Job 20

17. floods--literally, "stream of floods," plentiful streams flowing with milk, &c. ( Job 29:6 , Exodus 3:17 ). Honey and butter are more fluid in the East than with us and are poured out from jars. These "rivers" or water brooks are in the sultry East emblems of prosperity.

18. Image from food which is taken away from one before he can swallow it.
restitution--(So Proverbs 6:31 ). The parallelism favors the English Version rather than the translation of GESENIUS, "As a possession to be restored in which he rejoices not."
he shall not rejoice--His enjoyment of his ill-gotten gains shall then be at an end ( Job 20:5 ).

19. oppressed--whereas he ought to have espoused their cause ( 2 Chronicles 16:10 ).
forsaken--left helpless.
house--thus leaving the poor without shelter ( Isaiah 5:8 , Micah 2:2 ).

20. UMBREIT translates, "His inward parts know no rest" from desires.
his belly--that is, peace inwardly.
not save--literally, "not escape with that which," &c., alluding to Job's having been stripped of his all.

21. look for--rather, "because his goods," that is, prosperity shall have no endurance.

22. shall be--rather, "he is (feeleth) straitened." The next clause explains in what respect.
wicked--Rather, "the whole hand of the miserable (whom he had oppressed) cometh upon him"; namely, the sense of his having oppressed the poor, now in turn comes with all its power (hand) on him. This caused his "straitened" feeling even in prosperity.

23. Rather, "God shall cast (may God send) [UMBREIT] upon him the fury of His wrath to fill his belly!"
while . . . eating--rather, "shall rain it upon him for his food!" Fiery rain, that is, lightning ( Psalms 11:6 ; alluding to Job's misfortune, Job 1:16 ). The force of the image is felt by picturing to one's self the opposite nature of a refreshing rain in the desert ( Exodus 16:4 , Psalms 68:9 ).

24. steel--rather, "brass." While the wicked flees from one danger, he falls into a greater one from an opposite quarter [UMBREIT].

25. It is drawn--Rather, "He (God) draweth (the sword, Joshua 5:13 ) and (no sooner has He done so, than) it cometh out of (that is, passes right through) the (sinner's) body" ( Deuteronomy 32:41 Deuteronomy 32:42 , Ezekiel 21:9 Ezekiel 21:10 ). The glittering sword is a happy image for lightning.
gall--that is, his life ( Job 16:13 ). "Inflicts a deadly wound."
terrors--Zophar repeats Bildad's words ( Job 17:11 , Psalms 88:16 , 55:4 ).

26. All darkness--that is, every calamity that befalls the wicked shall be hid (in store for him) in His (God's) secret places, or treasures ( Jude 1:13 , Deuteronomy 32:34 ).
not blown--not kindled by man's hands, but by God's ( Isaiah 30:33 ; the Septuagint in the Alexandrian Manuscript reads "unquenchable fire," Matthew 3:12 ). Tact is shown by the friends in not expressly mentioning, but alluding under color of general cases, to Job's calamities; here ( Job 1:16 ) UMBREIT explains it, wickedness, is a "self-igniting fire"; in it lie the principles of destruction.
ill . . . tabernacle--Every trace of the sinner must be obliterated ( Job 18:15 ).

27. All creation is at enmity with him, and proclaims his guilt, which he would fain conceal.

28. increase--prosperity. Ill got--ill gone.
flow away--like waters that run dry in summer; using Job's own metaphor against himself ( Job 6:15-17 , 2 Samuel 14:14 , Micah 1:4 ).
his wrath--God's.

29. appointed--not as a matter of chance, but by the divine "decree" (Margin) and settled principle.