1Then Job answered: 2“Listen carefully to my words; let this be your consolation to me. 3Bear with me while I speak; then, after I have spoken, you may go on mocking. 4Is my complaint against a man? Then why should I not be impatient? 5Look at me and be appalled; put your hand over your mouth. 6When I remember, terror takes hold, and my body trembles in horror. 7Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power? 8Their descendants are established around them, and their offspring before their eyes. 9Their homes are safe from fear; no rod of punishment from God is upon them. 10Their bulls breed without fail; their cows bear calves and do not miscarry. 11They send forth their little ones like a flock; their children skip about, 12singing to the tambourine and lyre and making merry at the sound of the flute. 13They spend their days in prosperity and go down to Sheol in peace. 14Yet they say to God: ‘Leave us alone! For we have no desire to know Your ways. 15Who is the Almighty, that we should serve Him, and what would we gain if we pray to Him?’ 16Still, their prosperity is not in their own hands, so I stay far from the counsel of the wicked. 17How often is the lamp of the wicked put out? Does disaster come upon them? Does God, in His anger, apportion destruction? 18Are they like straw before the wind, like chaff swept away by a storm? 19It is said that God lays up one’s punishment for his children. Let God repay the man himself, so he will know it. 20Let his eyes see his own destruction; let him drink for himself the wrath of the Almighty. 21For what does he care about his household after him, when the number of his months has run out? 22Can anyone teach knowledge to God, since He judges those on high? 23One man dies full of vigor, completely secure and at ease. 24His body is well nourished, and his bones are rich with marrow. 25Yet another man dies in the bitterness of his soul, having never tasted prosperity. 26But together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them both. 27Behold, I know your thoughts full well, the schemes by which you would wrong me. 28For you say, ‘Where now is the nobleman’s house, and where are the tents in which the wicked dwell?’ 29Have you never asked those who travel the roads? Do you not accept their reports? 30Indeed, the evil man is spared from the day of calamity, delivered from the day of wrath. 31Who denounces his behavior to his face? Who repays him for what he has done? 32He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb. 33The clods of the valley are sweet to him; everyone follows behind him, and those before him are without number. 34So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.”
Matthew Henry's Commentary
Job entreats attention. (1-6) The prosperity of the wicked. (7-16) The dealings of God's providence. (17-26) The judgement of the wicked is in the world to come. (27-34) 1-6 Job comes closer to the question in dispute. This was, Whether outward prosperity is a mark of the true church, and the true members of it, so that ruin of a man's prosperity proves him a hypocrite? This they asserted, but Job denied. If they looked upon him, they might see misery enough to demand compassion, and their bold interpretations of this mysterious providence should be turned into silent wonder. 7-16 Job says, Remarkable judgments are sometimes brought upon notorious sinners, but not always. Wherefore is it so? This is the day of God's patience; and, in some way or other, he makes use of the prosperity of the wicked to serve his own counsels, while it ripens them for ruin; but the chief reason is, because he will make it appear there is another world. These prospering sinners make light of God and religion, as if because they have so much of this world, they had no need to look after another. But religion is not a vain thing. If it be so to us, we may thank ourselves for resting on the outside of it. Job shows their folly. 17-26 Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about. 27-34 Job opposes the opinion of his friends, That the wicked are sure to fall into visible and remarkable ruin, and none but the wicked; upon which principle they condemned Job as wicked. Turn to whom you will, you will find that the punishment of sinners is designed more for the other world than for this, #Jude 1:14,15|. The sinner is here supposed to live in a great deal of power. The sinner shall have a splendid funeral: a poor thing for any man to be proud of the prospect of. He shall have a stately monument. And a valley with springs of water to keep the turf green, was accounted an honourable burial place among eastern people; but such things are vain distinctions. Death closes his prosperity. It is but a poor encouragement to die, that others have died before us. That which makes a man die with true courage, is, with faith to remember that Jesus Christ died and was laid in the grave, not only before us, but for us. That He hath gone before us, and died for us, who is alive and liveth for us, is true consolation in the hour of death.