Job 20 Bible study: Sweet in his mouth

Every word of this chapter after its first verse is Zophar's: "Then Zophar the Naamathite answered" (20:1). By the book's headings Zophar speaks twice, in chapter 11 (11:1) and here. He begins with himself: "Therefore my thoughts answer me, even by reason of my haste that is in me" (20:2), and "I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me" (20:3). He doesn't say whose reproof he means; the speech just before his is Job's, which ended, "be afraid of the sword, for wrath brings the punishments of the sword, that you may know there is a judgment" (19:29). Then he asks Job, "Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth, that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment?" (20:4-5) (tap triumphing, godless, moment). From there to the end he speaks of "the wicked" and of "he", and doesn't name Job. Keep in mind whose words these are. At the end of the book the LORD says to Eliphaz, "My wrath is kindled against you, and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me the thing that is right, as my servant Job has" (42:7), and Zophar is named among those who then "did what the LORD commanded them" (42:9). The book doesn't say which of Zophar's words the LORD has in view. So these notes don't make Zophar's picture of the wicked the book's own teaching, and they don't set all of it aside either: the honest questions below show where other Scripture says something like it, and where it says something else.

Job 20:5→leads toLuke 6:24-25

Zophar says, "the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment" (20:5), and of the wicked man, "In the fullness of his sufficiency, distress will overtake him" (20:22). These are Zophar's words (20:1), and these notes don't treat them as the book's own teaching. Jesus said, "But woe to you who are rich! For you have received your consolation" (Luke 6:24), and "Woe to you, you who are full now, for you will be hungry. Woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep" (Luke 6:25). Luke doesn't name Job or Zophar, so setting the two side by side is a reading. It rests on a shared subject, fullness and gladness now that don't last, and not on a shared word. Some hear that subject in both: Zophar speaks of joy that is "but for a moment" (20:5), and Jesus of those who laugh now and "will mourn and weep" (Luke 6:25). Others read each in its own setting: Jesus "lifted up his eyes to his disciples" (Luke 6:20), his woes follow his blessings on the poor, the hungry and those who weep (Luke 6:20-21), and the word wicked isn't in them; Zophar speaks of "a wicked man" (20:29), and in his next speech Job says, "Why do the wicked live, become old, yes, and grow mighty in power?" (21:7). Neither reading makes Jesus' words a verdict on Job, or says Zophar was right about him.

חֵלֶקcheleqsay KHE-lek

Brown-Driver-Briggs: "portion, tract, territory", and among its senses "portion, award, from God". Strong's: "an allotment". Zophar ends, "This is the portion of a wicked man from God, the heritage appointed to him by God" (20:29). In the Hebrew of Job portion and heritage stand together three times: here; in "This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors" (27:13), in the speech headed "Job again took up his parable, and said" (27:1); and in Job's own question, "For what is the portion from God above, and the heritage from the Almighty on high?" (31:2).