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Commentary on Job 20 verses 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,
I. What his wickedness is for which he is punished.
1.The lusts of the flesh, here called the sins of his youth (Job 20:11); for those are the sins which, at that age, people are most tempted to. The forbidden pleasures of sense are said to be sweet in his mouth (Job 20:12); he indulges himself in all the gratifications of the carnal appetite, and takes an inordinate complacency in them, as yielding the most agreeable delights. That is the satisfaction which he hides under his tongue, and rolls there, as the most dainty delicate thing that can be. He keeps it still within his mouth (Job 20:13); let him have that, and he desires no more; he will never part with that for the spiritual and divine pleasures of religion, which he has no relish or nor affection for. His keeping it still in his mouth denotes his obstinately persisting in his sin (he spares it when he should kill and mortify it, and forsakes it not, but holds it fast, and goes on frowardly in it), and also his re-acting of his sin by revolving it and remembering it with pleasure, as that adulterous woman (Eze 23:19) who multiplied her whoredoms by calling to remembrance the days of her youth; so does this wicked man here. Or his hiding it and keeping it under his tongue denotes his industrious concealment of his beloved lust. Being a hypocrite, his haunts of sin are secret, that he may save the credit of his profession; but he who knows what is in the heart knows what is under the tongue too, and will discover it shortly.
2.The love of the world and the wealth of it. It is in worldly wealth that he places his happiness, and therefore he sets his heart upon it. See here, (1.) How greedy he is of it (Job 20:15): He has swallowed down riches as eagerly as ever a hungry man swallowed down meat; and is still crying, "Give, give." It is that which he desired (Job 20:20); it was, in his eye, the best gift, and that which he coveted earnestly. (2.) What pains he takes for it: It is that which he laboured for (Job 20:18), not by honest diligence in a lawful calling, but by an unwearied prosecution of all ways and methods, per fas, per nefas - right or wrong, to be rich. We must labour, not to be rich (Pro 23:4), but to be charitable, that we may have to give (Eph 4:28), not to spend. (3.) What great things he promises himself from it, intimated in the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter (Job 20:17); his being disappointed of them supposes that he had flattered himself with the hopes of them: he expected rivers of sensual delights.
3.Violence and oppression, and injustice in his poor neighbours, Job 20:19. This was the sin of the giants of the old world, and a sin that, as much as any, brings God's judgments upon nations and families. It is charged upon this wicked man, (1.) That he has forsaken the poor, taken no care of them, shown no kindness to them, nor made any provision for them. At first perhaps, for a pretence, he gave alms like the Pharisees, to gain a reputation; but, when he had served his turn by this practice, he left it off, and forsook the poor, whom before he seemed to be concerned for. Those who do good, but not from a good principle, though they may abound in it, will not abide in it. (2.) That he has oppressed them, crushed them, taken all advantages against them to do them a mischief. To enrich himself, he has robbed the spital, and made the poor poorer. (3.) That he has violently taken away their houses, which he had no right to, as Ahab took Naboth's vineyard, not by secret fraud, by forgery, perjury, or some trick in law, but avowedly, and by open violence.
II. What his punishment is for this wickedness.
1.He shall be disappointed in his expectations, and shall not find that satisfaction in his worldly wealth which he vainly promised himself (Job 20:17): He shall never see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter, with which he hoped to glut himself. The world is not that to those who love it, and court it, and admire it, which they fancy it will be. The enjoyment sinks far below the raised expectation.
2.He shall be diseased and distempered in his body; and how little comfort a man has in riches if he has not health! Sickness and pain, especially it they be in extremity, embitter all his enjoyments. This wicked man has all the delights of sense wound up to the height of pleasurableness; but what real happiness can he enjoy when his bones are full of the sins of his youth (Job 20:11), that is, of the effects of those sins? By his drunkenness and gluttony, his uncleanness and wantonness, when he was young, he contracted those diseases which are painful to him long after, and perhaps make his life very miserable, and, as Solomon speaks, consume his flesh and his body, Pro 5:11. Perhaps he was given to fight when he was young, and then made nothing of a cut or a bruise in a fray; but he feels it in his bones long after. But can he get no ease, no relief? No, he is likely to carry his pains and diseases with him to the grave, or rather they are likely to carry him thither, and so the sins of his youth shall lie down with him in the dust; the very putrefying of his body in the grave is to him the effect of sin (Job 24:19), so that his iniquity is upon his bones there, Eze 32:27. The sin of sinners follows them to the other side death.
