The Chosen Key Word in this Chapter is “Sin” it comes from the Hebrew Word “avon” which means “sin, iniquity.”
Zophar responds with his own vivid, unsettling picture of the wicked man’s fleeting triumph. Welcome to Bible Life Basics Chapter Reviews, I am Chris and this is Job 20.
Zophar responds, admitting his thoughts cause him to answer because of the haste within him, having heard the check of his reproach, and the spirit of his understanding causing him to answer, knowing this of old, since man was placed upon earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment, though his excellency mounts up to the heavens and his head reaches unto the clouds, yet he shall perish forever like his own dung, and those who have seen him will ask where he is. Zophar describes this wicked man fleeing away as a dream and not being found, chased away as a vision of the night, the eye that saw him also seeing him no more, his place beholding him no more, his children seeking to please the poor, and his hands restoring their goods, describing how his bones were full of the “sin,” “avon” in Hebrew, of his youth, which shall lie down with him in the dust, though wickedness was sweet in his mouth and he hid it under his tongue, spared it and forsook it not, but kept it still within his mouth, yet his food in his bowels turns and becomes the gall of asps within him. Zophar continues at length, describing how this wicked man has swallowed down riches only to vomit them up again, God casting them out of his belly, sucking the poison of asps, the viper’s tongue slaying him, never seeing the rivers of honey and butter he desired, restoring his labor without swallowing it down, since he has oppressed and forsaken the poor, violently taken away a house he did not build, though there was no quietness in his belly, none of what he desired escaping, nothing left of his food, concluding that this is the portion of a wicked man from God, and the heritage appointed unto him by God, an elaborate portrait once again clearly, if indirectly, aimed at Job himself.
Zophar’s vivid description of the wicked man’s fleeting, ultimately hollow prosperity, however poetically striking, continues the friends’ fundamental error of assuming a rigid, mechanical connection between behavior and immediate consequence. This chapter’s memorable imagery cannot compensate for its faulty premise, reminding readers that even beautifully crafted arguments remain unhelpful and even harmful when built on a fundamentally mistaken understanding of someone’s actual situation.
Visit Us At: www.youtube.com/@BibleLifeBasics
Support Us On Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cw/BibleLifeBasics