Job 21:11-21

11 Their little ones go out like a flock, and their children dance and play.

12 They take the timbrel, and the harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.

13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment they go down to hell.

14 Who have said to God: Depart from us, we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.

15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what doth it profit us if we pray to him?

16 Yet because their good things are not in their hand, may the counsel of the wicked be far from me.

17 How often shall the lamp of the wicked be put out, and a deluge come upon them, and he shall distribute the sorrows of his wrath?

18 They shall be as chaff before the face of the wind, and as ashes which the whirlwind scattereth.

19 God shall lay up the sorrow of the father for his children: and when he shall repay, then shall he know.

20 His eyes shall see his own destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

21 For what is it to him what befalleth his house after him: and if the number of his months be diminished by one half?

Job 21:11-21 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.