The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 334

HOMILIES BY VARIOUS AUTHORS, Vers. l-29.---:-Godless prosperity.short-lived. Here we have a new variation on the favourite theme of the friends-,-the inconstancy of godless prosperity. " The jubila- .tion of the wicked is but of short duration, and the joy of the profligate but a moment-." The wicked man· is specially here described as a rich man, who greedily snatches at othets', property, and whose ill-gotten gains become a deadly consuming fire to him and all his. It is. •related to Eliphaz's 11peech (eh. xv.) as the superlative to the posit.iv.e,-o.nd to Bildad'11 (eh. xviii.) as the superlative to the comparative. Similar remo.rk» to those, then, must here apply; and the description ill in itself true, a.pt, and striking, but its evident animus against Job is fiercely unjust. I. CENSURE OJI' :JqB: UjTRODU0TION OF. THE THEME. (Vers. 1-5.) "Therefore my thoughts reply to me, and hence comes the storm of my bosom. Must I hear correc- tion that ios1,1lts me?. But my spirit out of my understanding gives me a.n answer"- naiv.ely, of warning ,a,J:1.d chastisement to Job a.s a. godless man (vers. 1-3). Zophar then g\ves. these suggestions of his spirit in the form of a question directed to Job: "Knowest tholl .this from eternity, since man was placed on the earth, that the t~iumph of. the ,wicked endures but a. short time, and the joy of the reprobate but a moment?" . He is astonished tha.t Job, as appears from his speeches, is unacquainted i ,w.ith this well-wor.n and familiar truth _of experience (vers. 4, 5). • II. DEVELOPMENT OF THE THEME. (Vers. 6-29.) 1. "Though his glory mounts to heaven, and his head reaches to the clouds" (comp. Isa. xiv. 13, 14; Obad. 4), "like his dung he perishes for ever; they that saw him say, Where is he?" The coarsest and most contemptuoµs comparison seems to be purposely selected (ver. 7). The next is tba.t .of. the fugitive dream (ver. 8; comp. Isa. xxix. 7; Ps. lxxiii. 20; xc. 5). Dreams and visions of the night! emptiest things I appearing to be something while they last, but le11ving no trace behind when the sleeper wakes. The eye that has seen him shall see him no more; and the place where he seemed to move, a. solid person of fiesh and blood, beholds that figure no longer (ver. 9). The curse descends to his children; they are reduced to court the favour e>f humble folk, and they have to give up to their father's creditors bis ill-gotten wealtJ:i, .(ver. 10). How often, though not without exception, do we see ,this to be the. rule of life-the begg?,I"y or the wealth of children is rooted in the w.ickedness or goodness of the pa.rents (Exod. xx. 5; Ps. xxxvii. 25) ! Let him who would see his children happy beware of sin. " His bones were full of youthful strength, and with him it lies in the bed of dust" (ver. 11). 2. The incmstant prosperity of the wicked under the.figure of sweet food, but deadly poison. (Vers. 12-16.) "Though evil tastes swel;lt in his mouth, he hides it under his tongue," rolling it a.s a delicious morsel, he sparingly fosters it, and lets it not go, and keeps it back on his pa.late " (in :five synonymous phrases the idea. of the dwelling and gloating over the sweet morsel of J!in is s11t forth, vers. 12, 13); "yet his food is changed in his bowels-vipers' poison is in hill interior" (nr.14). The riches he has swallowed" God expels from his pa.unch." The drastic langµage betrays the energy and violence of Zophar's feelings (ver.15). Then, recurring to the figure of ver. 14, "the tongue of adders slays him" (Ps. cxl. 3), tho dfo.dly bite replacing in the description the deadly draught ( ver. 16; Prov. xxiii. 32). So God tµrns men's "pleasant vices" into whips and scourges for their backs(' King Lear'). 'l'h.e sweet Dead Sea fruits that tempt the taste turn to ashes on the lips. Sinful pleasure turns to pain., J;t begins wit\1 sweetness, like sugar, but afterwards bites like a serpent (Prov. xx.17; Sirll.ch x:xi. 2, et seq.) . . 3. (Vers. 17-22.) "He may not see his pleasure in brooks stre(lms, floods of honey and cream" (vcr.17). These are well-known biblical .tiiu.re11 fo~ hµ.ury and fu)ness of prosperity (Exod. iii. 8. 17). And where the clamc  848 'l'HE l30o:lt OF Jon.