Job 20:1-11

1 Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:

2 “I must reply because I am greatly disturbed.

3 I’ve had to endure your insults, but now my spirit prompts me to reply.

4 “Don’t you realize that from the beginning of time, ever since people were first placed on the earth,

5 the triumph of the wicked has been short lived and the joy of the godless has been only temporary?

6 Though the pride of the godless reaches to the heavens and their heads touch the clouds,

7 yet they will vanish forever, thrown away like their own dung. Those who knew them will ask, ‘Where are they?’

8 They will fade like a dream and not be found. They will vanish like a vision in the night.

9 Those who once saw them will see them no more. Their families will never see them again.

10 Their children will beg from the poor, for they must give back their stolen riches.

11 Though they are young, their bones will lie in the dust.

Job 20:1-11 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 20

Zophar and his friends, not satisfied with Job's confession of faith, he in his turn replies, and in his preface gives his reasons why he made any answer at all, and was so quick in it, Job 20:1-3; and appeals to Job for the truth of an old established maxim, that the prosperity of wicked men and hypocrites is very short lived, Job 20:4,5; and the short enjoyment of their happiness is described by several elegant figures and similes, Job 20:6-9; such a wicked man being obliged, in his lifetime, to restore his ill gotten goods, and at death to lie down with the sins of his youth, Job 20:10,11; his sin in getting riches, the disquietude of his mind in retaining them, and his being forced to make restitution, are very beautifully expressed by the simile of a sweet morsel kept in the mouth, and turned to the gall of asps in the bowels, and then vomited up, Job 20:12-16; the disappointment he shall have, the indigent and strait circumstances he shall be brought into, and the restitution he shall be obliged to make for the oppression of the poor, and the uneasiness he shall feel in his own breast, are set forth in a very strong light, Job 20:17-22; and it is suggested, that not only the hand of wicked men should be upon him, but the wrath of God also, which should seize on him suddenly and secretly, and would be inevitable, he not being able to make his escape from it, and which would issue in the utter destruction of him and his in this world, and that to come, Job 20:23-28. And the chapter is, concluded with this observation, that such as before described is the appointed portion and heritage of a wicked man from God, Job 20:29.