Job 20-21: You let the devil poison you

Zophar’s second speech

Job 20:

• 20:1-3 Enough! That you censure us (v3a) is such an intolerable insubordination that it calls for holy anger (lit. hastening,  v2). I cannot go into the details of my deep reflections about it (v2), but here is the conclusion of how the Holy Spirit inspired my understanding as to how I should respond to the likes of you (v3b):
• 20:4-7 Don’t you understand even the first of all principles that the loud rejoicing of the wicked and the gladness of hypocrites like yourself are a false sureness? Though your stature and intellect may tower to the sky, you will (lit.) ‘perish eternally like your feces’. Zophar’s metaphor is one of an afterlife in unceasing fire: Dried refuse was burned to dispose of it (1Kgs 14:10) or, in times of dire need, burned as fuel (Ez 4:12, 15).
• 20:8-11 Like a bad dream you will be gone and forgotten. Your children will become beggars and your vigor dies with you.
• 20:12-15 Thanks to my inspiration (vv1-2), I see that no matter how hard you try to conceal it with words, you are bitter because you are poisened by Satan, and God uses it to judge you.
• 20:16-19 For one like you, there is no hope of salvation. You had faith but without works: You made no effort towards true spirituality marked by charity.
• 20:20-29 You had your share in this world and did not gather treasure in heaven. So now you reap from God what you deserve: Distress, misery, anger, terror, shame, excommunication and dispossession.

Job’s reply: What you call God’s ‘justice’ is nothing but injustice

• 21:1-2 At least hear me out first if you want to offer me your comfort. You can still mock me after I finished my sentence.
  • 3-18: And no, the contrary is true: In this world, the wicked thrive.
  • 16: And no, I reject their counsel to rely on myself and on my own resources.
• 21:19 Your theology tries to vindicate God as righteous by claiming that his retribution does not exempt even the children of a transgressor.
  • 20 But what justice is that? And what do the wicked even care about the fate of their descendants?
  • I say let judgment fall on the perpetrators themselves, or else God would be unjust.
• 21:21-33 But in this life, the wicked thrive, which is why the whole world follows their example. 
• 21:34 Your theology cannot comfort anyone, because it is just plain wrong.