“How often is the lamp of the wicked put out?
How often does calamity come upon them?
How often does God distribute pains in his anger?
How often are they like straw before the wind?
How often are they like chaff that the storm carries away?
You say.
‘God stores up their iniquity for their children.
Let it be paid back to them.
Thus they may know it.
Let their own eyes see their destruction.
Let them drink of the wrath of the Almighty Shaddai.’
What do they care for their household after them?
When the number of their months is cut off?
Will any teach God knowledge?
He judges those that are on high.
One dies in full prosperity.
They are at ease and secure.
Their loins are full of milk.
The marrow of their bones is moist.
Another dies in bitterness of soul.
They have never tasted of good.
They lie down alike in the dust.
The worms cover them.”
Job wondered whether the wicked were really punished at all. The wicked people seem to be surviving pretty well. Where is their pain and calamity? They do not seem to be like chaff or straw in the wind. As for their children getting the punishment, what do they care about that? What do they care about their inheritance after they have died? They seem to die at ease and secure with their prosperity. What else could you ask for? They die like everyone else. Dust and worms will cover them up whether they were prosperous or not, whether they were wicked or not. Where is God’s punishment to them since they do not seem to care or know about God?
Eugene Finnegan Bible Project 