the consolation of GodJob 15:11. Now Job asks them to consider real consolation. He has emerged victorious over the temptation presented to him by both his friends and his wife. He has asserted his faith that God knows his innocence and will ultimately testify to it. He still believes in God’s goodness and has a basis from which to reject the accusing recommendations of his friends. He passes from mere defensiveness to frontal attack. Theologically, his friends have attacked him from behind the bulwark of the eternal universal principle of retributive justice. Job brilliantly and relentlessly undertakes to falsify the principle from which they continually deduced so many erroneous conclusions. First, it is not universally self-evident that God sends retributive justice in this life (note similar argument in Kant’s Critique of Practical Judgment). Secondly, God does not destroy the godless in a momentJob 21:5-6; and thirdly, that the impious do not always prosper, but they often doJer 12:1 ff; Ecclesiastes 7:15. Job asks only for their discreet silence and attentive ears.
**Job 21:3**The verbs preceding this verse are all plural, but here this one is in the singular. Job is focusing attention on Zophar’s just-ended discourse on the fate of the wicked. After what I have to say, you will no longer mock me.
**Job 21:4**Job’s complaint is against God, not man. He would expect at least sympathy from man. He receives no consolation from either God or man. He is protesting the moral anomalies that God allows in His world. Job has inquired of God, but God remains silent; therefore, Job is impatient (lit. my spirit is short).
**Job 21:5-6**Laying one’s hand over the mouth is the gesture of awe and voluntary silence.[233] Job’s friends will be silent when they hear and understand his argument concerning the prosperity of the wicked. He shudders at the very thought of an amoral universe.
[233] See J. B. Pritchard, ed., Ancient Near Eastern Pictures Relating to the Old Testament (Princeton: University Press), p. 333, for picture of Mesopotamian seal cylinder from the third millennium B.C. depicting Etana flying heavenward on eagle’s wings while one onlooker has his mouth covered.
Job 21:7-16
- The wicked enjoy great peace and plenty. (Job 21:7-16)
TEXT 21:7-16
7 **Wherefore do the wicked live,
Become old, yea, wax mighty in power?
8 Then- seed is established with them in their sight,
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 sing to the timbrel and harp,
And rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their days in prosperity,
And in a moment they go down to Sheol.
14 And they say onto 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 prosperity is not in their hand:
The counsel of the wicked is far from me.**
COMMENT 21:7-16
**Job 21:7**Zophar (and Plato’s Republic) had saidJob 20:11that the wicked die prematurely. Job counters with evidence to the contrary. Job asks why? (maddnafrom what cause; lamahJob 3:20; Job 7:20to what purpose? Jesus on crossPsalms 22; Matthew 27how do you explain it?) Zophar’s argument is sophistry. If one dies early in life, then he was wicked. The same applies to Bildad’s arguments in Job 18:5-21. One could never refute such an a priori position. Not only do many wicked live long lives, but their prosperity continues unbrokenJob 15:20; Job 18:5; Job 20:5. Other Old Testament spokesmen were also disturbed about this same phenomenaJer 12:1 ff; Psalms 73:13; Habakkuk 1:13; and Malachi 3:15. The evidence does not support Zophar’s claim that the prosperous wicked never attain a level of true happiness. The holy pagan, moral atheist, the good-living humanist might be as happy as the righteous man, then or now. If ex hypothesi happiness is God’s gift, is He not encouraging unbelief by such indiscriminate bestowal of prosperity?Matthew 5:45. The only motives advanced by Job’s friends for serving God have been: (1) fear of punishment and (2) hope for reward. This kind of motivation will never produce truly pious people (note arguments against these by Kant and Hannah Arendt).
**Job 21:8**Job directly contradicts the claims of Bildad concerning the fate of the wicked which he stated in Job 18:5-21. He first attacks Bildad’s assertion that Job’s ill-fated prosperity and progeny are proof of ungodliness. The wicked have (lit. lipnehembefore them) their offspring.[234]
[234] Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job, follows M. Dahood, Biblica, 1966, p. 411Their line is stable; their fathers are with them and their offspring are before their eyes.
**Job 21:9**Here Job sets the security of the ungodly against Eliphaz’s claim in Job 5:24. He had promised Job security in his tent if he would accept his present condition as God’s judgment and repent. In Job 9:34 Job complained that there was no mediator to remove God’s rod of anger from him; here he asserts that the ungodly do not feel the rod of wrathJob 15:28; Job 18:14; and 10:28.
**Job 21:10**Another mark of God’s blessing was fertility in herds and flocksDeu 28:14; Psalms 144:13 ff. If this is a sign of God’s blessing, then He is blessing many wicked people with success.[235]
[235] Compare this argument in a Christian critique of the American Dream, i.e., if you are successful, it is a sign of God’s providential presence; if you are a failure, it is a warning to get right with God.
