Job 20:10-20

10 His children will have to ask the poor for help. His own hands will have to give back his wealth.

11 His bones, once full of youthful vigor, will lie down with him in the dust.

12 "Though evil is sweet in his mouth and he hides it under his tongue. . . .

13 Though he savors it and won't let go of it and he holds it on the roof of his mouth,

14 the food in his belly turns sour. It becomes snake venom in his stomach.

15 He vomits up the riches that he swallowed. God forces them out of his stomach.

16 The godless person sucks the poison of snakes. A viper's fang kills him.

17 He won't be able to drink from the streams or from the rivers of honey and buttermilk.

18 He will give back what he earned without enjoying it. He will get no joy from the profits of his business

19 because he crushed and abandoned the poor. He has taken by force a house that he didn't build.

20 He will never know peace in his heart. He will never allow anything he desires to escape [his grasp].

Job 20:10-20 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.