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Commentary Index | Return to PrayerRequest.com | DownloadPaul Kretzmann Commentary - Job 21:27 - 21:34
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This Chapter Verse Commentaries:
Job Rebukes his Friends for their One-Sidedness.
v. 27. Behold, I know your thoughts, Job knows the plans of their hearts, and the devices, the careful reasonings, the schemes, which ye wrongfully imagine against me, doing violence to him by trying to force him into a confession of guilt.
v. 28. For ye say, Where is the house of the prince, of the mighty and influential nobleman? And where are the dwelling-places of the wicked, literally, "the tent of the dwellings of the wicked"? The text emphasizes the splendor and the spaciousness of the wicked person's dwelling. Such taunts as this were directed at Job in fastening the blame of wickedness upon him. Upon this sneering question Job answers.
v. 29. Have ye not asked them that go by the way, inquiring of travelers well acquainted with history and human destinies! And do ye not know their tokens, they should not fail to note and to know what such experienced people would be able to tell them of the different fate of men,
v. 30. that the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction, held back, spared in the day of ruin? They shall be brought forth to the day of wrath, led away from the overflowing wrath, taken beyond its reach. Job's argument is that the wicked must indeed die like every other person, but that he is spared all the misfortune of life, that he is happy to the day of his death.
v. 31. Who shall declare his way to His face? namely, that of God, in questioning His judgments. And who shall repay Him what He hath done? No man will successfully challenge the divine conduct, for God renders to no man an account of His actions.
v. 32. Yet shall he be brought to the grave, Job here brings out the opinion and experience of travelers, and shall remain in the tomb, even after the burial of the wicked his monument or burial mound keeps watch at his tomb and keeps his memory alive.
v. 33. The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, the very earth under which he rests being like a soft couch to him, and every man shall draw after him, imitating his example of a happy life and an easy death, as there are innumerable before him.
v. 34. How, then, comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood, and nothing else! Since they cast unfounded suspicions upon the character of Job, they were guilty of a perfidious transgression against God, namely, on account of the lack of charity and by reason of the injustice which they exhibited. Note the warning contained in this verse, which bids all men desist from judging and condemning.