**Job 21:11**Here we note a beautiful picture of peace, progress, and prosperity as children are playing and singing like happy little lambs. But the children of the wicked are as numerous as a herd or flockPsa 107:41. (Note contemporary preoccupation with leisure and play (see J. Moltmann’s A Theology of Play. New York: Harper & Row, 1975), Zechariah 8:5.[236]
[236] For analysis of instruments mentioned in this vivid picture, see essay by M. Dahood, The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, p. 65; and for singing, see A. Guillaume, Journal of Theological Studies, 1966, pp. 53ff; for biblical music in general, Werner’s The Bridge (Harvard University Press).
**Job 21:12**For similar descriptions of revelry of the wicked, see Isaiah 5:12 and Amos 6:5, perhaps in their worship of Baal. The same mode, but not motive, is employed in the worship of God.[237] Festivity and celebration are marks of both pious joy as well as sensual revelry.
[237] See esp. The Son 7:1; and article by R. T. O-‘Callaghan, Orientalia, 21, 1952, 37-46; and M. Dahood, The Bible in Current Catholic Thought, p. 65.
**Job 21:13**The wicked often know intense prosperity and come to a peaceful ripe old age. In peace (A. V. has in a moment) they go down to Sheol (suggesting suddenly, which is not the point here). They have a long and complete life, with little or no suffering and no lingering illnesses.
**Job 21:14**Radical self-interest is no motive for them to acknowledge God. They already have everything they want. In modern times, from Machiavelli to Mao, radical self-interest has been the basis of totalitarianism.[238] In our own culture it is the basis of hedonistic materialism. What profit is there in knowing God? The happy people have no self-interest to induce them to worship God.
[238] See Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism (Meridian Books, pb., 1958).
**Job 21:15**The wicked have no obligation of love or gratitude to worship God. This philosophy of religion says that we will give if we get in return. But the righteous man desires above all else to know God and His waysPsa 16:11; Psalms 25:4. The perverse reject God, while they continue to prosper.
**Job 21:16**The verse is notorious for its grammatical complexities. Perhaps the R. S. V. gets at the meaning better than the A. V., which is: God does not concern Himself with wicked, but leaves their prosperity to themselves; that is their sole and ultimate award. Job then says that the counsel of the wicked is removed far from him in the sense that despite their success, Job does not wish to be prosperous on their terms.[239]
[239] For this difficult verse, see A. C. M. Blommerde, Northwest Semitic Grammar and Job; one basic problem is: From whom is the prosperity derived? Is not from his hands their prosperity? or Behold, the Mighty One, from his hands is their prosperity.
Job 21:17-22
- Sometimes they suffer, but not regularly. (Job 21:17-22)
TEXT 21:17-22
**17 How oft is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out?
That their calamity cometh upon them? That Goddistributeth sorrows in his anger?
18 That they are as stubble before the wind.
And as chaff that the storm carrieth away?
19 Ye say***,* **God layeth up his iniquity for his children.
Let him recompense it unto himself that he may know:
20 Let his own eyes see his destruction,
And let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what careth he for his house after him,
When the number of his months is cut off?
22 Shall any teach God knowledge,
Seeing he judgeth those that are high?**
COMMENT 21:17-22
**Job 21:17**Job admits that there is some evidence for the claims of his friends, but not enough to claim universal inevitability of the law of retribution. In a moral universe, everyone is responsible for his or her own deedsJob 18:5-6; Job 18:10 ff; Job 20:7; Job 20:22; Job 20:26-28; Job 27:20 ff; Psalms 1:4. Job asks, Where are the examples which you set forth as universal proof?
**Job 21:18**The metaphors here also appear in Psalms 1:4; Job 27:20; Isaiah 17:13. The images are figurative for destruction. Compare the claims of David and Job.
**Job 21:19**You say represents nothing from the Hebrew text, but probably is an appropriate addition which suggests a response to a question. Perhaps Job is responding with a proverb or current saying. The verse presents the ancient view that a man’s sins are visited upon his childrenExo 34:7 and Deuteronomy 5:9. He objects that this is unjust. Moses forbids the application of this law in Deuteronomy 24:16; Jeremiah 31:29; Ezekiel 18; John 9:1-3; and Matthew 27:25. The vital interrelationship between sin and its consequences must receive careful consideration in light of the biblical view of corporate personality and contemporary Systems Analysis Models. There was repercussion throughout all creation when man first sinned, and the empirical evidence sustains the biblical claims regarding the fragmentation of relationships between God and Man, Man and Self, Man and Others, and Man and Nature.
**Job 21:20**The wicked ought to receive the retribution themselves, not their children as Let his own eyes see his destruction (punishment)[240] suggestsIsa 51:17; Jeremiah 25:15; and Revelation 16:19.
[240] For analysis of this verse, see M. Dahood, Biblica, 1957, p. 316; and compare with A. F. L. Beeston, Le museon, 1954, pp. 315ff.
**Job 21:21**What concern does a dead man have for his house?Ezekiel 18:2; Jeremiah 31:28 ff. The Qumran Targum has what interest for God in his house after his death? What difference does God make to a dead ungodly person?
