Job 20:1-29

E.

POWERLESSNESS OF PROSPERITYNO ULTIMATE SECURITYZOPHAR'S WARNING (Job 20:1-29)

TEXT 20:1-29

Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,

2 Therefore do my thoughts give answer to me,

Even by reason of my haste that is in me.

3 I have heard the reproof which putteth me to shame;

And the spirit of my understanding answereth me.

4 Knowest thou not this of old time,

Since man was placed upon earth,

5 That the triumphing of the wicked is short,

And the joy of the godless but for a moment?

6 Though his height mount up to the heavens,

And his head reach unto the clouds;

7 Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung:

They that have seen him shall say, Where is he?

8 He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found:

Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.

9 The eye which saw him shall see him no more;

Neither shall his place any more behold him.

10 His children shall seek the favor of the poor,

And his hands shall give back his wealth.

11 His bones are full of his youth,

But it shall lie down with him in the dust.

12 Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth,

Though he hide it under his tongue,

13 Though he spare it, and will not let it go,

But keep it still within his mouth;

14 Yet his food in his bowels is turned,

It is the gall of asps within him.

15 He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again;

God will cast them out of his belly.

16 He shall suck the poison of asps:

The viper's tongue shall slay him.

17 He shall not look upon the riven,

The flowing streams of honey and batter.

18 That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down;

According to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice.

19 For he hath oppressed and forsaken the poor;

He hath violently taken away a house, and he shall not build it up.

20 Because he knew no quietness within him,

He shall not save aught of that wherein he delighteth.

21 There was nothing left that he devoured not;

Therefore his prosperity shall not endure.

22 In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits:

The hand of every one that is in misery shall come upon him.

23 When he is about to fill his belly,

God will cast the fierceness of his wrath upon him,

And will ram it upon him while he is eating.

24 He shall flee from the iron weapon,

And the bow of brass shall strike him through.

25 He draweth it forth, and it cometh out of his body;

Yea, the glittering point cometh out of his gall:
Terrors are upon him.

26 All darkness is laid up for his treasures:

A fire not blown by man shall devour him;

It shall consume that which is left in his tent.

27 The heavens shall reveal his iniquity.

And the earth shall rise up against him.

28 The increase of his house shall depart;

His goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.

29 This is the portion of a wicked man from God,

And the heritage appointed unto him by God.

COMMENT 20:1-29

Job 20:1Zophar explodes with anxiety at Job's charges and closely parallels Bildad's speech in chapter 18. Both deal with the destruction of the godless. More heat than light flows from Zophar's speech. In his passionate speech, he once more emphasizes the insecurity of the prosperity of the unrighteous. Every syllable of his remorseless invective is irrelevant, even if true. Bildad's tirade in chapter 18 and Zophar's irrelevant speech in chapter 20 together frame Job's marvelous credo in chapter 19. His is a living faith; theirs is a rigid retribution-oriented religion. Two characteristics of Zophar's speech are: (1) greater hostility than before, and (2) use of crude imagery, especially in Job 20:7; Job 20:15.[223]

[223] See B. H. Kelly, Truth in Contradiction: A Study of Job 20:21, Interpretation, 1961, pp. 147-156.

Job 20:2-3Zophar has almost choked on his silence; now in exasperation he must speak. The verse begins with takenthereforewhich suggests something is missing. For the first time one of Job's friends admits to being impressed by his speech. I hear censure which insults me. (See Isaiah 53:5 for same wordcensureas chastisement.) Zophar's thoughts cause him to intervene once more. Perhaps the line means that he is boiling over inside and cannot control his hostility. (Brown, Driver, Briggs gives thy inner excitement.) He claims to speak out of (Heb. preposition minsource from which) knowledge which Job does not. Job has shamed him; he must respond. There is a possibility that the phrase shameful rebuke refers to homosexual abusesJob 31:31. Dhorme very nicely handles the grammatical problems in Job 20:3 b by translating the verb in a causative sensea wind (or impulse) arising from my understanding prompts me to reply, Job, p. 290.

