Doug Van Meter - 4 September 2022
Don’t Miss the Point (Job 20:1–21:34)
Scripture References: Job 21:1-34, Job 20:1-29
From Series: "Job Exposition"
A devotional exposition of the book of Job by Doug Van Meter.
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Writing to afflicted and oppressed believers in the early church, James seeks to encourage them to persevere by old covenant examples and by reminding them of God’s goodness. He writes, “Behold, we consider those blessed who remained steadfast. You have heard of the steadfastness of Job, and you have seen the purpose of the Lord, how the Lord is compassionate and merciful” (James 5:11). Some translations speak of “the patience of Job.”
People have asked me how this aligns with the record of Job as we have it in the chapters before us. After all, in 21:4 Job says, “Why should I not be impatient?” Some commentators go so far as to deny the factuality of James’s encouragement, concluding that he was simply repeating a common misrepresentation of Job in which he was made out to be a hero. I prefer to submit to the inspired word of God and let the text speak for itself. I maintain that Job putting up with his friends indicates his patience. More to the point, that Job kept turning to God indicates his faithful, though painful, perseverance. Longman says it well: “Even though he complains about God, he never gives up on God; he keeps going after him.”
Job persevered because he longed to be right with God. This is the point behind his perseverance. His loss of prosperity was not his biggest concern; his sense of losing the Lord was the issue. His friends completely missed this point and therefore their counsel was “empty nothings” (21:34).
Though these chapters and our studies may seem redundant, I assure you that they are relevant and important. I trust that we will learn more about a right approach to suffering believers as well as being equipped for our own perseverance amid sometimes inexplicable troubles. We will consider chapters 20–21 under the following headings:
1. Zophar’s Final Speech (20:1–29)
a. Zophar Agitated (vv. 1–3)
b. Zophar Adamant (vv. 4–29)
2. Job’s Frustrated Speech (21:1–34)
a. Job Annoyed (vv. 1–3)
b. Job Appalled (vv. 4–26)
c. Job Agitated (vv. 27–34)
Zophar’s Final Speech
Zophar’s final speech is found in chapter 20. We might summarise the chapter as “Saints in the Hands of an Angry Counsellor.”
Mercifully, this is the last time Zophar will speak. I say “mercifully” because Zophar is not only irresponsible with his handling of truth but, in his hellfire-and-brimstone sermon, he merely “adds the heat of hostility but not the light of understanding to the debate” (McKenna). Further, neither does he offer a call to repentance and therefore no prospect of hope. He merely condemns leaving Job alone in his need. As Alden concludes, this is “the last he will speak in the book of Job. We will not miss him.”
Zophar Agitated
The opening verses clearly reveal Job’s agitation: “Then Zophar the Naamathite answered and said: ‘Therefore my thoughts answer me, because of my haste within me. I hear censure that insults me, and out of my understanding a spirit answers me’” (Job 20:1–3).
“Frenzy drives Zophar back into the fray” (McKenna). Zophar has been stirred up by Job’s criticism and by his implication that Zophar and his friends stand under God’s judgement (19:28–29). Truth is difficult for the self-righteous to bear. Though responding in haste is often unwise (Proverbs 19:2; Isaiah 28:16), nevertheless Zophar jumps in where angels fear to tread. And, as is often the case with the self-righteous, Zophar claims that his response is “spiritual” (v. 3). Beware of those who heartlessly throw around chapter-and-verse, claiming to be doing God’s work. As the rest of the chapter reveals, Zophar knows a lot of truth (nothing he says is biblically wrong) yet he misapplies it. Irresponsible wielding a two-edged sword is dangerous.
By way of application brothers and sisters, we must guard our motive as much as our message. Zophar misses the point of his own sermon. Job doesn’t fit the description of the wicked.
Zophar Adamant
In vv. 4–29, Zophar condemns the wicked, offering no hope of repentance. As Anderson explains, “Zophar has no compassion, and his god has no mercy.” Zophar’s sermon has three main points concerning the wicked—like of Job.