3.He shall be disquieted and troubled in his mind: Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, Job 20:20. He has not that ease in his own mind that people think he has, but is in continual agitation. The ill-gotten wealth which he has swallowed down makes him sick, and, like undigested meat, is always upbraiding him. Let none expect to enjoy that comfortably which they have gotten unjustly. The unquietness of his mind arises, (1.) From his conscience looking back, and filling him with the fear of the wrath of God against him for his wickedness. Even that wickedness which was sweet in the commission, and was rolled under the tongue as a delicate morsel, becomes bitter in the reflection, and, when it is reviewed, fills him with horror and vexation. In his bowels it is turned (Job 20:14) like John's book, in his mouth as sweet as honey, but, when he had eaten it, his belly was bitter, Rev 10:10. Such a thing is sin; it is turned into the gall of asps, than which nothing is more bitter, the poison of asps (Job 20:16), than which nothing more fatal, and so it will be to him; what he sucked so sweetly, and with so much pleasure, will prove to him the poison of asps; so will all unlawful gains be. The fawning tongue will prove the viper's tongue. All the charming graces that are thought to be in sin will, when conscience is awakened, turn into so many raging furies. (2.) From his cares, looking forward, Job 20:22. In the fulness of his sufficiency, when he thinks himself most happy, and most sure of the continuance of his happiness, he shall be in straits, that is, he shall think himself so, through the anxieties and perplexities of his own mind, as that rich man who, when his ground brought forth plentifully, cried out, What shall I do? Luk 12:17.
4.He shall be dispossessed of his estate; that shall sink and dwindle away to nothing, so that he shall not rejoice therein, Job 20:18. He shall not only never rejoice truly, but not long rejoice at all. (1.) What he has unjustly swallowed he shall be compelled to disgorge (Job 20:15): He swallowed down riches, and then thought himself sure of them, and that they were as much his own as the meat he had eaten; but he was deceived: he shall vomit them up again; his own conscience perhaps may make him so uneasy in the keeping of what he has gotten that, for the quiet of his own mind, he shall make restitution, and that not with the pleasure of a virtue, but the pain of a vomit, and with the utmost reluctancy. Or, if he do not himself refund what he has violently taken away, God will, by his providence, force him to it, and bring it about, one way or other, that ill-gotten goods shall return to the right owners: God shall cast them out of his belly, while yet the love of the sin is not cast out of his heart. So loud shall the clamours of the poor, whom he has impoverished, be against him, that he shall be forced to send his children to them to soothe them and beg their pardon (Job 20:10): His children shall seek to please the poor, while his own hands shall restore them their goods with shame (Job 20:18): That which he laboured for, by all the arts of oppression, shall he restore, and shall not so swallow it down as to digest it; it shall not stay with him, but according to his shame shall the restitution be; having gotten a great deal unjustly, he shall restore a great deal, so that when every one has his own he will have but little left for himself. To be made to restore what was unjustly gotten, by the sanctifying grace of God, as Zaccheus was, is a great mercy; he voluntarily and cheerfully restored four-fold, and yet had a great deal left to give to the poor, Luk 19:8. But to be forced to restore, as Judas was, merely by the horrors of a despairing conscience, has none of that benefit and comfort attending it, for he threw down the pieces of silver and went and hanged himself. (2.) He shall be stripped of all he has and become a beggar. He that spoiled others shall himself be spoiled (Isa 33:1); for every hand of the wicked shall be upon him. The innocent, whom he has wronged, sit down by their loss, saying, as David, Wickedness proceedeth from the wicked, but my hand shall not be upon him, Sa1 24:13. But though they have forgiven him, though they will make no reprisals, divine justice will, and often makes the wicked to avenge the quarrel of the righteous, and squeezes and crushes one bad man by the hand of another upon him. Thus, when he is plucked on all sides, he shall not save of that which he desired (Job 20:20), not only he shall not save it all, but he shall save nothing of it. There shall none of his meat (which he coveted so much, and fed upon with so much pleasure) be left, Job 20:21. All his neighbours and relations shall look upon him to be in such bad circumstances that, when he is dead, no man shall look for his goods, none of his kindred shall expect to be a penny the better for him, nor be willing to take out letters of administration for what he leaves behind him. In all this Zophar reflects upon Job, who had lost all and was reduced to the last extremity.
