Job 21:24-34

24 His stomach is full of milk, and his bones are strong and healthy.

25 Another person, never having tasted happiness, dies with a bitter soul.

26 Together they lie down in the dust, and worms cover them.

27 "You see, I know your thoughts and the schemes you plot against me

28 because you ask, 'Where is the house of the influential person? Where is the tent where wicked people live?'

29 Haven't you asked travelers? But you didn't pay attention to their directions.

30 On the day of disaster the wicked person is spared. On the day of [God's] anger he is rescued.

31 Who will tell him to his face how he lived? Who will pay him back for what he did?

32 He is carried to the cemetery, and his grave is guarded.

33 The soil in the creekbed is sweet to him. Everyone follows him. Countless others went before him.

34 How can you comfort me with this nonsense when your answers continue to betray me?"

Job 21:24-34 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.