Their Fame is Fleeting
First, Zophar opines that the wicked’s fame is fleeting.
Do you not know this from of old, since man was placed on earth, that the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment? Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, he will perish forever like his own dung; those who have seen him will say, “Where is he?” He will fly away like a dream and not be found; he will be chased away like a vision of the night. The eye that saw him will see him no more, nor will his place any more behold him. His children will seek the favour of the poor, and his hands will give back his wealth. His bones are full of his youthful vigour, but it will lie down with him in the dust.
(Job 20:4–11)
Zophar adds nothing new, insightful, or helpful to the situation. He simply regurgitates the system of retributive justice, questioning whether Job has ever paid attention to the long history of God punishing the wicked, both in life and in death. He claims that it has been this way ever since the creation of man (v. 4). Evidently, he paid no attention to the material and cultural prosperity of murderous Cain (Genesis 4).
Regarding the wicked, Zophar adamantly declares “their happiness is short-lived; their wrongdoing is self-destructive” (vv. 5–9) and, in fact, their lives ultimately are as significant as bodily waste (v. 7). Their lives go down the sewer.
The wicked will leave their children as beggars paying for the sin of their fathers. Meanwhile, the wicked will decay to dust.
Their Folly is Futile
Second, Zophar argues that the wicked’s folly is futile.
Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue, though he is loath to let it go and holds it in his mouth, yet his food is turned in his stomach; it is the venom of cobras within him. He swallows down riches and vomits them up again; God casts them out of his belly. He will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him. He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds. He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment. For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build.
(Job 20:12–19)
Zophar pulls no punches asserting that Job is among the evil (v. 12) and that he has “crushed and abandoned the poor,” having “seized a house he did not build” (v. 19). Job, in other words, is a real skelm. Therefore, Job is merely reaping the bitter, poisoned consequences of his sinful behaviour (vv. 14–16). In other words, even though he has tried to hide his evil from others, including the Lord (v. 13), he is now being exposed by God’s judgement. Job is being forced to “give back the fruit of his [evil] toil” (v. 18). God’s judgement is merely catching up to Job’s wicked deeds. What he sinfully chewed on in private is being spewed out in public. Zophar is saying, “Job, be sure that your sin has found you out.”
Though there is biblical warrant for what Zophar says, the reader is aware that Job is innocent and therefore we cringe at this verbal condemnation. Zophar did not have all the facts and so truthful words were not spoken in love. Beware of jumping to conclusions.
Their Fullness is Fuel
There are two main ideas in vv. 20–29: greedy wealth and God’s wrath:
Because he knew no contentment in his belly, he will not let anything in which he delights escape him. There was nothing left after he had eaten; therefore his prosperity will not endure. In the fullness of his sufficiency he will be in distress; the hand of everyone in misery will come against him. To fill his belly to the full, God will send his burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body. He will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike him through. It is drawn forth and comes out of his body; the glittering point comes out of his gallbladder; terrors come upon him. Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures; a fire not fanned will devour him; what is left in his tent will be consumed. The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him. The possessions of his house will be carried away, dragged off in the day of God’s wrath. This is the wicked man’s portion from God, the heritage decreed for him by God.
(Job 20:20–29)
The wicked are self-indulgent and never satisfied. They abuse others, hording for themselves. But justice will come upon them. They will forfeit all they have under the burning anger of God (vv. 20–23). When the wicked attempt to escape from God’s inevitable judgement, they will find it impossible. If they seek external escape (v. 24), God will send an internal sword upon them (v. 25). God’s fiery wrath will pursue the wicked regardless of where they try to hide (vv. 23, 26). And, in the end, since there is nowhere to hid, all the fortunes and former fullness of the wicked will be taken from them by those whom they mistreated on the earth. God will see to it (vv. 27–28). God will see to it that the fortunes and present fullness of the wicked will prove to be nothing but fuel for the fire of God’s wrath. This, according to Zophar, is the why and the what of Job’s affliction. And everybody, apparently, knows this to be true (vv. 4–5, 29). Everybody, of course, except Job and the reader.
