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This is Job's reply to Zophar's discourse, in which he complains less of his own miseries than he had done in his former discourses (finding that his friends were not moved by his complaints to pity him in the least), and comes closer to the general question that was in dispute between him and them, Whether outward prosperity, and the continuance of it, were a mark of the true church and the true members of it, so that the ruin of a man's prosperity is sufficient to prove him a hypocrite, though no other evidence appear against him: this they asserted, but Job denied. I. His preface here is designed for the moving of their affections, that he might gain their attention (Job 21:1-6). II. His discourse is designed for the convincing of their judgments and the rectifying of their mistakes. He owns that God does sometimes hang up a wicked man as it were in chains, in terrorem - as a terror to others, by some visible remarkable judgment in this life, but denies that he always does so; nay, he maintains that commonly he does otherwise, suffering even the worst of sinners to live all their days in prosperity and to go out of the world without any visible mark of his wrath upon them. 1. He describes the great prosperity of wicked people (Job 21:7-13). 2. He shows their great impiety, in which they are hardened by their prosperity (Job 21:14-16). 3. He foretels their ruin at length, but after a long reprieve (Job 21:17-21). 4. He observes a very great variety in the ways of God's providence towards men, even towards bad men (Job 21:22-26). 5. He overthrows the ground of their severe censures of him, by showing that the destruction of the wicked is reserved for the other world, and that they often escape to the last in this world (Job 21:27, to the end), and in this Job was clearly in the right.

INTRODUCTION TO JOB 21 This chapter contains Job's reply to Zophar's preceding discourse, in which, after a preface exciting attention to what he was about to say, Job 21:1; he describes by various instances the prosperity of wicked men, even of the most impious and atheistical, and which continues with them as long as they live, contrary to what Zophar had asserted in Job 20:5, Job 21:7; as for himself, he disapproved of such wicked men as much as any, and owns that destruction comes upon them sooner or later, and on their posterity also, Job 21:16; but as God is a God of knowledge, and needs no instruction from any, and is a sovereign Being, he deals with men in different ways; some die in great ease, and peace, and prosperity, and others in bitterness and distress, but both are alike brought to the dust, Job 21:22; and whereas he was aware of their censures of him, and their objections to what he had said, he allows that the wicked are reserved to the day of destruction, which is future, and in the mean while lie in the grave, where all must follow; yet they are not repaid or rewarded in this life, that remains to be done in another world, Job 21:27; and concludes, that their consolation with respect to him was vain, and falsehood was in their answers, Job 21:34.

Mark me,.... Or "look at me" (n); not at his person, which was no lovely sight to behold, being covered with boils from head to foot, his flesh clothed with worms and clods of dust, his skin broken, yea, scarce any left; however, he was become a mere skeleton, reduced to skin and bone; but at his sorrows, and sufferings, and consider and contemplate them in their minds, and see if there was any sorrow like his, or anyone that suffered as he did, and in such pitiful circumstances; or that they would have a regard to his words, and well weigh what he had said, or was about to say, concerning his own case, or concerning the providences of God with respect to good and bad men, and especially the latter: and be astonished; at what had befallen him, at his afflictions, being an innocent man, and not chargeable with any crime for which it could be thought that these came upon him; and at the different methods of Providence towards good men and bad men, the one being afflicted, and the other in prosperous circumstances, see Job 17:8; and lay your hand upon your mouth; and be silent, since such dispensations of Providence are unsearchable, and past finding out; and, as they are not to be accounted for, are not to be spoken against: and it would have been well if Job had taken the same advice himself, and had been still, and owned and acknowledged the sovereignty of God, and not opened his mouth in the manner he had done, and cursed the of his birth, and complained of hard treatment at the hand of God perhaps his sense may be, that he would have his friends be silent, and forbear drawing the characters of men from the outward dealings of God with them. This phrase is used of silence in Job 29:9; thus Harpocrates, the god of silence with the Heathens, is always pictured with his hand to his mouth. (n) "respicite ad me", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, &c.

“And what!” he says, “is it a mortal who blames me?” that is, no mortal can blame me. I am not fighting against a man.

Ver. 4. As for me, is my dispute against man, that I should not be justly sad? 42. Whosoever in pleasing God displeases man, has no grounds for sadness. But he, who in pleasing man displeases God, or thinks that he displeases both God and man together, if sadness does not come upon him, proves a stranger to the excellency of wisdom. Now blessed Job believed that he had displeased God in the midst of his strokes, and therefore he called back his mind to sadness, in that He was not to be disregarded, Whom he was afraid that he had displeased. Now, if he had been pleading against man concerning the merits of his life, he would have had no occasion to feel sadness, but seeing that by his present strokes he was made doubtful of his past life, he justly sought for sadness under the scourge.

Lest his words will be necessarily condemned, he shows that he is about to speak the great matters of divine judgment and not human judgments. Thus he says, "Is my debate against a man so that I should not be sad with merit?", as if to say: If the intention of my argument was to question whether a man justly or unjustly afflicted me, in whatever way this happened, I would lack sadness with reason. But my intention is to inquire how this has happened by the just judgment of God.

The king's heart is in the hand of God. We should practice mercy and justice. The lying tongue. The quarrelsome woman. The punishment of the wicked. The uncharitable. The private gift. The happiness of the righteous. The wicked a ransom for the righteous. The treasures of the wise. He who guards his tongue. Desire of the sluggard. The false witness. Salvation is of the Lord.

As for me - האנכי heanochi, "Alas for me!" Is it not with a man that I speak? And, if this be the case, why should not my spirit be troubled? I do not reply against my Maker: I suffer much from God and man; why then may I not have the privilege of complaining to creatures like myself?

JOB'S ANSWER. (Job 21:1-34) consolations--If you will listen calmly to me, this will be regarded as "consolations"; alluding to Eliphaz' boasted "consolations" (Job 15:11), which Job felt more as aggravations ("mockings," Job 21:3) than consolations (Job 16:2).

Job's difficulty was not as to man, but as to God, why He so afflicted him, as if he were the guilty hypocrite which the friends alleged him to be. Vulgate translates it, "my disputation." if it were--rather, "since this is the case."