Job 21:9-19

9 Their homes are safe and without fear; God does not punish them.

10 Their bulls never fail to mate; their cows have healthy calves.

11 They send out their children like a flock; their little ones dance about.

12 They sing to the music of tambourines and harps, and the sound of the flute makes them happy.

13 Evil people enjoy successful lives and then go peacefully to the grave.

14 They say to God, 'Leave us alone! We don't want to know your ways.

15 Who is the Almighty that we should serve him? What would we gain by praying to him?'

16 The success of the wicked is not their own doing. Their way of thinking is different from mine.

17 Yet how often are the lamps of evil people turned off? How often does trouble come to them?

18 How often are they like straw in the wind or like chaff that is blown away by a storm?

19 It is said, 'God saves up a person's punishment for his children.' But God should punish the wicked themselves so they will know it.

Job 21:9-19 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.