Job 21:19-29

19 “‘Well,’ you say, ‘at least God will punish their children!’ But I say he should punish the ones who sin, so that they understand his judgment.

20 Let them see their destruction with their own eyes. Let them drink deeply of the anger of the Almighty.

21 For they will not care what happens to their family after they are dead.

22 “But who can teach a lesson to God, since he judges even the most powerful?

23 One person dies in prosperity, completely comfortable and secure,

24 the picture of good health, vigorous and fit.

25 Another person dies in bitter poverty, never having tasted the good life.

26 But both are buried in the same dust, both eaten by the same maggots.

27 “Look, I know what you’re thinking. I know the schemes you plot against me.

28 You will tell me of rich and wicked people whose houses have vanished because of their sins.

29 But ask those who have been around, and they will tell you the truth.

Job 21:19-29 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.