For those who may wish to ‘study’ this chapter, the following simple resources are provided for you. Each passage has a four-Part approach to help you take in and think further about what you have read.

Passage: Job 21:1-18

1 Then Job replied:

2 ‘Listen carefully to my words;
    let this be the consolation you give me.
3 Bear with me while I speak,
    and after I have spoken, mock on.

4 ‘Is my complaint directed to a human being?
    Why should I not be impatient?
5 Look at me and be appalled;
    clap your hand over your mouth.
6 When I think about this, I am terrified;
    trembling seizes my body.
7 Why do the wicked live on,
    growing old and increasing in power?
8 They see their children established around them,
    their offspring before their eyes.
9 Their homes are safe and free from fear;
    the rod of God is not on them.
10 Their bulls never fail to breed;
    their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11 They send forth their children as a flock;
    their little ones dance about.
12 They sing to the music of tambourine and lyre;
    they make merry to the sound of the pipe.
13 They spend their years in prosperity
    and go down to the grave in peace.
14 Yet they say to God, “Leave us alone!
    We have no desire to know your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him?
    What would we gain by praying to him?”
16 But their prosperity is not in their own hands,
    so I stand aloof from the plans of the wicked. 17 ‘Yet how often is the lamp of the wicked snuffed out?
    How often does calamity come upon them,
    the fate God allots in his anger?
18 How often are they like straw before the wind,
    like chaff swept away by a gale?

A. Find Out

1. What does Job next ask his friends to do? v.2,3
2. What does he ask them about himself? v.4,5
3. With what does he have a problem? v.6,7
4. List the things he sees the wicked doing. v.8-13
5. Yet what do they say? v.14,15
6. But what concerns Job? v,17,18

B. Think:

1. Reminder: what point had Zophar been trying to make?
2. How does Job show that that is not always so?

C. Comment:

Zophar had been making the point that the wicked always get their just deserts. Hold on, says Job, listen to what I have to say and then you can come back at me (v.2,3). Am I complaining to man? (v.4). My problems don’t originate with man (implied). Look at my state and be quiet! (v.5). My quarrel is with God (implied) and this scares the life out of me (v.6).

Look, I’ve heard all you’ve said (implied) but it’s not true. Look, I’ve watched the wicked living, growing old and increasing in their power (v.7). They haven’t been destroyed as you’ve suggested; the Lord hasn’t destroyed them! (implied). They see their children growing up around them and they are not being destroyed (v.8). In fact, they seem quite safe and secure in their homes (v.9) so all this business about them being destroyed by God just isn’t true. Their herds prosper (v.10,11), they are very happy (v.12) and live to a ripe old age and die in peace (v.13).

Yet, he continues, these very people reject the Lord openly (v.14,15) not realising that He is the one who enables their prosperity (v.16) and so I reject this counsel and wisdom. Come on, in reality, how often are they snuffed out (v.17), how often are they swept away (v.18)?

We need to reiterate Jesus’ teaching where he spoke of weeds in a harvest, left until the time of harvest. See Mt 13:47-50 & 13:24-30. God does often leave the wicked for a ‘later harvest’.

D. Application:

1. Don’t envy the prosperity of the wicked. Their time WILL come!
2. Remain faithful even if no one around you is.

Passage: Job 21:19-34

19 It is said, “God stores up the punishment of the wicked for their children.”
    Let him repay the wicked, so that they themselves will experience it!
20 Let their own eyes see their destruction;
    let them drink the cup of the wrath of the Almighty.
21 For what do they care about the families they leave behind
    when their allotted months come to an end?

22 ‘Can anyone teach knowledge to God,
    since he judges even the highest?
23 One person dies in full vigour,
    completely secure and at ease,
24 well nourished in body,
    bones rich with marrow.
25 Another dies in bitterness of soul,
    never having enjoyed anything good.
26 Side by side they lie in the dust,
    and worms cover them both.

27 ‘I know full well what you are thinking,
    the schemes by which you would wrong me.
28 You say, “Where now is the house of the great,
    the tents where the wicked lived?”
29 Have you never questioned those who travel?
    Have you paid no regard to their accounts –
30 that the wicked are spared from the day of calamity,
    that they are delivered from the day of wrath?
31 Who denounces their conduct to their face?
    Who repays them for what they have done?
32 They are carried to the grave,
    and watch is kept over their tombs.
33 The soil in the valley is sweet to them;
    everyone follows after them,
    and a countless throng goes before them.

34 ‘So how can you console me with your nonsense?
    Nothing is left of your answers but falsehood!’

A. Find Out

1. What does Job say ought to happen about a man’s sin? v.19-21
2. What question does this pose about God? v.22
3. What two ways of death does he now compare? v.23-26
4. With what does he then challenge his friends? v.27,28
5. But what does he say they need to remember? v.29-33
6. So what does he conclude? v.34

B. Think:

1. What frustration is Job venting in verses 19-26?
2. What point is he making in verses 27-33?

C. Comment:

In the first half of the chapter Job had been pointing out how the wicked often seem to live securely and die in peace. He then refers to the traditional teaching that says God brings punishment on the wicked man’s sons (v.19a). Let Him bring it on the wicked man, says Job (v.19b). Let the man himself suffer for his sin (v.20) for he doesn’t care what happens to those who follow him (v.21). However, he says, who can teach God for He’s greater than all of us (v.22). There are no neat answers. One man dies in peace and affluence (v.23,24) and another in anguish and poverty (v.25), but the truth is, they’re both dead and that’s the end of it! (v.26).

Look, he continues, I know what you are thinking, I know you are thinking to pull me down and blame me (v.27) for you look at what has happened to me and attribute wickedness to me (v.28). Have you never listened to those who travel far and wide and the stories they tell (v.29)? They tell of wicked men who lived on in security (v.30) while no one said anything about their wrongs (v.31). They eventually die like everyone else and die peacefully and with honour (v.32,33). Don’t you see, he concludes, all of your wrong arguing has brought me no comfort  because when I examine what you have said, I find it is full of untruths and errors (v.34)

D. Application:

1. Beware making generalizations about people’s lives.
2. Give warnings by all means, when you see others doing wrong, but remember God deals with them as He sees fit.