Read Job chapter 21 online with LogosAI Bible study tools, highlights, and cross references.
Job 21 is part of “Second Cycle of Dialogue” (15–21) in the outline of Job.
Job 21 summary
This is Job's reply to Zophar's discourse, in which he complains less of his own miseries than he had done in his former discourses (finding that his friends were not moved by his complaints to pity him in the least), and comes closer to the general question that was in dispute between him and them, Whether outward prosperity, and the continuance of it, were a mark of the true church and the true members of it, so that the ruin of a man's prosperity is sufficient to prove him a hypocrite, though no other evidence appear against him: this they asserted, but Job denied. I. His preface here is designed for the moving of their affections, that he might gain their attention (Job 21:1-6). II. His discourse is designed for the convincing of their judgments and the rectifying of their mistakes. He owns that God does sometimes hang up a wicked man as it were in chains, in terrorem - as a terror to others, by some visible remarkable judgment in this life, but denies that he always does so; nay, he maintains that commonly he does otherwise, suffering even the worst of sinners to live all their days in prosperity and to go out of the world without any visible mark of his wrath upon them. 1. He describes the great prosperity of wicked people (Job 21:7-13). 2. He shows their great impiety, in which they are hardened by their prosperity (Job 21:14-16). 3. He foretels their ruin at length, but after a long reprieve (Job 21:17-21). 4. He observes a very great variety in the ways of God's providence towards men, even towards bad men (Job 21:22-26). 5. He overthrows the ground of their severe censures of him, by showing that the destruction of the wicked is reserved for the other world, and that they often escape to the last in this world (Job 21:27, to the end), and in this Job was clearly in the right.
Source: Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible (1706–21; Romans–Revelation completed by Nonconformist ministers). Public domain. Digital text: Free Use Bible API (bible.helloao.org).
1 Then Job answered,
2 “Listen diligently to my speech. Let this be your consolation.
3 Allow me, and I also will speak. After I have spoken, mock on.
4 As for me, is my complaint to man? Why shouldn’t I be impatient?
5 Look at me, and be astonished. Lay your hand on your mouth.
6 When I remember, I am troubled. Horror takes hold of my flesh.
7 “Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?
8 Their child is established with them in their sight, their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
10 Their bulls breed without fail. Their cows calve, and don’t miscarry.
11 They send out their little ones like a flock. Their children dance.
12 They sing to the tambourine and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their days in prosperity. In an instant they go down to Sheol.
14 They tell God, ‘Depart from us, for we don’t want to know about your ways.
15 What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? What profit should we have, if we pray to him?’
16 Behold, their prosperity is not 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 on them, that God distributes sorrows in his anger?
18 How often is it that they are as stubble before the wind, as chaff that the storm carries away?
19 You say, ‘God lays up his iniquity for his children.’ Let him recompense it to himself, that he may know it.
20 Let his own eyes see his destruction. Let him drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what does he care for his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off?
22 “Shall any teach God knowledge, since he judges those who are high?
23 One dies in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
24 His pails are full of milk. The marrow of his bones is moistened.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, and never tastes of good.
26 They lie down alike in the dust. The worm covers them.
27 “Behold, I know your thoughts, the plans with which you would wrong me.
28 For you say, ‘Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?’
29 Haven’t you asked wayfaring men? Don’t you know their evidences,
30 that the evil man is reserved to the day of calamity, that they are led out to the day of wrath?
31 Who will declare his way to his face? Who will repay him what he has done?
32 Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men will keep watch over the tomb.
33 The clods of the valley will be sweet to him. All men will draw after him, as there were innumerable before him.
34 So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?”