Job 20:4Zophar is not asking himself if he knows but Do you not know?[224] If the wicked prosper, it is only for a brief time. He continues to maintain the invariableness between ungodliness and disaster. The success of the wicked in contrast to the suffering of the righteous plagues the writers of our biblical wisdom literature. Zophar once more expounds his traditional, standard answerPs. 37:73. The answer has always been the sameDeuteronomy 4:32.

[224] On this point see R. Gordis, Harvard Theological Review, 1940, p. 244.

Job 20:5The solution to the problem presented by the prosperity of the wicked is that it is only for a short timePsalms 73. Empirically this is not a happy solution, either for individuals or groups, nations, haves and have nots. It is the kind of talk that revolutions are made of. Ultimately the only consolation of the righteous is in resurrection. The rejection of resurrection possibilities is the basis of twentieth century efforts at the humanization of man, through socio-political means. Central to this naturalistic humanism is a denial of a vertical dimension to sin, which leaves only a horizontal vision of salvation, which becomes merely better and more factors which generate a positive response to daily existence.[225] Christ, our risen Lord, is our only and ultimate consolation. Joy and grace co-mingle in His empty tomb and ascension.

[225] One of the Christian faith's deadliest foes is contemporary Neo-Marxism which comes in well-tailored sheep's clothing, first to Italy, then to France, on to England, then perhaps the USA with our socialistic democracy as its noblest habitat. When Capitalism lost God as a transcendent moral basis of stewardship, only materialistic hedonism remains. See Bell, Contradictions of Capitalism, 1975.

Job 20:6His loftiness, i.e., his eminence, is only momentary. But great will be the fallMatthew 9:24 ff. As Strahan has well declared, It is not Zophar's sermon against pride that makes him a false prophet, but his application of it to Job.[226]

[226] R. H. Strahan, The Book of Job Interpreted, 1913, see esp. Chapter s 18-21.

Job 20:7Zophar sinks to a new low in his use of the brutally inelegant metaphor2 Kings 9:37. His vigorous coarseness is bested only by his boorish brutality.

Job 20:8Job is contrasted to a dream which is gone upon awakening. He will be as unavailable as a night vision; continued chase will only cause future crisisPsalms 73:20 and Isaiah 29:8.

Job 20:9The verb translated sawsazapJob 28:7means to catch sight of and emphasizes the brevity of the appearance. The image has appeared before in Job 7:8; Job 7:10; Job 8:18; Psalms 1:4; Psalms 103:16.

Job 20:10The poverty of the wicked will force their children to beg from the poor, so destitute is their condition. Perhaps Zophar is suggesting that the sons of the wicked will be forced to return to those whom he has made impoverished through his illicit gain. It is also possible that hands in the second line stands for offspring.[227]

[227] For this possibility, see R. Gordis, JBL, 1943, p. 343.

Job 20:11Here the imagery suggests that the wicked will die prematurely, i.e., full of youthPsalms 55:23.

Job 20:12The riches of the ungodly are like sweet food in the mouth which turns to poison in the stomach. Evil is compared with something tasty. The sweetness of sin turns into the gall of retribution, and riches wrongfully acquired must be vomited up again (Rowley, Job, p. 178)Hebrews 11:15. Sin is so sweet that it is hidden under the tongue to retain maximum pleasure for as long as possible.

Job 20:13The verb translated spare means have compassion on, implying that Job loves sin so much that he has compassion on it and will not let it go. His secret sins are concealed in his mouth.

Job 20:14The sweet-tasting food has become poison. The enjoyment of sin metamorphizes into tragic bitterness and destroys the imbiberProverbs 20:17. Pliny expresses the ancient belief that it is the gall which constitutes the poison of asps.

Job 20:15The figure is in keeping with Zophar's coarse rhetorical devices. The evil greedy man must vomit up all his ill-gotten wealth. Here God does not administer an emetic to cause the unrighteous to disgorge the poison; the evil person is so sick that he self-imposes the vomiting.

