Job 20:1

20:1-9 Zophar's discourse is upon the certain misery of the wicked. The triumph of the wicked and the joy of the hypocrite are fleeting. The pleasures and gains of sin bring disease and pain; they end in remorse, anguish, and ruin. Dissembled piety is double iniquity, and the ruin that attends it will be accordingly.

Then answered Zophar the Naamathite,.... Notwithstanding the sad distressed condition Job was in, an account of which is given in the preceding chapter, enough to pierce a heart of stone, notwithstanding his earnest request to his friends to have pity on him, and notwithstanding the noble confession of his faith he had made, which showed him to be a good man, and the excellent advice he gave his friends to cease persecuting him, for their own good, as well as for his peace; yet, regardless of these things, Zophar starts up and makes a reply, and attacks him with as much heat and passion, wrath and anger, as ever, harping upon the same string, and still representing Job as a wicked man and an hypocrite; and said, as follows.

Job 20:1 . Then answered Zophar — Here Zophar, although he had nothing new to advance, hastily interrupts Job, being extremely provoked by his threatening them with the judgments of God, and in his speech appears to be hurried by his passion beyond all bounds. He tells him it is in vain to tax their suspicions with unkindness; for it was of public notoriety, agreeable to the universal experience of mankind, ever since the creation, that suffering was the portion of the wicked. He then, under colour of describing the wicked man, and his destiny, charges Job with the most enormous crimes, and marks him out as a person in whom God had given an example of the justice of his providence; and concludes with a plain intimation, that he was thoroughly persuaded that Job was that very wicked man, that oppressor of the poor, which they had from the beginning suspected him to be.

Verses 1-29. - Zophar's second speech is even more harsh than his first (ch. 11.). He adds coarseness and rudeness to his former vehement hostility (vers. 7, 15). His whole discourse is a covert denunciation of Job as a wicked man and a hypocrite (vers. 5, 12, 19, 29), deservedly punished by God for a life of crime. He ends by prophesying Job's violent death, the destruction of his house, and the rising up of heaven and earth in witness against him (vers. 24-28). Verses 1, 2. - Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said, Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer . Zophar "has heard the check of his reproach" (ver. 3), i.e. the reproach contained in the last words of Job in the preceding chapter. Therefore his thoughts rise up within him, and com-psi him to make a reply. He cannot allow Job to shift the onus of guilt and the menace of punishment on his friends, when it is he, Job, that is the guilty person, over whom the judgments of God impend. And for this I make haste ; rather, and because of my haste that is within me (see the Revised Version); i.e. "because I am of a hasty and impetuous temperament." Job 20:1

Be ye afraid of the sword - Of the sword of justice, of the wrath of God. In taking such views, and using such language, you ought to dread the vengeance of God, for he will punish the guilty. For wrath bringeth the punishments of the sword - The word "bringeth" is supplied by the translators, and as it seems to me improperly. The idea is, that wrath or anger such as they had manifested, was proper for punishment; that such malice as they had shown was a crime that God would not suffer to escape unpunished. They had, therefore, everything to dread. Literally, it is, "for wrath the iniquities of the sword;" that is, wrath is a crime for the sword. That ye may know that there is a judgment - That there is justice; that God punishes injuries done to the character, and that he will come forth to vindicate his friends. Probably Job anticipated that when God should come forth to vindicate "him," he would inflict exemplary punishment on "them;" and that this would be not only by words, but by some heavy judgment, such as he had himself experienced. The vindication of the just is commonly attended with the punishment of the unjust; the salvation of the friends of God is connected with the destruction of his foes. Job seems to have anticipated this in the case of himself and his friends; it will certainly occur in the great day when the affairs of this world shall be wound up in the decisions of the final judgment. See Matthew 25.

1 Then began Zophar the Naamathite, and said: 2 Therefore do my thoughts furnish me with a reply, And indeed by reason of my feeling within me. 3 The correction of my reproach I must hear, Nevertheless the spirit of my understanding informeth me. 4 Knowest thou this which is from everlasting, Since man was placed upon the earth: 5 That the triumphing of the evil-doer is not long, And the joy of the godless is but for a moment? All modern expositors take Job 20:2 as an apology for the opposition which follows, and the majority of them consider בּעבוּר as elliptical for בעבור זאת, as Tremell., Piscator, and others have done, partly (but wrongly) by referring to the Rebia mugrasch. Ewald observes: "בעבור stands without addition, because this is easily understood from the כן in לכן." But although this ellipsis is not inadmissible (comp. לכן equals לכן אשׁר, Job 34:25; כעל, Isaiah 59:18), in spite of it Job 20:2 furnishes no meaning that can be accepted. Most expositors translate: "and hence the storm within me" (thus e.g., Ewald); but the signification perturbatio animi, proposed by Schultens for חוּשׁי, after the Arab. ḥâš, is too remote from the usage of Hebrew. Moreover, this Arab. ḥâš signifies prop. to scare, hunt, of game; not, however: to be agitated, to storm, - a signification which even the corresponding Hebr. חוּשׁ, properare, does not support.

Only a few expositors (as Umbreit, who translates: because of my storm within me) take בעבור (which occurs only this once in the book of Job) as praepos., as it must be taken in consideration of the infin. which follows (comp. Exodus 9:16; Exodus 20:20; 1 Samuel 1:6; 2 Samuel 10:3). Further, לכן (only by Umbreit translated by "yet," after the Arab. lâkin, lâkinna, which it never signifies in Hebr., where ל is not equals לא, but equals ל with Kametz before the tone) with that which follows is referred by several expositors to the preceding speech of Job, e.g., Hahn: "under such circumstances, if thou behavest thus;" by most, however, it is referred to Job 20:3, e.g., Ew.: "On this account he feels called upon by his thoughts to answer, and hence his inward impulse leaves him no rest: because he hears from Job a contemptuous wounding reproof of himself." In other words: in consequence of the reproach which Job casts upon him, especially with his threat of judgment, Zophar's mind and feelings fall into a state of excitement, and give him an answer to which he now gives utterance. This prospective sense of לכן may at any rate be retained, though בעבור is taken as a preposition (wherefore ... and indeed on account of my inward commotion); but it is far more natural that the beginning of Zophar's speech should be connected with the last word of Job's.