Job 21:7 Commentary and Bible Study

Job is challenging the view of the friends that the wicked are always punished here and now. He won’t let the three comforters get away with this idea of retribution – prosperous equals good; troubled equals bad. ‘This is nonsense’, he says. ‘Many have the great satisfaction of seeing their children, even their grandchildren, established in good professions and getting on well in the world; this is all they aspire to and they are satisfied. Therefore the whole theory of an exact immediate recompense collapses. We have to accept this,’ he insists, ‘because this is what we see with our eyes, and what you would have to admit if you were honest. The wicked are not suffering as I am, therefore I do not have to conclude I am a hypocrite.’ He now begins to bring forward powerful evidence that does not fit with their simplistic formulas which they have repeated like a mantra. Do they have no real experience of the world? Don’t they know that the idea that God rewards the righteous and punishes the wicked during this life with comprehensive judgments so that there is no doubt about heaven’s verdict; don’t they know that this is a fiction? Have they never considered the awkward fact that many who are wicked come to the very end of life without anything disturbing their comfort and security, without any loss of their wealth or tarnishing of their reputation? Why do the wicked live and become old and go on increasing in property and power without any reversals of their fortunes? Has God overlooked their case that he does nothing about them? According to the theories of the comforters, such things ought not to happen; they should not come to the grave in peace. But these half-baked theories of God’s justice have their origin more in proud works-based theology than in any realistic notion of how God governs the world. What they propose is how they would like the world to operate so that they are vindicated before men. Job’s uncomfortable case can then be explained away, even though this explanation involves the betrayal of a friend. They prefer this to facing the perplexities of Job’s case. If he is a wicked hypocrite as they insist, why is it that he is treated with such severity by God, while many others are allowed to get away with evil to their very last hour? The language is similar to Psalm 73 where Asaph tells us that he was deeply troubled at the prosperity of the wicked. He wrestles with the apparent indifference of the Lord to the prosperity of the wicked, for he appears to reward evil and ignore righteousness allowing believers to be set at a disadvantage. Although this is not Job’s current concern – he is more focused on his own suffering – it expresses the same conundrum. Job’s primary purpose in this chapter is not to bring a case against God and to question his government, but to demolish the thesis of the comforters. It is true that Job is also struggling with what is happening to him, but for the moment his attention is turned to their false theology.It is not true that the wicked ‘has neither son nor posterity among his people, nor any remaining in his dwelling’ (Job 18:19), and the friends must have known this and seen it many times, and yet they deliberately dismissed it from their minds. While it is right to hold on to God’s truth come what may, as soon as men form their own theology not based on his revelation they fall into error and over-simplification, and their theories will no longer comply with reality. Their houses are safe from fear because nothing amiss happens to them. They feel secure and reject any sense of divine judgment; they are not cautioned in their conduct and nothing holds them back. They scoff at the idea that anyone is ever going to call them to account, and despise those who fear the Lord as poor weak inhibited creatures whose will is no longer in their own power.Consider the man who gives no thought to the Lord nor restrains himself from evil out of fear of retribution: do his bulls suffer some obvious illness or greater degree of failure in siring offspring? Do you think that the evil man is marked out by God in every area of his life? That is not the way that God works. In fact, Scripture teaches, ‘For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?’ (1 Peter 4:17). God’s justice does operate in the world, but it is far from complete. He judges one here and another there, but the vast majority must wait for the final day to receive their reward. His justice can only be assessed by faith, so that the unbeliever can very easily come to a quite different conclusion. He can say, ‘All things work by chance and there is no irrefutable evidence that God rules over the affairs of men and calls them to account. For this reason I feel free to do as I wish without fear that I will ever be punished.’The wicked experience happiness in their families; these are the gifts of God’s common grace. Their children dance and they assume they are just as entitled to the pleasure of life as any miserable believer. Little do they understand what is coming! They are connoisseurs of the refined elements of life – art, music, literature, human culture – and develop deep knowledge of these things. God lets them dwell in his world as if they own it, even though they are usurpers who fail to give him any credit. So convincing is the way they conduct themselves that anyone who dares to challenge their right to these things is laughed to scorn. They have a stronger claim on the treasures of the earth than any miserable Christian, who knows little about such elevated matters. Where is that sense of insecurity that Bildad spoke of so that terror frightens him on every side (Job 18:11)? Reading their own lives, they conclude that all things work together for their good, since their plans are laid and fulfilled; their crops are sown and harvested; their houses are built and occupied. Godlessness is rewarded. Even in death they know no suffering. ‘For there are no bands in their death: but their strength is firm’ (Psalm 73:4). They die suddenly – very nice for them. They don’t have some terrible wasting disease, but pass painlessly out of the world. It is all over in a moment. This in the estimation of the godless is the best kind of death, which others call a good death. They do not suffer even a token punishment, so there is no hint for the moment that they face a lost eternity immediately afterwards.