Job 21King James Version
Job answers with a painful observation: the wicked often prosper. They live, become old, and are mighty in power. Their houses are safe from fear. They die in peace. This is the opposite of what his friends keep claiming. Why do ye then comfort me in vain?
Job responds to Zophar and it is devastating. He asks the friends to listen carefully, then dismantles their entire system with observation: the wicked prosper. Their houses are safe, their cattle breed, their children dance, they die in peace without suffering. They told God to depart from them and had no calamity. Sometimes the wicked die young, sometimes they die old and full of wealth. The friends' system of retributive justice does not match reality.
Job destroys the friends' theology with empirical observation. The wicked do not always suffer. The righteous do not always prosper. This is visible to anyone who has looked at the world honestly.
23: "One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet." Job is making a descriptive argument: look at the world as it actually is. The friends' system works only if you selectively ignore everything that contradicts it.
Job's examples of prosperous wicked men would have been recognizable to his ancient audience: wealthy men who built fine houses, whose livestock multiplied, whose children grew up and celebrated. These were not hypothetical scenarios. Ancient Near Eastern cities had their share of powerful, ruthless people who died comfortably in old age.
Job speaks in what is his most philosophically grounded response. He addresses the friends as an audience to be instructed, not comforted. He uses the wicked man as a rhetorical example the way the friends have used the righteous man.
Chapter 21 is Job's counter-theology at its most rigorous. He is not arguing that God does not exist or that justice never comes. He is arguing that the simple retribution model, suffering equals sin, prosperity equals righteousness, does not hold up as a description of the world. This argument is still being made in theodicy discussions today.
For when you have watched unscrupulous people flourish and righteous people collapse. Job is not surprised by this observation. He is using it to refuse the accusation that his suffering proves his guilt.
1But Job answered and said,
2Hear diligently my speech, and let this be your consolations.
3Suffer me that I may speak; and after that I have spoken, mock on.
4As for me, is my complaint to man? and if it were so, why should not my spirit be troubled?
5Mark me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth.
6Even when I remember I am afraid, and trembling taketh hold on my flesh.
7Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, yea, are mighty in power?
8Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
9Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them.
10Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf.
11They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance.
12They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ.
13They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
14Therefore they say unto God, Depart from us; for we desire not the knowledge of thy ways.
15What is the Almighty, that we should serve him? and what profit should we have, if we pray unto him?
16Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.
17How oft is the candle of the wicked put out! and how oft cometh their destruction upon them! God distributeth sorrows in his anger.
18They are as stubble before the wind, and as chaff that the storm carrieth away.
19God layeth up his iniquity for his children: he rewardeth him, and he shall know it.
20His eyes shall see his destruction, and he shall drink of the wrath of the Almighty.
21For what pleasure hath he in his house after him, when the number of his months is cut off in the midst?
22Shall any teach God knowledge? seeing he judgeth those that are high.
23One dieth in his full strength, being wholly at ease and quiet.
24His breasts are full of milk, and his bones are moistened with marrow.
25And another dieth in the bitterness of his soul, and never eateth with pleasure.
26They shall lie down alike in the dust, and the worms shall cover them.
27Behold, I know your thoughts, and the devices which ye wrongfully imagine against me.
28For ye say, Where is the house of the prince? and where are the dwelling places of the wicked?
29Have ye not asked them that go by the way? and do ye not know their tokens,
30That the wicked is reserved to the day of destruction? they shall be brought forth to the day of wrath.
31Who shall declare his way to his face? and who shall repay him what he hath done?
32Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb.
33The clods of the valley shall be sweet unto him, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him.
34How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood?