10 His children are hoping that the poor will be kind to them, and his hands give back his wealth.
He is forced to give back the fruit of his work, and may not take it for food; he has no joy in the profit of his trading.
Though he may get silver together like dust, and make ready great stores of clothing; He may get them ready, but the upright will put them on, and he who is free from sin will take the silver for a heritage.
And the Lord had given the people grace in the eyes of the Egyptians so that they gave them whatever was requested. So they took away all their goods from the Egyptians.
If a man takes without right another man's ox or his sheep, and puts it to death or gets a price for it, he is to give five oxen for an ox, or four sheep for a sheep, in payment: the thief will have to make payment for what he has taken; if he has no money, he himself will have to be exchanged for money, so that payment may be made.
And he will have to give back four times the value of the lamb, because he has done this and because he had no pity.
Now his children have no safe place, and they are crushed before the judges, for no one takes up their cause.
But if he is taken in the act he will have to give back seven times as much, giving up all his property which is in his house.
A man of wealth who is cruel to the poor is like a violent rain causing destruction of food.
Worthy.Bible » Commentaries » Matthew Henry Commentary » Commentary on Job 20
Commentary on Job 20 Matthew Henry Commentary
Chapter 20
One would have thought that such an excellent confession of faith as Job made, in the close of the foregoing chapter, would satisfy his friends, or at least mollify them; but they do not seem to have taken any notice of it, and therefore Zophar here takes his turn, enters the lists with Job, and attacks him with as much vehemence as before.
But the great mistake was, and (as bishop Patrick expresses it) all the flaw in his discourse (which was common to him with the rest), that he imagined God never varied from this method, and therefore Job was, without doubt, a very bad man, though it did not appear that he was, any other way than by his infelicity.
Job 20:1-9
Here,
Job 20:10-22
The instances here given of the miserable condition of the wicked man in this world are expressed with great fulness and fluency of language, and the same thing returned to again and repeated in other words. Let us therefore reduce the particulars to their proper heads, and observe,
Job 20:23-29
Zophar, having described the many embarrassments and vexations which commonly attend the wicked practices of oppressors and cruel men, here comes to show their utter ruin at last.