Job 20:21

WEB

²¹There was nothing left that he didn’t devour, therefore his prosperity will not endure.

KJV

²¹There shall none of his meat^[+] be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.

BSB

²¹Nothing is left for him to consume; thus his prosperity will not endure.

FBV

²¹Nothing escapes their ravenous appetites, so their happiness doesn't last long.

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Cross References

Luke 16:24-25

²⁴He cried and said, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue! For I am in anguish in this flame.’

²⁵“But Abraham said, ‘Son, remember that you, in your lifetime, received your good things, and Lazarus, in the same way, bad things. But here he is now comforted and you are in anguish.

Jeremiah 17:11

¹¹As the partridge that sits on eggs which she has not laid, so is he who gets riches, and not by right. In the middle of his days, they will leave him. At his end, he will be a fool.

Job 15:29

²⁹He will not be rich, neither will his substance continue, neither will their possessions be extended on the earth.

Job 18:19

¹⁹He will have neither son nor grandson among his people, nor any remaining where he lived.

Study

Sources · 6

Matthew Henry Matthew Henry, 1708–1710 · Public domain

20:10-22

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.

Keil & Delitzsch Carl Friedrich Keil, Franz Delitzsch, 1861–1875 · Public domain

20:21-25

21 Nothing escaped his covetousness,
Therefore his prosperity shall not continue.
22 In the fulness of his need it shall be strait with him,
Every hand of the needy shall come upon him.
23 It shall come to pass: in order to fill his belly,
He sendeth forth the glow of His anger into him,
And He causeth it to rain upon him into his flesh.
24 He must flee from an iron weapon,
Therefore a brazen bow pierceth him through.
25 It teareth, then it cometh forth out of his body,
And the steel out of his gall,
The terrors of death come upon him.
The words of Job 20:21 are: there was nothing that escaped (שׂריד, as Job 18:19, from שׂרד, Arab. šarada, aufugere) his eating (from אכל, not from אכל), i.e., he devoured everything without sparing, even to the last remnant; therefore טוּבו, his prosperity, his abundant wealth, will not continue or hold out (יחיל, as Psa 10:5, to be solid, powerful, enduring, whence חיל, Arab. ȟı̂lat, ḥawl). Hupf. transl. differently: nihil ei superstes ad vescendum, itaque non durant ejus bona; but שׂריד signifies first elapsum, and על־כן propterea; and we may retain these first significations, especially since Job 20:21 is not future like Job 20:21. The tone of prediction taken up in Job 20:21 is continued in what follows. The inf. constr. מלאות (prop. מלאות, but with Cholem by the Aleph, since the Waw is regarded as יתיר, superfluous), formed after the manner of the verbs Lamed He (Ew. 238, c), is written like קראות, Jdg 8:1 (comp. on the other hand the scriptio devectiva, Lev 8:33; Lev 12:4); and שׂפקו (with Sin, as Norzi decides after Codd., Kimchi, and Farisol, not Samech) is to be derived from שׂפק (ספק), sufficientia (comp. the verb, Kg1 20:10): if his sufficiency exists in abundance, not from שׂפק = Arab. safqat, ṣafqat, complosio, according to which Schultens explains: if his joyous clapping of hands has reached its highest point (Elizabeth Smith: "while clapping the hands in the fulness of joy"), to which מלאות is not suitable, and which ought at least to be שׁפק כּפּיו. Therefore: in the fulness of his need shall he be straitened (יצר with the tone drawn back for יצר on account of the following monosyllable, although also apocopated futt. follow further on in the strict future signification, according to poetic usage), by which not merely the fearful foreboding is meant, which just in the fullest overflow makes known his impending lot, but the real calamity, into which his towering prosperity suddenly changes, as Job 20:22 shows: All the hands of the destitute come upon him (בּוא seq. acc.: invadere) to avenge on him the injustice done to the needy. It is not necessary to understand merely such as he has made destitute, it is כּל־יד; the assertion is therefore general: the rich uncompassionate man becomes a defenceless prey of the proletaries.
Job 20:23
The יהי which opens this verse (and which also occurs elsewhere, e.g., Job 18:12, in a purely future signification), here, like ויהי, Sa2 5:24 (Ew. 333, b), serves to introduce the following ישׁלּח (it shall happen: He shall send forth); ויהי (e.g., Gen 40:1) frequent in the historical style, and והיה in the prophetical, are similarly used. In order to fill his belly, which is insatiable, God will send forth against him His glowing wrath (comp. Lam 1:13, from on high hath He sent fire into my bones), and will rain upon him into his flesh, or his plumpness (Arab. fi lachmihi). Thus we believe בּלחוּמו must be understood by referring to Zep 1:17; where, perhaps not without reference to this speech of Zophar, the כּגּללים, which serves to explain Job 20:7, coincides with וּלחמּם, which serves to explain this בלחומו; and the right meaning is not even missed by the lxx, which translates καὶ τὰς σάρκας αὐτῶν ὡς βόλβιτα.
(Note: This passage is translated: and their blood is poured forth as dust, i.e., useless rubbish (Arab. el-ghabra אלעברה), and their flesh as filth. The form of inflection לחמּם is referable to לחם after the form לאם.)
