Job 20King James Version
Zophar, second round, and last. A full chapter on the downfall of the wicked. The joy of the hypocrite is but for a moment. He swallowed down riches and he shall vomit them up again. Aimed squarely at Job.
Zophar speaks for the second time, responding to Job's redeemer speech. He says his spirit urges him to answer. The triumph of the wicked is short: their joy is brief, they swallow riches but vomit them up, they will not see rivers and streams of honey. God will fill their belly with the fire of his anger. What they accumulate will be taken. This is the second time Zophar uses the prosperity of the wicked to argue backward into Job's condition.
Zophar has heard Job's declaration of a living redeemer and responded by describing the wicked in more vivid detail, apparently unable to engage Job's actual claim.
5: "That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment." Zophar's argument requires Job to have been a hypocrite whose joy was temporary. The evidence for this, in Zophar's system, is the suffering itself.
The image of wealth swallowed and vomited was a physical enough metaphor for a culture where food security meant everything. To eat richly and then lose it all was visible in seasons of feast followed by famine. Zophar describes the cycle as moral judgment. In Job's world, the market for that explanation was very large.
Zophar speaks in his second and final address (he will not speak again in the third cycle). His tone is urgent and his imagery vivid: wealth eaten and vomited, sweetness turning to gall, fire in the belly.
Zophar's speech is almost entirely occupied with the downfall of the wicked. He is not engaging Job's theology; he is re-running his system louder. This is what happens in argument when someone is not actually listening: they repeat their position with more detail and stronger language, hoping volume will do what reason cannot.
Job has just said his redeemer lives. Zophar has not heard it. He responds with a catalog of the wicked man's doom. There is something almost comic in the disconnect, but for Job, who is the subject of the catalog, it is not comic at all.
1Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,
2Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer, and for this I make haste.
3I have heard the check of my reproach, and the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.
4Knowest thou not this of old, since man was placed upon earth,
5That the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
6Though his excellency mount up to the heavens, and his head reach unto the clouds;
7Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung: they which have seen him shall say, Where is he?
8He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found: yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.
9The eye also which saw him shall see him no more; neither shall his place any more behold him.
10His children shall seek to please the poor, and his hands shall restore their goods.
11His bones are full of the sin of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust.
12Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue;
13Though he spare it, and forsake it not; but keep it still within his mouth:
14Yet his meat in his bowels is turned, it is the gall of asps within him.
15He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again: God shall cast them out of his belly.
16He shall suck the poison of asps: the viper's tongue shall slay him.
17He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.
18That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.
19Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor; because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not;
20Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly, he shall not save of that which he desired.
21There shall none of his meat be left; therefore shall no man look for his goods.
22In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits: every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.
23When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall rain it upon him while he is eating.
24He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.
25It is drawn, and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall: terrors are upon him.
26All darkness shall be hid in his secret places: a fire not blown shall consume him; it shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.
27The heaven shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him.
28The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.
29This is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God.