27 Lo, I have known your thoughts, And the devices against me ye do wrongfully.
As I have seen -- ploughers of iniquity, And sowers of misery, reap it! From the breath of God they perish, And from the spirit of His anger consumed. The roaring of a lion, And the voice of a fierce lion, And teeth of young lions have been broken. An old lion is perishing without prey, And the whelps of the lioness do separate.
I -- I have seen the perverse taking root, And I mark his habitation straightway, Far are his sons from safety, And they are bruised in the gate, And there is no deliverer. Whose harvest the hungry doth eat, And even from the thorns taketh it, And the designing swallowed their wealth.
Doth God pervert judgment? And doth the Mighty One pervert justice? If thy sons have sinned before Him, And He doth send them away, By the hand of their transgression, If thou dost seek early unto God, And unto the Mighty makest supplication, If pure and upright thou `art', Surely now He waketh for thee, And hath completed The habitation of thy righteousness.
`All days of the wicked he is paining himself, And few years have been laid up for the terrible one. A fearful voice `is' in his ears, In peace doth a destroyer come to him. He believeth not to return from darkness, And watched `is' he for the sword. He is wandering for bread -- `Where `is' it?' He hath known that ready at his hand Is a day of darkness. Terrify him do adversity and distress, They prevail over him As a king ready for a boaster. For he stretched out against God his hand, And against the Mighty he maketh himself mighty. He runneth unto Him with a neck, With thick bosses of his shields. For he hath covered his face with his fat, And maketh vigour over `his' confidence. And he inhabiteth cities cut off, houses not dwelt in, That have been ready to become heaps. He is not rich, nor doth his wealth rise, Nor doth he stretch out on earth their continuance. He turneth not aside from darkness, His tender branch doth a flame dry up, And he turneth aside at the breath of His mouth! Let him not put credence in vanity, He hath been deceived, For vanity is his recompence. Not in his day is it completed, And his bending branch is not green. He shaketh off as a vine his unripe fruit, And casteth off as an olive his blossom. For the company of the profane `is' gloomy, And fire hath consumed tents of bribery. To conceive misery, and to bear iniquity, Even their heart doth prepare deceit.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 21
Commentary on Job 21 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 21
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.
Job 21:1-6
Job here recommends himself, both his case and his discourse, both what he suffered and what he said, to the compassionate consideration of his friends.
Job 21:7-16
All Job's three friends, in their last discourses, had been very copious in describing the miserable condition of a wicked man in this world. "It is true,' says Job, "remarkable judgments are sometimes brought upon notorious sinners, but not always; for we have many instances of the great and long prosperity of those that are openly and avowedly wicked; though they are hardened in their wickedness by their prosperity, yet they are still suffered to prosper.'
Job 21:17-26
Job had largely described the prosperity of wicked people; now, in these verses,
Job 21:27-34
In these verses,