**Job 21:22**Who can teach God anything? Shall even the high ones (Heb., ramin, probably angels and not God as claimed by both Blommerde and Dahood) teach Him: It would make little sense of God instructing HimselfJob 4:18; Job 15:15; Job 22:13; Job 15:2; Psalms 73:11. Job is asserting that moral considerations alone do not explain the varieties of human experience, for the intensity of either happiness or despair.
Job 21:23-26
- The only equality is to be found in death. (Job 21:23-26)
TEXT 21:23-26
**23 One dieth in his full strength,
Being wholly at ease and quiet:
24 His pails are full of milk,
And the marrow of his bones is moistened.
25 And another dieth in bitterness of soul,
And never tasteth of good.
26 They lie down alike in the dust,
And the worm covereth them.**
COMMENT 21:23-26
**Job 21:23**One dies in his perfection, i.e., prime of life. Death levels everyoneJob 21:23-26. One person dies in prosperity, another in poverty.
**Job 21:24**The Hebrew hardly says what the A. V. provides in the first line. The first word is a hapaz (does not appear elsewhere) but perhaps is a euphemism for buttocks which is plump or fat (emend halabmilkto helebfat). The second line contains figures (moist bones are figures of health) which suggest that the person is well fed or prosperous. Death takes them all, regardless of social status or physical condition.
**Job 21:25**The verse is Job’s description of himselfJob 3:20 and Job 7:7.
**Job 21:26**The ungodly and the righteous share the samedeathEcc 2:14 ff. It is the dissimilarity in the human fate, rather than retribution, which moves JobJob 17:14; Isaiah 14:11 b.
Job 21:27-34
- So, your argument that I am wicked because I suffer is false. (Job 21:27-34)
TEXT 21:27-34
**27 Behold, I know your thoughts,
And the devices wherewith ye would wrong me.
28 For ye say, Where is the house of the prince?
And where is the tent wherein the wicked dwelt?
29 Have ye not asked wayfaring men?
And do ye not 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?
And who shall repay him what he hath done?
32 Yet shall he be borne to the grave,
And men shall keep watch over the tomb.
33 The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him,
And all men shall draw after him, As there were innumerable before him.
34 How then comfort ye me in vain,
Seeing in your answer there remaineth onlyfalsehood?**
COMMENT 21:27-34
**Job 21:27**Job has thus far claimed that there is no evident connection between happiness and virtueJob 21:19-21; Job 21:23-26. The friends will simply not face the truth of the blunt realities of lifeEcc 8:14; Job 21:34 b. He knows that his friends meant him while they were claiming that the wicked are destroyed; Job is destroyed; therefore, Job is wickedJob 4:7. His suffering is the price paid for his sins. He says that they have violently wronged him (word translated wrong is stronger than our English word).
**Job 21:28**Nadib means a rich prince. Here the implication is a wealthy but wicked prince who has exploited the poorJob 20:19. God’s vengeance has swept his house awayJob 8:15; Job 8:22; Job 18:15; Job 18:21; Job 15:34.
**Job 21:29**Any wayfarer (those who travel the roads, not necessarily a world traveler) could tell Job’s friends that their claims are not universally the caseLam 1:12; Lamentations 2:15; Psalms 80:13; Psalms 89:42; Proverbs 9:15. The daily experience (signs or monuments) of many will refute their claims. Why do they persist in their a priori evaluation of the wicked and the righteous, when the evidence refutes their claims?
**Job 21:30**Those who travel the roads report that wicked men are delivered (lit. brought away from, A. V. preservedbut the English meaning is not that of the Hebrew) and led to safety on many occasionsJob 20:28; Deuteronomy 32:35; Isaiah 26:20; Jeremiah 18:17; Ezekiel 7:19; Zephaniah 1:15; Zephaniah 1:18; and Proverbs 11:4.[241]
[241] F. H. Andersen, Job, InterVarsity Press, 1976, p. 201.
**Job 21:31**The reference here is to the successful, powerful despot, not God as some assume. Who would publicly rebuke a tyrant: The way (halaklife style; way of life) represents the behavior pattern of the wicked but successful man.
**Job 21:32**There is abundant evidence that wicked men are honored in both life and death. They are so respected that men watch over their tombs. Perhaps there is reference to Near Eastern custom that effigy of important dead persons watch over their own tombs. Whether this be so or not, Job is claiming that often the wicked are buried in pomp and much circumstance. How different from his own situation.
**Job 21:33**Burial was often in a ravine or valleyDeu 34:6. After the rains, the clods would become as hard as rocks and so continue to mark the grave. He has no beautiful mausoleum only clods to identify the spot where the earth entombs his once strong body. Perhaps the metaphor speaks of a funeral procession. The wicked often have a peaceful death and posthumous fame.
**Job 21:34**Thus Job’s speech completes the second cycle. He dismisses the arguments of his friends as vain in view of the rocks of reality. Their answers are perfidy (Heb. ma-‘alsacrilegious attack on God). The things they have been saying on God’s behalf are all lies when tested against experience.