Job 27:12-22

12 All of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain?
13 "This is the portion of the wicked with God, and the heritage that oppressors receive from the Almighty:
14 If their children are multiplied, it is for the sword; and their offspring have not enough to eat.
15 Those who survive them the pestilence buries, and their widows make no lamentation.
16 Though they heap up silver like dust, and pile up clothing like clay—
17 they may pile it up, but the just will wear it, and the innocent will divide the silver.
18 They build their houses like nests, like booths made by sentinels of the vineyard.
19 They go to bed with wealth, but will do so no more; they open their eyes, and it is gone.
20 Terrors overtake them like a flood; in the night a whirlwind carries them off.
21 The east wind lifts them up and they are gone; it sweeps them out of their place.
22 It hurls at them without pity; they flee from its power in headlong flight.

Job 27:12-22 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 27

Though Job's friends were become silent, and dropped the controversy with him, he still continued his discourse in this and the four following chapters; in which he asserts his integrity; illustrates and confirms his former sentiments; gives further proof of his knowledge of things, natural and divine; takes notice of his former state of prosperity, and of his present distresses and afflictions, which came upon him, notwithstanding his piety, humanity, and beneficence, and his freedom from the grosser acts of sin, both with respect to God and men, all which he enlarges upon. In this chapter he gives his word and oath for it, that he would never belie himself, and own that he was an hypocrite, when he was not, but would continue to assert his integrity, and the righteousness of his cause, as long as he lived, Job 27:1-6; for to be an hypocrite, and to attempt to conceal his hypocrisy, would be of no advantage to him, either in life, or in death, Job 27:7-10; and was this his character and case, upon their principles, he could expect no other than to be a miserable man, as wicked men are, who have their blessings turned into curses, or taken away from them, and they removed out of the world in the most awful and terrible manner, and under manifest tokens of the wrath and displeasure of God, Job 27:11-23.

Footnotes 3

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.