Job 20:18
 Job 20:18 
New International Version (©2011)
What he toiled for he must give back uneaten; he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.

New Living Translation (©2007)
They will give back everything they worked for. Their wealth will bring them no joy.

English Standard Version (©2001)
He will give back the fruit of his toil and will not swallow it down; from the profit of his trading he will get no enjoyment.

New American Standard Bible (©1995)
"He returns what he has attained And cannot swallow it; As to the riches of his trading, He cannot even enjoy them.

King James Bible (Cambridge Ed.)
That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.

Holman Christian Standard Bible (©2009)
He must return the fruit of his labor without consuming it; he doesn't enjoy the profits from his trading.

International Standard Version (©2012)
"He will restore what he has attained from his work and won't consume it; he won't enjoy the profits from his business transactions,

NET Bible (©2006)
He gives back the ill-gotten gain without assimilating it; he will not enjoy the wealth from his commerce.

GOD'S WORD® Translation (©1995)
He will give back what he earned without enjoying it. He will get no joy from the profits of his business

King James 2000 Bible (©2003)
That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: from the proceeds of business he shall not rejoice.

American King James Version
That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.

American Standard Version
That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down; According to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice.

Douay-Rheims Bible
He shall be punished for all that he did, and yet shall not be consumed: according to the multitude of his devices so also shall he suffer.

Darby Bible Translation
That which he laboured for shall he restore, and not swallow down; its restitution shall be according to the value, and he shall not rejoice therein.

English Revised Version
That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down; according to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice.

Webster's Bible Translation
That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice in it.

World English Bible
That for which he labored he shall restore, and shall not swallow it down. According to the substance that he has gotten, he shall not rejoice.

Young's Literal Translation
He is giving back what he laboured for, And doth not consume it; As a bulwark is his exchange, and he exults not.

Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary

20:10-22 The miserable condition of the wicked man in this world is fully set forth. The lusts of the flesh are here called the sins of his youth. His hiding it and keeping it under his tongue, denotes concealment of his beloved lust, and delight therein. But He who knows what is in the heart, knows what is under the tongue, and will discover it. The love of the world, and of the wealth of it, also is wickedness, and man sets his heart upon these. Also violence and injustice, these sins bring God's judgments upon nations and families. Observe the punishment of the wicked man for these things. Sin is turned into gall, than which nothing is more bitter; it will prove to him poison; so will all unlawful gains be. In his fulness he shall be in straits, through the anxieties of his own mind. To be led by the sanctifying grace of God to restore what was unjustly gotten, as Zaccheus was, is a great mercy. But to be forced to restore by the horrors of a despairing conscience, as Judas was, has no benefit and comfort attending it.


Pulpit Commentary

Verse 18. - That which he laboured for he shall restore. Even that which he gets by his own honest labour he shall have to part with and give up. He shall not swallow it down; i.e. "shall not absorb it, and make it his own." According to his substance shall the restitution be. So Schultens, Professor Lee, and Dr. Stanley Leathes, who understand Zophar as asserting that, in order to compensate those whom he has robbed, the wicked man will have to make over to them all the wealth that is honestly his Others translate, "According to the substance that he hath gotten, he shall not rejoice" (see the Revised Version, and the commentaries of Ewald, Delitzsch, and Dillmann).


Gill's Exposition of the Entire Bible

That which he laboured for shall he restore,.... This explains what was before figuratively expressed by vomiting, Job 20:15; and is to be interpreted either of that which another laboured for; so the Targum paraphrases it,

"another's labour;''

and Mr. Broughton renders it, "he shall restore what man's pain get": and then the sense is, that that which another got by his labour, coming by some means or another into the hand of this rapacious, covetous, wicked man, he shall be obliged to restore to him again; or the hire of the labourer being detained in his hands, he shall be forced to give it to him, as the Egyptians, by lending the Israelites their jewels of gold and silver, restored to them the wages due to them for all their labour among them for many years; or else this is to be understood of what the wicked man himself had laboured for, who with much toil and labour, as well as trick and artifice, had got the wealth of others into his hands; but should be obliged to make restoration of it again, and along with that also what he had laboured for, and had got even in an honest and lawful way, the marathon of unrighteousness corrupting and marring his whole substance:

and shall not swallow it down; or "not have time to devour it", as Mr. Broughton; he shall be obliged so soon to restore it, that it shall be as if he had never had it; he shall have no enjoyment of it, at least no comfort, pleasure, and satisfaction in it:

according to his substance shall the restitution be; the law of Moses required, in some cases, fourfold, in others fivefold, and sometimes sevenfold was exacted; and if a man had not sufficient to pay, all his substance was to go towards payment, and by this means what he lawfully got went along with that which was obtained in an illicit way, as before, see Exodus 22:1;

and he shall not rejoice therein; not in the restitution he is forced to make, it being greatly against his will; nor in his ill-gotten substance, at least but for a little while, as in Job 20:5; he shall neither enjoy it nor have delight and pleasure in it, nor glory of it, as men are apt to do; Mr. Broughton reads this in connection with the preceding clause thus,

"and never rejoice in the wealth for which he must make recompense.''


Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary

18. Image from food which is taken away from one before he can swallow it.

restitution—(So Pr 6:31). The parallelism favors the English Version rather than the translation of Gesenius, "As a possession to be restored in which he rejoices not."

he shall not rejoice—His enjoyment of his ill-gotten gains shall then be at an end (Job 20:5).


Job 20:18 Parallel Commentaries

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Zophar: Triumph of the Wicked Short-lived
17He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter. 18That which he labored for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down: according to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein. 19Because he has oppressed and has forsaken the poor; because he has violently taken away an house which he built not; …

Job 20:10 His children must make amends to the poor; his own hands must give back his wealth.
Job 20:15 He will spit out the riches he swallowed; God will make his stomach vomit them up.
Job 27:17 what he lays up the righteous will wear, and the innocent will divide his silver.
Job 31:8 then may others eat what I have sown, and may my crops be uprooted.
Proverbs 21:20 The wise store up choice food and olive oil, but fools gulp theirs down.