Job 15:25-35

25 For they shake their fists at God, defying the Almighty.
26 Holding their strong shields, they defiantly charge against him.
27 “These wicked people are heavy and prosperous; their waists bulge with fat.
28 But their cities will be ruined. They will live in abandoned houses that are ready to tumble down.
29 Their riches will not last, and their wealth will not endure. Their possessions will no longer spread across the horizon.
30 “They will not escape the darkness. The burning sun will wither their shoots, and the breath of God will destroy them.
31 Let them no longer fool themselves by trusting in empty riches, for emptiness will be their only reward.
32 They will be cut down in the prime of life; their branches will never again be green.
33 They will be like a vine whose grapes are harvested too early, like an olive tree that loses its blossoms before the fruit can form.
34 For the godless are barren. Their homes, enriched through bribery, will burn.
35 They conceive trouble and give birth to evil. Their womb produces deceit.”

Job 15:25-35 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 15

Job's three friends having in their turns attacked him, and he having given answer respectively to them, Eliphaz, who began the attack, first enters the debate with him again, and proceeds upon the same plan as before, and endeavours to defend his former sentiments, falling upon Job with greater vehemence and severity; he charges him with vanity, imprudence, and unprofitableness in his talk, and acting a part unbecoming his character as a wise man; yea, with impiety and a neglect of religion, or at least as a discourager of it by his words and doctrines, of which his mouth and lips were witnesses against him, Job 15:1-6; he charges him with arrogance and a high conceit of himself, as if he was the first man that was made, nay, as if he was the eternal wisdom of God, and had been in his council; and, to check his vanity, retorts his own words upon him, or however the sense of them, Job 15:7-10; and also with slighting the consolations of God; upon which he warmly expostulates with him, Job 15:11-13; and in order to convince him of his self-righteousness, which he thought he was full of, he argues from the angels, the heavens, and the general case of man, Job 15:14-16; and then he declares from his own knowledge, and from the relation of wise and ancient men in former times, who made it their observation, that wicked men are afflicted all their days, attended with terror and despair, and liable to various calamities, Job 15:17-24; the reasons of which are their insolence to God, and hostilities committed against him, which they are encouraged in by their prosperous circumstances, Job 15:25-27; notwithstanding all, their estates, riches, and wealth, will come to nothing, Job 15:28-30; and the chapter is closed with an exhortation to such, not to feed themselves up with vain hopes, or trust in uncertain riches, since their destruction would be sure, sudden, and terrible, Job 15:31-35.

Holy Bible. New Living Translation copyright© 1996, 2004, 2007, 2013 by Tyndale House Foundation. Used by permission of Tyndale House Publishers Inc., Carol Stream, Illinois 60188. All rights reserved.