Job 20
BSB
Zophar: Destruction Awaits the Wicked
1Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:
2“So my anxious thoughts compel me to answer,
because of the turmoil within me.
3I have heard a rebuke that insults me,
and my understanding prompts a reply.
4Do you not know that from antiquity,
since man was placed on the earth,
5the triumph of the wicked has been brief
and the joy of the godless momentary?
6Though his arrogance reaches the heavens,
and his head touches the clouds,
7he will perish forever, like his own dung;
those who had seen him will ask, ‘Where is he?’
8He will fly away like a dream, never to be found;
he will be chased away like a vision in the night.
9The eye that saw him will see him no more,
and his place will no longer behold him.
10His sons will seek the favor of the poor,
for his own hands must return his wealth.
11The youthful vigor that fills his bones
will lie down with him in the dust.
12Though evil is sweet in his mouth
and he conceals it under his tongue,
13though he cannot bear to let it go
and keeps it in his mouth,
14yet in his stomach his food sours
into the venom of cobras within him.
15He swallows wealth but vomits it out;
God will force it from his stomach.
16He will suck the poison of cobras;
the fangs of a viper will kill him.
17He will not enjoy the streams,
the rivers flowing with honey and cream.
18He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it;
he cannot enjoy the profits of his trading.
19For he has oppressed and forsaken the poor;
he has seized houses he did not build.
20Because his appetite is never satisfied,
he cannot escape with his treasure.
21Nothing is left for him to consume;
thus his prosperity will not endure.
22In the midst of his plenty, he will be distressed;
the full force of misery will come upon him.
23When he has filled his stomach,
God will vent His fury upon him,
raining it down on him as he eats.
24Though he flees from an iron weapon,
a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce him.
25It is drawn out of his back,
the gleaming point from his liver.
Terrors come over him.
26Total darkness is reserved for his treasures.
A fire unfanned will consume him
and devour what is left in his tent.
27The heavens will expose his iniquity,
and the earth will rise up against him.
28The possessions of his house will be removed,
flowing away on the day of God’s wrath.
29This is the wicked man’s portion from God,
the inheritance God has appointed him.”
Introduction
Job 20
One would have thought that such an excellent confession of faith as Job made, in the close of the foregoing chapter, would satisfy his friends, or at least mollify them; but they do not seem to have taken any notice of it, and therefore Zophar here takes his turn, enters the lists with Job, and attacks him with as much vehemence as before. I. His preface is short, but hot (Job 20:2, Job 20:3). II. His discourse is long, and all upon one subject, the very same that Bildad was large upon (ch. 18), the certain misery of wicked people and the ruin that awaits them. 1. He asserts, in general, that the prosperity of a wicked person is short, and his ruin sure (Job 20:4-9). 2. He proves the misery of his condition by many instances - that he should have a diseased body, a troubled conscience, a ruined estate, a beggared family, an infamous name and that he himself should perish under the weight of divine wrath: all this is most curiously described here in lofty expressions and lively similitudes; and it often proves true in this world, and always in another, without repentance (v. 10-29). But the great mistake was, and (as bishop Patrick expresses it) all the flaw in his discourse (which was common to him with the rest), that he imagined God never varied from this method, and therefore Job was, without doubt, a very bad man, though it did not appear that he was, any other way than by his infelicity.
Cross-references: Job 20:2 · Job 20:3 · Job 20:4