Job 20:20
Because his appetite is never satisfied, he cannot escape with his treasure.
Sermons
Godless Prosperity Short-LivedE. Johnson Job 20:1-29
The Temporary Triumph of the WickedR. Green Job 20:5-20
Oppressing the PoorW.f Adeney Job 20:19, 20














This is a sin most frequently referred to in the Bible, a common wrong against which the prophets of Israel continually pretested with vehement indignation. Christ, usually mild and gentle, spoke in great anger of this wickedness (Matthew 23:14). St. James denounced it as not unknown among Christians (James 5:4).

I. THE SIN.

1. Its various forms. It is not always seen in the bare and open fashion of primitive times. The sheikh exacts more than is due from his tribe, the Eastern landowner grinds down his fellaheen, the baron enslaves and robs his serfs, and we denounce the manifest wrong. But is not the same evil to be seen in the more decorous injustice of modern Western civilization? The great body of working men is now emancipated from the tyranny of past ages, and is able to assert itself and claim its rights. But below this powerful class is a mass of unskilled workers, the helpless men and women who crowd the lower quarters of great cities - the really poor. When advantage is taken of the poverty of these miserable people to grind them down, they are being robbed. With us the sweating system takes the place of the old territorial oppression.

2. Its invariable wickedness. Is the modern commercial oppression one whit less guilty than the old lordly tyranny? The evil is more disguised with us; it is more difficult to bring it home to its authors; our complicated civilization hushes it up - yet the cruelty and wickedness are as real as ever.

II. THE PUNISHMENT. The writers of the Bible who denounced the sin of oppressing the poor continually threatened punishment to the guilty oppressors.

1. Direct loss. Zophar contemplates the actual loss of ill-gotten gains. This may happen in the present life. It will certainly occur at death. The oppressor can take none of the profits of his cruelty out of the world with him.

2. Disappointment. In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits. Even without the loss of property difficulties will arise. The rich man may be murdered in his palace. Most oppressors live in fear. Trouble of mind mingles like gall in the sweetest cup of pleasures got by cruelty.

III. THE CURE. Punishment is not cure. The fear of it may act as somewhat of a check. But we must go deeper for "the root of the matter" if we would cure it. Now undoubtedly in this case the root is not hard to find, for it is simply unmitigated selfishness. Therefore until men can be taught to substitute brotherliness for selfishness, oppression of the poor must continue. No social revolution, no legal enactment, no forcible change, can eradicate the evil. We must go for the cure of social evils to Christ. He is concerned with society as well as with the individual, and there is no hope for society until he is recognized as its Saviour and its Lord. Christianity instils brotherliness. No man can be a Christian who is destitute of this grace. Oppression of the poor belies the most sanctimonious profession of religion. We want to get back to the religion, of Christ, which made more of brotherliness than even of faith; the religion of St. Paul and St. John, which taught that love is the greatest thing in the world. - W.F.A.

Because he hath oppressed, and hath forsaken the poor.
What is it that excites all this Divine antagonism and judgment? Was the object of it a theological heretic? Was the man pronounced wicked because he had imbibed certain wrong notions? Was this a case of heterodoxy of creed being punished by the outpouring of the vials of Divine wrath? Look at the words again. His philanthropy was wrong. The man was wicked socially — wicked in relation to his fellow men. All wickedness is not of a theological nature and quality, rising upward into the region of metaphysical conceptions and definitions of the Godhead, which only the learned can present or comprehend; there is a lateral wickedness, a wickedness as between man and man, rich and poor, poor and rich young and old; a household wickedness, a market place iniquity. There we stand on solid rock. If you have been led away with the thought that wickedness is a theological conception, and a species of theological nightmare, you have only to read the Bible, in its complete sense, in order to see that judgment is pronounced upon what may be called lateral wickedness — the wickedness that operates among ourselves, that wrongs mankind, that keeps a false weight, and a short measure, that practises cunning and deceit upon the simple and innocent, that fleeces the unsuspecting, — a social wickedness that stands out that it may be seen in all its black hideousness, and valued as one of the instruments of the devil. There is no escape from the judgment of the Bible. If it pronounced judgment upon false opinions only, then men might profess to be astounded by terms they cannot comprehend: but the Bible goes into the family, the market place, the counting. house, the field where the labourer toils, and insists upon judging the actions of men, and upon sending away the richest man from all his bank of gold, if he have oppressed and forsaken the poor.

