28 The increase of his house shall depart, flowing away in the day of his anger.
Thine ox shall be slaughtered before thine eyes, and thou shalt not eat thereof; thine ass shall be snatched away from before thy face, and shall not return to thee; thy sheep shall be given unto thine enemies, and thou shalt have none to recover them.
Behold, days come that all that is in thy house, and what thy fathers have laid up until this day, shall be carried to Babylon; nothing shall be left, saith Jehovah.
His children shall seek the favour of the poor, and his hands restore his wealth.
That which he laboured for shall he restore, and not swallow down; its restitution shall be according to the value, and he shall not rejoice [therein]. For he hath oppressed, hath forsaken the poor; he hath violently taken away a house that he did not build. Because he knew no rest in his craving, he shall save nought of what he most desired. Nothing escaped his greediness; therefore his prosperity shall not endure. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits; every hand of the wretched shall come upon him.
If his children be multiplied, it is for the sword, and his offspring shall not be satisfied with bread; Those that remain of him shall be buried by death, and his widows shall not weep. Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay; He may prepare it, but the just shall put it on; and the innocent shall divide the silver. He buildeth his house as the moth, and as a booth that a keeper maketh. He lieth down rich, but will do so no more; he openeth his eyes, and he is not.
Wealth profiteth not in the day of wrath; but righteousness delivereth from death.
For what does a man profit, if he should gain the whole world and suffer the loss of his soul? or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?
Go to now, ye rich, weep, howling over your miseries that [are] coming upon [you]. Your wealth is become rotten, and your garments moth-eaten. Your gold and silver is eaten away, and their canker shall be for a witness against you, and shall eat your flesh as fire. Ye have heaped up treasure in [the] last days.
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.