Job 20:16The poisonous greed proved the undoing of the ungodly. Greed generates oppression; oppression generates alienation. The central problem of western economic man, from Keynes to our gross national product, is that greed is the dynamic which enables unwise and unreasonable men to make decisions as though infinite economic growth is possible. Perhaps we note here the assumption that the darting tongue of the viper is the actual source of poison.

Job 20:17The time of enjoyment for the wicked is passed. The joy of leisure is an unavailable goal for the ungodly. The nature of work and leisure are once more fundamental issues in our culture, and for the same reason as is suggested in our text. The flowing rivers will not be available to evil men.[228] Refreshments for the leisure time of the greedy, which are honey and curdsJudges 5:25 and Isaiah 7:14will also avoid them.

[228] R. de Vaux, Revue Biblique, 1937, p. 533.

Job 20:18The wicked cannot swallow the profit of labor (one Hebrew word extended in A. V., that which he labored for). The metaphor depicts one who is gagging, i.e., one who cannot swallow what is in his mouth. The profits of his trading is choking him, therefore, not rejoicing.

Job 20:19The wicked have callously abandoned the poor to their fate, after oppressively mistreating them.[229] The second line declares that the wicked man does not enjoy the fruit of his violence, even though he will not abandon it. He is not satisfied even after violently oppressing the powerless poor. Dahood renders the verse, For he crushed the huts of the poor, He has sacked a house which he did not build.

[229] For problems in this verse, see M. Dahood, JBL, 1959, pp. 306ff; and J. Reider, Hebrew Union College Annual 1952-53, pp. 1-3ff.

Job 20:20The greed of the wicked is insatiable. This verse repeats the same thoughts as found in Job 20:19. Those with insatiable appetites defeat themselves. How appropriate these thoughts are for 20th century America, in light of the conditions in the Third and Fourth Worlds.[230]

[230] See my The Word of God far a Broken World (LCC Press, 1977), for a look at missions and the Third and Fourth Worlds; and N. M. Sarna, JBL, 1959, pp. 315ff.

Job 20:21The verse is not emphasizing gluttony for food, but an oppressive aggression which consumes the pitiful powerless poor. It repeats the same thoughts as Job 20:19-20, but makes emphasis with different metaphors.

Job 20:22The imagery suggests that avarice consumes the wicked. Anguish in the midst of luxury: how can this be? The contradictions continueall the blows of misfortune pour upon him, Dhorme. This is an excellent translation of the Hebrew which literally says every hand or force of one in misery will fall upon him.

Job 20:23What seems to be self-destructive results of the behavior of the wicked is really God's judgment upon their lives. God, too, sends abundance, abundance of His wrath. While the ungodly person is filling his belly, He (Godnot in text but must be the subject) will send His burning anger upon him (Hebrew is lechumbowelsinner feelings, emotions).[231]

[231] M. Dahood, Biblica, 1957, pp. 314ff, for the translation and he shall rain on him in his flesh.

Job 20:24The metaphor changes from fiery rain from heaven to that of heavy iron weapons.[232] While trying to elude one death-dealing weapon, another will fall on him. There is no hiding placeAmos 5:19 and Isaiah 24:18.

[232] G. R. Driver, Vestus Testamentum, 1960, p. 82.

Job 20:25The image is a description of the wicked wounded by an arrow, seeking to withdraw it from his body. Finally, the glittering point (lit. lightning-flashing point of the arrow) is pulled out of the gallJob 20:14, Deuteronomy 32:41; Nahum 3:3; Habakkuk 3:11.

Job 20:26Same image as expressed in Job 15:22. The consuming fire is not of human origin, and it will destroy everything.

Job 20:27Job has already asked for a heavenly witness, and that the earth not silence the witness of his bloodJob 16:18 ff. Here heaven and earth will combine their witness against him.

Job 20:28The word translated depart (yigel) means to go into exile. Others will carry away his prosperity into their tents. Nothing remains his own. The flood (torrents for niggerot2 Samuel 14:14), like the fire in Job 20:26, has its origin in the purposes of God. The expression of divine judgment will result in the total destruction of the wicked.

Job 20:29This is the conclusion of Zophar's speech and repeats what he has already assertedJob 5:27; Job 18:21the end of the wicked is destruction.