Job 27:13

HERE JOB SPOKE OF THE ULTIMATE FATE OF THE WICKED

"This is the portion of a wicked man with God,

And the heritage of oppressors, which they received from the Almighty:

If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword;

And his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread.

Those that remain of him shall be buried in death,

And his widows shall make no lamentation.

Though he heap up silver as the dust,

And prepare raiment as the clay;

He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on,

And the innocent shall divide the silver.

He buildeth his house as the moth,

And as a booth that the keeper maketh.

He lieth down rich, but he shall not be gathered to his fathers;

He openeth his eyes, and he is not.

Terrors overtake him like waters;

A tempest stealeth him away in the night.

The east wind carrieth him away, and he departeth;

And it sweepeth him out of his place.

For God shall hurl at him, and not spare:

He would fain flee out of his hand.

Men shall clap their hands at him,

And shall hiss him out of his place."

A good heading for this whole paragraph would be the clause in Job 27:8, "When God taketh away his soul." Every word that Job said about the wicked in this paragraph is true; the one missing note that prevents any supposition that Zophar is the speaker is any insinuation that all of these judgments fall upon the wicked immediately upon the commission of their wicked deeds. We are warned in the word that stands at the head of the passage that such things befall the wicked when God taketh away their soul (Job 27:8). It is the ultimate fate of the wicked that is spoken of here.

For young students, especially, who may be disturbed by critical shenanigans in their rearrangements and re-labeling of portions of Job, we include here the words of Kelly, who spoke of the problems centered in this part of Job, affirming that, "We are left with a difficulty which is insoluble on the basis of the information which we now have. But it must be affirmed that this difficulty in no way detracts either from an understanding of the Book of Job, or from a full appreciation of it."[15]

"I will teach you concerning the hand of God" (Job 27:11). "The second person pronoun (you) here is plural; and it is a feeble expedient of critics to change this to a singular in order to make it something that Zophar said to Job."[16] It is clearly addressed by Job to all of his friends.

"Job in these verses agrees with his opponents that the prosperity of the wicked is not the dominant trend in the world; but there is no denial here that the wicked may indeed prosper for a season."[17]

The greatest error of Job's friends was their belief that sufferings, hardships, and disasters falling upon any person constituted proof of that person's wickedness. Any error of such colossal dimensions would condemn Jesus Christ himself. Look what happened to him! The sad fact is that, even today, the same gross error is found in the thinking of many people. Throughout Job, it must be remembered that it is this particular error, rather than any other, that Job so bitterly opposed.