Job 21:10-20

10 Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves, and does not cast her calf.

11 They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.

12 They sing to the tambourine and the lyre, and rejoice to the sound of the pipe.

13 They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.

14 They say to God, 'Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of thy ways.

15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?'

16 Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.

17 "How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger?

18 That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?

19 You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their sons.' Let him recompense it to themselves, that they may know it.

20 Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

Job 21:10-20 Meaning and Commentary

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 21

This chapter contains Job's reply to Zophar's preceding discourse, in which, after a preface exciting attention to what he was about to say, Job 21:1-6; he describes by various instances the prosperity of wicked men, even of the most impious and atheistical, and which continues with them as long as they live, contrary to what Zophar had asserted in Job 20:5, Job 21:7-15; as for himself, he disapproved of such wicked men as much as any, and owns that destruction comes upon them sooner or later, and on their posterity also, Job 21:16-21; but as God is a God of knowledge, and needs no instruction from any, and is a sovereign Being, he deals with men in different ways; some die in great ease, and peace, and prosperity, and others in bitterness and distress, but both are alike brought to the dust, Job 21:22-26; and whereas he was aware of their censures of him, and their objections to what he had said, he allows that the wicked are reserved to the day of destruction, which is future, and in the mean while lie in the grave, where all must follow; yet they are not repaid or rewarded in this life, that remains to be done in another world, Job 21:27-33; and concludes, that their consolation with respect to him was vain, and falsehood was in their answers, Job 21:34.