This means that their ruin comes suddenly, so that you may not believe that their calamity comes from a natural condition but that it is in accordance with a divine and extraordinary power. Moreover, this concerns not only their crimes but also their sacrifices. If they offer any, they turn out to be useless. “Let his inferiors,” Zophar says, “destroy his children.” This sentence also demonstrates clearly that the blow comes from God, because inferior people prevail on those who are stronger, and those who are outcast prevail on those who have power.
9. It is written, For into a malicious soul wisdom shall not enter [Wisd. 1, 4]; and it is declared by the Psalmist, The rich have lacked and been a hungred [Ps. 34, 10]. For if their want and hunger were spoken of outward starving, then surely they would be any thing but rich, who were in want of the bread of the body. But forasmuch as whilst they are increased without, they are rendered void within, they are described as rich and needy at one and the same time, in that they never entitle themselves to be filled with the bread of wisdom. And so the children of this hypocrite are ‘worn down with want,’ because they that are born in hypocrisy in mimicry of him, whilst they do not hold the substance of truth, are brought to nought in the penury of the heart.
And his hands shall repay him his own grief.
10. What is denoted by ‘hands,’ saving works? Thus ‘his hands will repay him grief,’ because he will reap just damnation from his wicked course of life. Now it is well said, not ‘give,’ but ‘repay,’ in that his froward deeds shall pay him back eternal punishment like a kind of debt. But before he is brought to eternal punishment, let him add more fully the sort of character that he shows himself here.
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SUMMARY
Job 20:10, a declaration by Zophar the Naamathite, articulates a severe principle of divine retribution, asserting that the prosperity of the wicked is inherently ephemeral and their eventual downfall, extending even to their descendants, is inevitable. This verse specifically details a twofold reversal: the children of the unrighteous will be humbled to the point of seeking favor from the poor, and the wicked individual themselves will be divinely compelled to restore their ill-gotten gains, demonstrating a forced and inescapable restitution for their injustices.
CONTEXT
EXPOSITION AND ANALYSIS
Key Word Analysis
Verse Breakdown
Literary Devices
Job 20:10 employs several literary devices to convey its stark message of divine retribution. Irony is profoundly evident, particularly in the first clause, as the children of the presumably arrogant and powerful wicked are depicted as humbling themselves to "seek to please the poor." This dramatic reversal of roles, where the exploited gain a position of potential leverage over the exploiters' descendants, is a striking testament to the unpredictable and often humiliating nature of divine judgment. The verse also exhibits a clear form of Poetic Justice, where the punishment directly and fittingly corresponds to the crime: those who exploited the poor will see their descendants dependent on them, and those who unjustly acquired goods will be compelled to return them. The use of "his hands" in the second clause is a powerful Synecdoche, where a part (hands, representing agency, action, and the means of acquisition) stands for the whole person, emphasizing the personal responsibility and active role of the wicked in their ill-gotten gains and their subsequent forced restitution. While not a strict grammatical parallelism, the two clauses function as a form of Antithetical Parallelism in their broader context, sharply contrasting the former state of the wicked with their inevitable downfall and the severe consequences for their lineage.
THEOLOGICAL AND THEMATIC CONNECTIONS
Although Zophar's application of this principle to Job was ultimately flawed and later corrected by God, the underlying theological truths within Job 20:10 resonate deeply with broader biblical teachings on justice, the pervasive consequences of sin, and the inherently transient nature of ill-gotten wealth. The verse serves as a stark and timeless reminder that unrighteous actions have profound repercussions, not only for the individual perpetrator but potentially for future generations. It affirms a divine commitment to justice, where wealth or standing acquired through illicit means will not bring lasting peace or security, and restitution will ultimately be demanded by a righteous God. This passage underscores that God is a God of unwavering righteousness who will not allow injustice to prevail indefinitely, even if His timing and methods are often beyond human comprehension. It challenges believers to live with integrity, recognizing that true and enduring prosperity is not measured by accumulated material wealth but by righteous living, ethical conduct, and a just relationship with others, especially the vulnerable.
