Job 21:13-15

13 They spend their years in prosperity and go down to the grave in peace.[a]
14 Yet they say to God, ‘Leave us alone! We have no desire to know your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?’

Job 21:13-15 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 21

This chapter contains Job's reply to Zophar's preceding discourse, in which, after a preface exciting attention to what he was about to say, Job 21:1-6; he describes by various instances the prosperity of wicked men, even of the most impious and atheistical, and which continues with them as long as they live, contrary to what Zophar had asserted in Job 20:5, Job 21:7-15; as for himself, he disapproved of such wicked men as much as any, and owns that destruction comes upon them sooner or later, and on their posterity also, Job 21:16-21; but as God is a God of knowledge, and needs no instruction from any, and is a sovereign Being, he deals with men in different ways; some die in great ease, and peace, and prosperity, and others in bitterness and distress, but both are alike brought to the dust, Job 21:22-26; and whereas he was aware of their censures of him, and their objections to what he had said, he allows that the wicked are reserved to the day of destruction, which is future, and in the mean while lie in the grave, where all must follow; yet they are not repaid or rewarded in this life, that remains to be done in another world, Job 21:27-33; and concludes, that their consolation with respect to him was vain, and falsehood was in their answers, Job 21:34.

Cross References 6

  • 1. S ver 7; S Job 8:7; Psalms 10:1-12; Psalms 94:3; Job 36:11
  • 2. Job 24:19; Psalms 49:14; Isaiah 14:15
  • 3. S Job 3:13
  • 4. S Job 4:17; Job 22:17; Isaiah 30:11
  • 5. S Deuteronomy 32:15; S 1 Samuel 15:11; Psalms 95:10; Proverbs 1:29; Jeremiah 2:20,31
  • 6. Exodus 5:2; S Job 5:2; Job 34:9; Job 35:3; Psalms 73:13; Psalms 139:20; Isaiah 48:5; Jeremiah 9:6; Jeremiah 44:17; Malachi 3:14

Footnotes 1

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