19 It is said, 'God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.' Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
19 You say, 'God stores up their iniquity for their children.' Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it.
19 You might say, 'God is saving up the punishment for their children.' I say, 'Give it to them right now so they'll know what they've done!'
19 They say, 'God lays up one's iniquity for his children'; Let Him recompense him, that he may know it.
19 "'Well,' you say, 'at least God will punish their children!' But I say he should punish the ones who sin, so that they understand his judgment.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 21:19
Commentary on Job 21:17-26
(Read Job 21:17-26)
Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about.