I was reminded recently of Jonathan Edwards, while he preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God.” It is said that his listeners trembled, some to the point that their knuckles turned white clinging to their pews, fearful of falling into hell. Such is the case when those with a guilty conscience realise their predicament before holy God. But, as we will now see, this was not Job’s response. Though all Zophar said was true—and Job knew it to be true—he also knew that he was not guilty. His frustration was because he would not succumb to false guilt. Yet neither did he understand what God was doing.
I share this to instruct us to be careful of not assuming guilt when dealing with the afflicted. If they are not guilty, then don’t condemn but rather carefully and caringly help them.
Summary: Zophar the Materialist
Zohar gives no offer of repentance, no hope of repentance, and no consideration of Job’s need: resting in right relationship with God. He has no theological category for righteous suffering or God’s inscrutable wisdom, or for thinking the best of those undergoing affliction.
When counselling the afflicted, what is your point? The afflicted righteous need and desire God. Don’t be guilty of missing out on their greatest need amid your pat answers.
Job’s Frustrated Speech
Job’s response in chapter 21 reveals what seems to be an increasing frustration with his friends, as well as frustration with the no-response he is receiving from God.
Job Annoyed
Job is clearly annoyed with what he has heard, and sarcastically tells his counsellors to endure his rebuttal comforting themselves with the thought that when he’s finished, they can return to talking nonsense: “Then Job answered and said: ‘Keep listening to my words, and let this be your comfort. Bear with me, and I will speak, and after I have spoken, mock on’” (Job 21:1–3). In other words, Job doesn’t expect them to listen to him, to take him seriously any more than they have up to this point.
One of the most discouraging experiences is to bare your heart to someone who is more concerned with issuing answers than truly listening. Suffering people don’t always want us to fix their problem. When involved in the lives of people afflicted, truly listen. Work hard at it. God gave us twice the number of appendages to listen than to speak.
Job Appalled
Job pleads, in vv. 4–26, for his friends to look at him. This is significant for, as McKenna observes, “The language of the lips is always more violent when the eyes of the adversaries do not meet.” Job wants to move the conversation beyond the mere and simplistic theoretical. He desires them to take him and his situation seriously. As they look at him, perhaps they will be as appalled as he is that an innocent man is undergoing such suffering.
Jobs’ Impatience
In vv. 4–6, Job explains that his friends seem to be making this personal when in fact Job’s biggest complaint is against God, not man: “As for me, is my complaint against man? Why should I not be impatient? Look at me and be appalled, and lay your hand over your mouth. When I remember, I am dismayed, and shuddering seizes my flesh” (vv. 4–6).
He is frustrated by God’s silence. It made no sense for an innocent to suffer at the hands of God like Job was suffering. Yes, the wicked deserve suffering (chapter 20), but Job is persuaded of his innocence, as his friends should be. He is notwicked and therefore, in keeping with their system, he should not be suffering like as he is.
Job’s Insight
Job expresses a degree of insight in vv. 7–26. It is possible that his “shuddering” (v. 6) is the result of the experiential insight he now shares. He pushes back on Zophar’s supposed irrefutable theology of retribution. He makes a valid (if, at times, overstated) observation that the wicked prosper both in life and in death. This unsettles him. No wonder he is impatient for the matter to be resolved, or, at the least, explained.
He begins with a painful realisation in vv. 7–16:
Why do the wicked live, reach old age, and grow mighty in power? Their offspring are established in their presence, and their descendants before their eyes. Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them. Their bull breeds without fail; their cow calves and does not miscarry. They send out their little boys like a flock, and their children dance. They sing to the tambourine and the lyre and rejoice to the sound of the pipe. They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol. They say to God, “Depart from us! We do not desire the knowledge of your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? And what profit do we get if we pray to him?” Behold, is not their prosperity in their hand? The counsel of the wicked is far from me.