(Joseph Parker, D.D.).

But Job answered and said.
Homilist.
There is more logic and less passion in this address than in any of Job's preceding speeches. He felt the dogma of the friends to be opposed —

I. TO HIS CONSCIOUSNESS OF RECTITUDE. If their dogma was true, he must be a sinner above all the rest, for his sufferings were of the most aggravated character. But he knew that he was not a great sinner.

1. This consciousness urged him to speak.

2. It gave him confidence in speaking.

3. It inspired him with religious solemnity. The providential ways of God with man are often terribly mysterious. Under these mysterious events solemn silence rather than controversy is most befitting us.

II. TO HIS OBSERVATION OF FACTS.

1. He saw wicked men about him. He notes their hostility to God, and their devotion to self.

2. He saw such wicked men very prosperous. They prosper in their persons, their property, and their posterity.

3. He saw wicked men happy in living and dying. Job states these things as a refutation of the dogma that his friends held and urged against him.

III. TO HIS HISTORIC KNOWLEDGE. He refers to the testimony of other men.

1. They observed, as I have, that the wicked are often protected in common calamities.

2. That few, if any, are found to deal out punishment to wicked men in power.

3. That the Wicked man goes to his grave with as much peace and honour as other men.

IV. TO HIS THEORY OF PROVIDENCE. Though nothing here expresses Job's belief in a state of retribution beyond the grave, we think it is implied. I see not how there can be any real religion, which is supreme love to the Author of our being, where there is not a well-settled faith in a future state. Conclusion. God's system of governing the race has been the same from the beginning. He has never dealt with mankind here on the ground of character. True, there are occasional flashes of Divine retribution which reveal moral distinctions and require moral conduct; but they are only occasional, limited, and prophetic. No stronger argument for a future state of full and adequate retribution it would be possible to have, than that which is furnished by God's system of governing the world.

(Homilist.)

People
Job, Zophar
Places
Uz
Topics
Anything, Aught, Belly, Craving, Delight, Delighteth, Delights, Delivereth, Desirable, Desired, Desires, Ease, Escape, Feel, Greed, Nought, Peace, Quiet, Quietness, Respite, Rest, Retain, Salvation, Save, Suffered, Surely, Treasure, Wealth, Wherein, Within
Outline
1. Zophar shows the state and portion of the wicked

Dictionary of Bible Themes
Job 20:20

     5558   storing
     5591   treasure

Job 20:17-20

     8810   riches, dangers

Job 20:20-23

     5185   stomach

Library
June 9 Evening
The triumphing of the wicked is short.--JOB 20:5. Thou shalt bruise his heel.--This is your hour, and the power of darkness.--As the children are partakers of flesh and blood he also himself likewise took part of the same; that through death he might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil.--Having spoiled principalities and powers, he made a shew of them openly, triumphing over them in it. Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about
Anonymous—Daily Light on the Daily Path

The Christian Urged To, and Assisted In, an Express Act of Self-Dedication to the Service of God.
1. The advantages of such a surrender are briefly suggested.-- 2, 3, 4. Advice for the manner of doing it; that it be deliberate, cheerful, entire, perpetual.--5. And that it be expressed with some affecting solemnity.--6. A written instrument to be signed and declared before God, at some season of extraordinary devotion, reposed. The chapter concludes with a specimen of such an instrument, together with an abstract of it, to be used with proper and requisite alterations. 1. AS I would hope, that,
Philip Doddridge—The Rise and Progress of Religion in the Soul

Whether the Ashes from which the Human Body Will be Restored have any Natural Inclination Towards the Soul which Will be United to Them?
Objection 1: It would seem that the ashes from which the human body will be restored will have a natural inclination towards the soul which will be united to them. For if they had no inclination towards the soul, they would stand in the same relation to that soul as other ashes. Therefore it would make no difference whether the body that is to be united to that soul were restored from those ashes or from others: and this is false. Objection 2: Further, the body is more dependent on the soul than
Saint Thomas Aquinas—Summa Theologica

