Job 21 Bible Commentary

21:2 Hear diligently my speech, and let this ^a be your consolations.

(a) Your diligent marking of my words will be to me a great consolation.

21:4 As for me, [is] my complaint to man? and if [it ^b were so], why should not my spirit be troubled?

(b) As though he would say, I do not talk with man but with God, who will not answer me, and therefore my mind must be troubled.

21:5 Mark me, and be astonished, and lay [your] hand upon [your] ^c mouth.

(c) He charges them as though they were not able to comprehend his feeling of God's judgment, and exhorts them therefore to silence.

21:7 Wherefore do the wicked ^d live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?

(d) Job proves against his adversaries that God does not punish the wicked immediately, but often gives them long life and prosperity, so we must not judge God just or unjust by the things that appear to our eyes.

21:11 They send forth their little ones ^e like a flock, and their children dance.

(e) They have healthy children and in those points he answers to that which Zophar alleged before.

21:13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment ^f go down to the grave.

(f) Not being tormented with long sickness.

21:14 Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the ^g knowledge of thy ways.

(g) They desire nothing more than to be exempt from all subjection that they should bear to God, thus Job shows his adversaries, that if they reason only by that which is seen by common experience the wicked who hate God are better dealt withal than they who love him.

21:16 Lo, their good [is] not in their ^h hand: the counsel of the wicked ⁱ is far from me.

(h) It is not their own, but God only lends it to them.
(i) God keep me from their prosperity.

21:20 ^k His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.

(k) When God recompenses his wickedness, he will know that his prosperity was vanity.

21:22 Shall [any] teach ^l God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.

(l) Who sends to the wicked prosperity and punishes the godly.

21:23 One ^m dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.

(m) Meaning, the wicked.

21:25 And another ⁿ dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.

(n) That is, the godly.

21:26 They shall lie down alike in ^o the dust, and the worms shall cover them.

(o) As concerning their bodies: and this he speaks according to the common judgment.

21:28 For ye say, Where [is] the ^p house of the prince? and where [are] the dwelling places of the wicked?

(p) Thus they called Job's house in derision concluding that it was destroyed because he was wicked.

21:29 Have ye ^q not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens,

(q) Who through long travailing have experience and tokens of it, that is, that the wicked prosper, and the godly live in affliction.

21:30 That the wicked is reserved to the day of ^r destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.

(r) Though the wicked flourish here, yet God will punish him in the last day.

21:31 Who shall declare his way ^s to his face? and who shall repay him [what] he hath done?

(s) Though men flatter him, and no one dares to reprove him in this world, yet death is a token that he will bring him to an account.

21:33 The ^t clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as [there are] innumerable before him.

(t) He will be glad to lie in a slimy pit, who before could not be content with a royal palace.

21:34 How then comfort ^u ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?

(u) Saying that the just in this world have prosperity and the wicked adversity.