(Job 21:7–16)
His painful realisation is that the wicked not only prosper, but their children also share in this peaceful prosperity (vv. 7–12). Considering that Job, a righteous man, had lost all this prosperity, and his children (chapters 1–2), this must have been a very excruciating insight.
He adds the biting reality that the wicked and their offspring prosper even as they show contempt to God. He is not in their thoughts, and yet it seems that they are positively in God’s thoughts. How fair is that? His statement that “the counsel of the wicked is far from me” may be his way of saying, “I just don’t get it!”
His painful realisation is followed, in vv. 17–26, with a painful refutation.
How often is it that the lamp of the wicked is put out? That their calamity comes upon them? That God distributes pains in his anger? That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away? You say, “God stores up their iniquity for their children.” Let him pay it out to them, that they may know it. Let their own eyes see their destruction, and let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty. For what do they care for their houses after them, when the number of their months is cut off? Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those who are on high? One dies in his full vigour, being wholly at ease and secure, his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
(Job 21:17–26)
Job does not buy the argument that only the wicked suffer in this life. As for the argument that their children will suffer in their place, well, that neither makes sense nor does it bring any comfort. Job is dangerously close to irreverence, but his pain does cause him to question, “Where’s the justice?” Yet, from what he says next, he seems to veer back to a reverent attitude.
With the words, “Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those on high” (22) Job seems to imply that this is precisely what the friends have sought to do. That is, their theological system is not a defence of God but rather it is a defamation of God. Job says, “Your system is simplistic, erroneous, and arrogant. Life and death don’t always make sense. There is no divine law of equity concerning how people die; only that they will die. And as for that, the worms can’t tell the difference between those who die in prosperity or those who die in poverty.”
Job Agitated
Job’s speech comes to a biting end in vv. 27–34. He is as agitated as Zophar.
Behold, I know your thoughts and your schemes to wrong me. For you say, “Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?” Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony that the evil man is spared in the day of calamity, that he is rescued in the day of wrath? Who declares his way to his face, and who repays him for what he has done? When he is carried to the grave, watch is kept over his tomb. The clods of the valley are sweet to him; all mankind follows after him, and those who go before him are innumerable. How then will you comfort me with empty nothings? There is nothing left of your answers but falsehood.
(Job 21:27–34)
Job is well aware that, despite his appeal, his friends have not listened to him. He knows that, while he has been speaking, they merely have been waiting to pounce with refutations. He assumes they will challenge him with proof that either the “house” or “tent” of the wicked prospers (vv. 27–28).
Perhaps his friends are too parochial and therefore they don’t know the well-established reports of the well-travelled. What Job declares is true for all the world to see (vv. 29–30). As for their argument that all the wicked die in infamy, this is utter nonsense to Job, borne out by simple observation. After all, Job has viewed many burials where the wicked were honoured by being “gently lowered into expensive graves” (The Message). History is filled with such examples.
Job is satisfied he has answered their “empty nothings” and “falsehoods.” Their attempts to console have done nothing but to callously condemn him. Small wonder Zophar will remain silent.
Unless we realise that the greatest need of the afflicted is to know God, then we are not qualified to counsel them. Christian, be careful to whom you turn for counsel.
We also need to beware of empty platitudes, such as, “I don’t know how people make it without the Lord.” Job knew that many do! At least until they die.
Beware of a Christianity that emphasises strength for trials rather than the privilege of being right with God. Beware of a consumer approach to the gospel. Rather, follow the example of Jesus Christ (Hebrews 12:1–2). People need the Lord. They don’t need deliverance from affliction. At least not yet.
Conclusion
This is the patience called for by James. Believers are called to persevere amid the pain of life. We are to persevere, fed by God’s self-revelation rather than the caricatures of God painted by our circumstances.
This patience was ultimately revealed by the Lord Jesus Christ, who experienced the calloused and cruel aspersions of the ungodly and yet he continued to trust in the one who did bring judgement upon him.
AMEN