View Job 21 in the note window.
Job's preface to his answer, ver. 1 - 6.
He describes the prosperity of wicked men, ver. 7 - 13.
Hardening them in their impiety, ver. 14 - 16.
He foretells their final ruin, ver. 17 - 21.
He observes a great variety in the ways of God, ver. 22 - 26.
He shews, that tho' sinners are always punished in the other world,
they often escape in this, ver. 27 - 34.
2: Hear, &c. - If you have no other comfort to administer, at least
afford me this. And it will be a comfort to yourselves in the reflection,
to have dealt tenderly with your afflicted friend.
3: Speak - without interruption. Mock - If I do not defend my
cause with solid arguments, go on in your scoffs.
4: Is - I do not make my complaint to, or expect relief from you, or
from any men, hut from God only: I am pouring forth my complaints to God.
If - If my complaint were to man, have I not cause?
5: Mark - Consider what I am about to say concerning the prosperity
of the worst of men, and the pressures of some good men, and it is able
to fill you with astonishment. Lay, &c. - Be silent.
6: Remember - The very remembrance of what is past, fills me with
dread and horror.
13: Moment - They do not die of a lingering and tormenting disease.
14: Therefore - Because of their constant prosperity.
Say - Sometimes in words, but commonly in their thoughts
and the language of their lives.
16: Lo - But wicked men have no reason to reject God, because of
their prosperity, for their wealth, is not in their hand; neither
obtained, nor kept by their own might, but only by God's power and favour.
Therefore I am far from approving their opinion, or following their course.
17: Often - I grant that this happens often though not constantly, as
you affirm. Lamp - Their glory and outward happiness.
19: Layeth up - In his treasures, (Ro 2:5).
Iniquity - The punishment of his iniquity; he will
punish him both in his person and in his posterity.
20: See - He shall be destroyed; as to see death, is to die.
21: For, &c. - What delight can ye take in the thoughts of his
posterity, when he is dying an untimely death? When that number of months,
which by the course of nature, he might have lived, is cut off by violence.
22: Teach - How to govern the world? For so you do, while you tell
him that he must not afflict the godly, nor give the wicked prosperity.
That he must invariably punish the wicked, and reward the righteous in
this world. No: he will act as sovereign, and with great variety in his
providential dispensations. High - The highest persons, on earth, he
exactly knows them, and gives sentence concerning them, as he sees fit.
25: Another - Another wicked man. So there is a great variety of
God's dispensations; he distributes great prosperity to one, and great
afflictions to another, according to his wise but secret counsel.
26: Alike - All these worldly differences are ended by death, and
they lie in the grave without any distinction. So that no man can tell
who is good, and who is bad by events which befall them in this life.
And if one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, they
will meet in the congregation of the dead and damned; and the worm that
dieth not, and the fire that is not quenched will be the same to both:
which makes those differences inconsiderable, and not worth perplexing
ourselves about.
27: Me - I know that your discourses, though they be of wicked, men
in general, yet are particularly levelled at me.
29: Them - Any person that passes along the high - way, every one you
meet with. It is so vulgar a thing, that no man of common sense is
ignorant of it. Tokens - The examples, or evidences, of this truth,
which they that go by the way can produce.
30: They - He speaks of the same person; only the singular number is
changed into the plural, possibly to intimate, that altho' for the present
only some wicked men were punished, yet then all of them should suffer.
Brought - As malefactors are brought forth from prison to execution.
31: Declare - His power and splendor are so great, that scarce any
man dare reprove him.
32: And - The pomp of his death shall be suitable to the glory
of his life. Brought - With pomp and state, as the word signifies.
Grave - Heb. to the graves; to an honourable and eminent grave: the
plural number being used emphatically to denote eminency. He shall
not die a violent but a natural death.
33: Valley - Of the grave, which is low and deep like a valley.
Sweet - He shall sweetly rest in his grave. Draw - Heb. he shall
draw every man after him, into the grave, all that live after him,
whether good or bad, shall follow him to the grave, shall die as he did.
So he fares no worse herein than all mankind. He is figuratively said to
draw them, because they come after him, as if they were drawn by his
example.
34: How - Why then do you seek to comfort me with vain hopes of
recovering my prosperity, seeing your grounds are false, and experience
shews, that good men are often in great tribulation, while the vilest
of men prosper.