A suitable thought is obtained if לחוּם is taken in the signification, food: He will rain upon him his food, i.e., what is fit for him (with Beth of the instrument instead of the accusative of the object), or: He will rain down (His wrath) upon him as his food (with Beth essent., according to which Ew.: what can satisfy him; Bridel: pour son aliment; Renan: en guise de pain); but we give the preference to the other interpretation, because it is at once natural in this book, abounding in Arabisms, to suppose for לחום the signification of the Arab. laḥm, which is also supported in Hebrew by Zep 1:17; further, because the Targ. favours it, which transl. בּשׁלדיהּ, and expositors, as Aben-Ezra and Ralbag, who interpret by בבשׂרו; finally, because it gives an appropriate idea, to which Lam 1:13 presents a commendable parallel, comp. also Jam 5:3, and Koran, Sur. 2, 169: "those who hide what God has sent down by the Scripture, and thereby obtain a small profit, eat only fire into their belly." That עלימו can be used pathetically for עליו is unmistakeably clear from Job 22:2, comp. Job 27:23, and on Psa 11:7; the morally indignant speech which threatens punishment, intentionally seeks after rare solemn words and darksome tones. Therefore: Upon his flesh, which has been nourished in unsympathizing greediness, God rains down, i.e., rain of fire, which scorches it. This is the hidden background of the lot of punishment, the active principle of which, though it be effected by human agency, is the punitive power of the fire of divine wrath. Job 20:24 describe, by illustration, how it is worked out. The evil-doer flees from a hostile superior power, is hit in the back by the enemy's arrows; and since he, one who is overthrown, seeks to get free from them, he is made to feel the terrors of inevitably approaching death.
Job 20:24
The two futt. may be arranged as in a conditional clause, like Psa 91:7, comp. Amo 9:2-4; and this is, as it seems, the mutual relation of the two expressions designed by the poet (similar to Isa 24:18): if he flee from the weapons of iron, i.e., the deadly weapon in the thick of the fight, he succumbs to that which is destructive by and by: the bow of brass (נחוּשׁה poet. for נחשׁת, as Psa 18:35, although it might also be an adj., since eth, as the Arab. qaws shows, is really a feminine termination) will pierce him through (fut. Kal of חלף, Arab. chlf, to press further and further, press after, here as in Jdg 5:26). The flight of the disheartened is a punishment which is completed by his being hit while fleeing by the arrow which the brazen bow sends with swift power after him. In Job 20:25 the Targ. reads מגּוהּ with He mappic., and translates: he (the enemy, or God) draws (stringit), and it (the sword) comes out of its sheath, which is to be rejected because גּו cannot signify vagina. Kimchi and most Jewish expositors interpret מגּוה by מגּוּף; the lxx also translates it σῶμα. To understand it according to גּו (back), of the hinder part of the body, gives no suitable sense, since the evil-doer is imagined as hit in the back, the arrow consequently passing out at the front;
(Note: Thus sings the warrior Cana'an Tjr (died about 1815) after the loss of his wife: -
"My grief for her is the brief of him whose horse is dashed in pieces in the desert.
The way is wild, and there is no help from the travellers who have hurried on before.
My groaning is like the groaning of one who, mortally wounded between the shoulders,
Will flee, and trails after him the lance that is fastened in him."
- Wetzst.)
whereas the signification body is suitable, and is also made sufficiently certain by the cognate form גּויּה. The verb שׁלף, however, is used as in Jdg 3:22 : he who is hit drawn the arrow out, then it comes out of his body, into which it is driven deep; and the glance, i.e., the metal head of the arrow (like להב, Jdg 3:22, the point in distinction from the shaft), out of his gall (מררה = מררה, Job 16:13, so called from its bitterness, as χολή, χόλος, comp. χλόος, χλωρός, from the green-yellow colour), since, as the Syriac version freely translates, his gall-bladder is burst.
(Note: Abulwalid (in Kimchi) understands the red gall, i.e., the gall-bladder, by מרורה, after the Arabic marâre. If this is pierced, its contents are emptied into the lower part of the body, and the man dies.)
Is יהלך, as a parallel word to ויּצא, to be connected with ממררתו, or with what follows? The accentuation varies. The ordinary interpunction is וברק with Dech, ממררתו Mercha, or more correctly Mercha-Zinnorith, יהלך Rebia mugrasch (according to which, Ew., Umbr., Vaih., Welte, Hahn, Schlottm., and Olsh. divide); ממררתו is, however, also found with Athnach. Although the latter mode of accentuation is only feebly supported, we nevertheless consider it as the more correct, for עליו אמים, in the mind of the poet, can hardly have formed a line of the verse. If, however, יהלך עליו אמים is now taken together, it is a matter for inquiry whether it is to be explained: he passes away, since terrors come upon him (Schult., Rosenm., Hirz., Von Gerl., Carey), or: terrors come upon him (lxx, Targ., Syr., Jer., Ramban). We consider the latter as the only correct interpretation; for if יהלך ought to be understood after Job 14:20; Job 16:22, the poet would have expressed himself ambiguously, since it is at least as natural to consider אמים as the subject of יהלך, as to take עליו אמים as an adverbial clause. The former, however, is both natural according to the syntax (vid., Ges. 147, a) and suitable in matter: terrors (i.e., of certain death to him in a short time) draw on upon him, and accordingly we decide in its favour.