Job 20:1-29 - Homilies By E. Johnson

Godless prosperity short-lived.

Here we have a new variation on the favourite theme of the friends—the inconstancy of godless prosperity. "The jubilation of the wicked is but of short duration, and the joy of the profligate but a moment." The wicked man is specially here described as a rich man, who greedily snatches at others' property, and whose ill-gotten gains become a deadly consuming fire to him and all his. It is related to Eliphaz's speech ( Job 15:1-35 .) as the superlative to the positive, and to Bildad's ( Job 18:1-21 .) as the superlative to the comparative. Similar remarks to those, then, must here apply; and the description is in itself true, apt, and striking, but its evident animus against Job is fiercely unjust.

I. CENSURE OF JOB : INTRODUCTION OF THE THEME . (Verses 1-5.) "Therefore my thoughts reply to me, and hence comes the storm of my bosom. Must I hear correction that insults me? But my spirit out of my understanding gives me an answer"—namely, of warning and chastisement to Job as a godless man (verses 1-3). Zophar then gives these suggestions of his spirit in the form of a question directed to Job: "Knowest thou this from eternity, since man was placed on the earth, that the triumph of the wicked endures but a short time, and the joy of the reprobate but a moment?" He is astonished that Job, as appears from his speeches, is unacquainted with this well-worn and familiar truth of experience (verses 4, 5).

II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEME . (Verses 6-29.)

1 . "Though his glory mounts" to heaven, and his head reaches to the clouds (comp. Isaiah 14:13 , Isaiah 14:14 ; Obadiah 1:4 ), like his dung he perishes for ever; they that saw him say, Where is he?" The coarsest and most contemptuous comparison seems to be purposely selected (verse 7). The next is that of the fugitive dream (verse 8; comp. Isaiah 29:7 ; Psalms 73:20 ; Psalms 90:5 ). Dreams and visions of the night! emptiest things! appearing to be something while they last, but leaving no trace behind when the sleeper wakes. The eye that has seen him shall see him no more; and the place where he seemed to move, a solid person of flesh and blood, beholds that figure no longer (nor. 9). The curse descends to his children; they are reduced to court the favour of humble folk, and they have to give up to their father's creditors his ill-gotten wealth (verse 10). How often, though not without exception, do we see this to be the rule of life—the beggary or the wealth of children is rooted in the wickedness or goodness of the parents ( Exodus 20:5 ; Psalms 37:25 )! Let him who would see his children happy beware of sin. "His bones were full of youthful strength, and with him it lies in the bed of dust" (verse 11).

2 . The inconstant prosperity of the wicked under the figure of sweet food , but deadly poison. (Verses 12-16.) "Though evil tastes sweet in his mouth, he hides it under his tongue," rolling it as a delicious morsel, he sparingly fosters it, and lets it not go, and keeps it back on his palate" (in five synonymous phrases the idea of the dwelling and gloating over the sweet morsel of sin is set forth, verses 12, 13); "yet his food is changed in his bowels—vipers' poison is in his interior (verse 14). The riches he has swallowed God expels from his paunch. The drastic language betrays the energy and violence of Zophar's feelings (verse 15). Then, recurring to the figure of verse 14, "the tongue of adders slays him"( Psalms 140:3 ), the deadly bite replacing in the description the deadly draught (verse 16; Proverbs 23:32 ). So God turns men's "pleasant vices" into whips and scourges for their backs ('King Lear'). The sweet Dead Sea fruits that tempt the taste turn to ashes on the lips. Sinful pleasure turns to pain, It begins with sweetness, like sugar, but afterwards bites like a serpent ( Proverbs 20:17 ; Sirach 21:2, et seq .).

3 . (Verses 17-22.) "He may not see his pleasure in brooks, streams, floods of honey and cream" (verse 17). These are well-known biblical figures for luxury and fulness of prosperity ( Exodus 3:8 , Exodus 3:17 ). And where the classic poets describe the golden age these figures occur: "streams of milk, streams of nectar flowed" (Ovid, 'Metam.,' 1.111, sqq. ; Theocr; 'Id.,' 5.124, sqq .; Virg; 'Eel.,' 4.30; Her; 'Epod.,' 16.47). "He gives back what he has gained, and enjoys it not; accord ing to the property of his barter he is not merry;" that is, in proportion as he employed unjust means of exchange, to obtain temporal goods and enjoyment, he does not rejoice in them, he must go without the mirth that he promised himself from them (verse 18). "For he crushed, and caused the lowly to he down." With what tender regard does biblical morality and law treat the poor and defenceless! what indignation does it testify against the oppressor! "He snatched houses for himself, and built them not." The meaning perhaps is, he built them not anew, did not succeed in rebuilding them according to his taste, because he could not possess them for a permanence (verse 19). "For he knew no rest in his belly." "The way of peace" ( Isaiah 59:8 ) is not for restless greed and selfish hardness to others' sufferings to tread. "Therefore he will not escape with that which is dearest to him" (verse 20). "Nothing escaped his greed, therefore his possessions shall not continue" (verse 21). "In the fulness of his super fluity he comes into straits; every hand of the wretched comes upon him" (verse 22). The clamours of those whom he has wronged, the cries of the widows, the orphans, the poor, make a din in the ears of the bad man; their hands stretch forth to seize the goods of which he has defrauded them. It is a striking picture of retribution. Perhalps the most salient point in this description is that of the insatiableness of greed. "The dire dropsy increases by self-indulgence, nor expels the thirst, unless the cause of disease flees from the veins, and the watery languor from the pale body," says Horace, in a noble ode on the use and abuse of riches. "You shall more widely rule," he says, "by taming the greedy spirit, than could you join Libya to far-off Gades" (' Od. ' 2.2). Riches cannot satisfy the soul, nor any earthly good, but only God ( Ecclesiastes 1:8 ). The covetous temper finds as much want in what it has as in what it has not. No possessions, however great, can satisfy, us, until we have found the treasury of all good things in God. We are still little Alexanders, not content to rule over one world—grieved to hear there are no more (Brenz).

4 . End of the wicked man in accordance with the Divine judgment. (Verses 28-28.) "That it may serve for the filling of his belly, he causes his fiery wrath to fall upon him" (comp. Job 18:15 ). ion the figure of filling the belly, cf. verse 20; Luke 15:16 .) "And causes to rain upon him with his food;" that is, his food, the wages of his sin, is the just punishment from God ( Luke 15:23 ). The description goes on to point out the means by which the wrathful judgment of Heaven is executed ( Luke 15:24 , sqq.).

CONCLUSION . "Such is the lot of the wicked man from God, and the heritage allotted to him by God" (verse 29). The witness of nature against the sinner—this is the most powerful concluding thought in this awe-striking address. Nature seems to be unconscious of men's guilt, as of their virtues. The leaves of the forest do not shudder, the bright blue sky is not overcast, the earth does not quake when deeds of crime are done. Yet that majestic order represented by heaven and earth—the order which finds its reflection in the conscience of man—cannot be violated with impunity. It will avenge itself in the end. And we see from time to time striking types and prophecies of this in the way by which crime is detected from the traces left on the face of nature, or by the clues afforded by natural law. The light of day reveals the deed of the night-time, and the earth gives up her dead. If all sins thus leave some record, what rest or peace could there be for the guilty conscience except in the gospel, which assures us that in Christ the sins of the penitent and believing are "covered," and that his blood cleanseth from all sin?—J.