REFLECTION AND APPLICATION
Job 20:10, while part of a flawed argument against Job, carries a timeless and profound truth about the inevitable consequences of unrighteousness. It compels us to consider the far-reaching impact of our choices, not only on our immediate lives and reputations but also on our legacy and the long-term well-being of future generations. The verse challenges the pervasive notion that ill-gotten gains can ever lead to lasting security, genuine prosperity, or true peace of mind. It reminds us that authentic wealth is not merely material accumulation but is deeply rooted in the integrity of our character and the righteousness of our actions. In a world that often celebrates quick riches, prioritizes personal gain above all else, and overlooks ethical shortcuts, this passage serves as a sobering warning: God's justice, though sometimes delayed and often mysterious in its unfolding, is ultimately inescapable. He will ensure that wrongs are righted and restitution is made, whether through direct divine intervention or the natural consequences of an unrighteous life. It calls us to cultivate a heart that prioritizes justice, integrity, generosity, and compassion, understanding that a life built on righteousness and truth is the only foundation that will truly endure and bless generations to come.
Questions for Reflection
FAQ
Does this verse mean that children are punished for their parents' sins?
Answer: This verse, as spoken by Zophar, reflects a common ancient Near Eastern understanding of corporate responsibility, where the consequences of an individual's actions could extend to their family or descendants. While the Bible does teach that the effects of sin can ripple through generations, impacting circumstances and opportunities (e.g., Exodus 34:7), it also strongly emphasizes individual accountability and God's justice in judging each person according to their own deeds, as clearly articulated in passages like Ezekiel 18. Zophar's statement in Job 20:10 should be understood within his rigid retribution theology, which the book of Job ultimately critiques. It highlights that the consequences of a wicked parent's actions (e.g., squandered wealth, social disgrace, loss of standing, a legacy of injustice) can indeed affect their children, even if the children are not held morally culpable for the parent's specific sin. It's about the natural and divine repercussions of injustice and the transience of ill-gotten gain, not necessarily direct punishment for inherited guilt.
How does Zophar's statement align with the overall message of Job?
Answer: Zophar's statement in Job 20:10, like the arguments of Job's other friends, aligns with a prevailing, yet ultimately flawed, theological framework within the book: the belief in strict, immediate divine retribution. Zophar, convinced of Job's hidden sin, uses this verse to illustrate what he believes is the universal and inescapable fate of the wicked. However, the overarching message of the book of Job is to challenge, complicate, and ultimately refute this simplistic view of divine justice and suffering. God Himself later rebukes Job's friends for their inaccurate portrayal of Him and their misguided counsel to Job (Job 42:7). While the principle that wickedness has consequences and that God is just is a foundational biblical truth, Zophar's error lies in his rigid application of this principle to Job's suffering and his presumption to know God's intricate ways. Thus, Job 20:10 serves as an example of the limited human understanding of divine justice that the book of Job seeks to correct and expand upon through the revelation of God's sovereign wisdom and Job's unwavering faith.
CHRIST-CENTERED FULFILLMENT
While Job 20:10 speaks of the wicked being compelled to restore ill-gotten gains and their descendants being humbled, its ultimate Christ-centered fulfillment lies in the profound, voluntary, and perfect restitution made by Jesus Christ on behalf of humanity. We, as sinners, had "stolen" from God through disobedience, incurring an infinite debt and forfeiting our rightful spiritual inheritance. Just as the wicked in Zophar's prophecy were forced to return what was not theirs, humanity was utterly incapable of restoring what was owed to a holy God. Yet, Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, freely and perfectly restored what we had lost and could never repay. He became sin for us, though He knew no sin, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21). Through His atoning sacrifice on the cross, He made full restitution for our spiritual bankruptcy, offering us not merely a return to a neutral state, but a glorious and eternal inheritance in His kingdom (Romans 8:17). The ultimate reversal of fortune, far beyond Zophar's imagination, is found in Christ: the poor in spirit are made spiritually rich (Matthew 5:3), the humble are exalted (Luke 1:52), and those who had nothing to restore are given everything through His boundless grace and mercy. He is the ultimate restorer of all things, bringing true justice, reconciliation, and eternal life between God and humanity.