God.
GLORY OF GOD. God is the chief good--good so as nothing is but himself. He is in himself most happy; yea, all good and all true happiness are only to be found in God, as that which is essential to his nature; nor is there any good or any happiness in or with any creature or thing but what is communicated to it by God. God is the only desirable good; nothing without him is worthy of our hearts. Right thoughts of God are able to ravish the heart; how much more happy is the man that has interest in
John Bunyan—The Riches of Bunyan

The Hardening Operation of Love.
"Being grieved for the hardness of their heart."--Mark iii. 5. Love may also be reversed. Failing to cherish, to uplift, and to enrich, it consumes and destroys. This is a mystery which man can not fathom. It belongs to the unsearchable depths of the divine Being, of which we do not wish to know more than has been revealed. But this does not alter the fact. No creature can exclude itself from the divine control. No man can say that he has nothing to do with God; that he or any other creature exists
Abraham Kuyper—The Work of the Holy Spirit

Tit. 2:06 Thoughts for Young Men
WHEN St. Paul wrote his Epistle to Titus about his duty as a minister, he mentioned young men as a class requiring peculiar attention. After speaking of aged men and aged women, and young women, he adds this pithy advice, "Young men likewise exhort to be sober-minded" (Tit. 2:6). I am going to follow the Apostle's advice. I propose to offer a few words of friendly exhortation to young men. I am growing old myself, but there are few things I remember so well as the days of my youth. I have a most
John Charles Ryle—The Upper Room: Being a Few Truths for the Times

The Barren Fig-Tree;
OR, THE DOOM AND DOWNFALL OF THE FRUITLESS PROFESSOR: SHOWING, THAT THE DAY OF GRACE MAY BE PAST WITH HIM LONG BEFORE HIS LIFE IS ENDED; THE SIGNS ALSO BY WHICH SUCH MISERABLE MORTALS MAY BE KNOWN. BY JOHN BUNYAN 'Who being dead, yet speaketh.'--Hebrews 11:4 London: Printed for J. Robinson, at the Golden Lion, in St. Paul's Churchyard, 1688. This Title has a broad Black Border. ADVERTISEMENT BY THE EDITOR. This solemn, searching, awful treatise, was published by Bunyan in 1682; but does not appear
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

A Few Sighs from Hell;
or, The Groans of the Damned Soul: or, An Exposition of those Words in the Sixteenth of Luke, Concerning the Rich Man and the Beggar WHEREIN IS DISCOVERED THE LAMENTABLE STATE OF THE DAMNED; THEIR CRIES, THEIR DESIRES IN THEIR DISTRESSES, WITH THE DETERMINATION OF GOD UPON THEM. A GOOD WARNING WORD TO SINNERS, BOTH OLD AND YOUNG, TO TAKE INTO CONSIDERATION BETIMES, AND TO SEEK, BY FAITH IN JESUS CHRIST, TO AVOID, LEST THEY COME INTO THE SAME PLACE OF TORMENT. Also, a Brief Discourse touching the
John Bunyan—The Works of John Bunyan Volumes 1-3

An Exhortation to Love God
1. An exhortation. Let me earnestly persuade all who bear the name of Christians to become lovers of God. "O love the Lord, all ye his saints" (Psalm xxxi. 23). There are but few that love God: many give Him hypocritical kisses, but few love Him. It is not so easy to love God as most imagine. The affection of love is natural, but the grace is not. Men are by nature haters of God (Rom. i. 30). The wicked would flee from God; they would neither be under His rules, nor within His reach. They fear God,
Thomas Watson—A Divine Cordial

Man's Misery by the Fall
Q-19: WHAT IS THE MISERY OF THAT ESTATE WHEREINTO MAN FELL? A: All mankind by their fall lost communion with God, are under his wrath and curse, and so made liable to all the miseries in this life, to death itself, and to the pains of hell for ever. 'And were by nature children of wrath.' Eph 2:2. Adam left an unhappy portion to his posterity, Sin and Misery. Having considered the first of these, original sin, we shall now advert to the misery of that state. In the first, we have seen mankind offending;
Thomas Watson—A Body of Divinity

Job
The book of Job is one of the great masterpieces of the world's literature, if not indeed the greatest. The author was a man of superb literary genius, and of rich, daring, and original mind. The problem with which he deals is one of inexhaustible interest, and his treatment of it is everywhere characterized by a psychological insight, an intellectual courage, and a fertility and brilliance of resource which are nothing less than astonishing. Opinion has been divided as to how the book should be
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament

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