Introduction

Job gagged Bildad (Job 26:1-4) and overruled Bildad’s insight into the majesty of God over the lights in the sky with his praise of the majesty of God over the realm of death (Job 26:5-14). After that the friends remain silent – they have finished.

Job now begins a monologue that runs through Job 31. In Job 27 he addresses his three friends in a few sentences one more time. His tone is calmer than in the previous chapters; the language remains fascinating.

Job Maintains His Righteousness

The words of Job 27:1 appear here for the first time (cf. Job 29:1). It means that the usual order of speech is broken here. It would have been Zophar’s turn, but he is silent. So Job “continues” his discourse. But it is not an answer to a speech of one of the friends that would have preceded it.

Job begins his monologue with swearing an oath (Job 27:2), but in his words his struggle and incomprehension about what God has done to him resounds. He is firmly convinced of God as the Living One. What has happened to him, has been done to him by God. But he does not agree. God has taken away his right. This is incomprehensible to him, because he sees no reason for it in his life. Although he struggles with that, he knows that God as the Living One keeps him alive and supports him. The Almighty has embittered him, but he does not know for what he has deserved it. Similar words can be found with other believers, for example with Naomi (Rth 1:20).

What Job says is the saying of someone who has a good conscience. But there is a self-righteousness in it that does not match the self-knowledge of someone who is in God’s presence. Job is not there yet. He struggles and at the same time has the certainty that God has given him life. As long as he lives, he knows that God keeps him alive (Job 27:3). He owes his life, his breath, to God.

As long as he lives, his lips certainly will not speak unjustly, nor will his tongue mutter deceit (Job 27:4). He will never give up the conviction of his innocence. His friends have tried everything to convince him that he is wrong. But there is no question of him agreeing with them (Job 27:5). The friends have taken as their starting point the misery in which he finds himself. Their reasoning was simple: God punishes sins with suffering; Job suffers, so he must have sinned; he even suffers very much, so he must have sinned very much.

Job will reject this accusation until his last breath, until he gives up the spirit. If he did agree with them, he would lie, he would cheat with his tongue, he would give up his righteousness, for he really has not done what they claim. He will hold on to his righteousness and underlines that statement by adding that he will not let it go (Job 27:6).

Job can look back on every day of his life as a day on which he has served God in sincerity. There is no contempt in his heart for a day that would not have been well spent. His life is an open book, against which there can be no accusation. As long as he lives, he will hold on to his righteousness and thus to the fact that he suffers innocently.

Contrast With the Character of a Wicked

In Job 27:7-10 Job speaks of the fate of the wicked and the godless or hypocrite as always presented by the friends and applied to Job. He agrees with what the friends have said, for this is indeed the general rule. God is a judge of evil. Job, however, applied this truth in a very different way than the friends did. We see this from Job 27:11 onward, when he teaches about “the power [or: hand] of God”, i.e. the acts of God.

Job describes his friends as “my enemy” and “my opponent” (Job 27:7). They have addressed him “as the wicked”, “as the unjust” and in this way approached him as an enemy and an opponent. He wants to make it clear to them how impossible it is to confuse someone like him with a wicked one and someone who does wrong. He is not such a person.

Indeed, for the godless or the hypocrite – to the friends Job is such a person – there is no hope if God cuts off his life and takes away his soul, his life (Job 27:8). But Job is not godless or a hypocrite, nor is he without hope. He keeps hoping for God, right through all the questions he has about his suffering.

God does not hear the cry of the godless or hypocrite for help when he calls to Him in his distress (Job 27:9). The reason for this is that the godless has no real relationship with God, the Almighty. He doesn’t want that either, he doesn’t take delight in Him (Job 27:10). That is why he does not call on God at all times, but only when distress comes upon him. This is different with Job. Job does indeed delight in the Almighty and calls on Him at all times. He did the same when he lived in prosperity. Although Job does not (yet) receive an answer to his call for help, he knows that God hears him.

Instead of being taught by friends about the ways of God, Job can give them some instruction “in the power [or: hand] of God” (Job 27:11). He reverses the roles. He knows the Almighty and will not hide from them what he knows of Him. Surely they have seen for themselves what he used to be like, that there was no injustice with him (Job 27:12)? Why then, do they hold fast to their acting “foolishly” or, as it also can be translated, their speaking “vanity”, their empty talk, their hollow phrases?

The Sure Destiny of the Wicked

Job clearly tells them that the reason everything was taken away from him by God does not lie in the fact of a sinful life that deserved God’s wrath. He is not a wicked man. God has another portion for “the wicked man” (Job 27:13). “The tyrants” receive from the Almighty “the inheritance”. Zophar has already stated this in his second speech (Job 20:29). It is something they do not necessarily receive now, in this life, but it may also be after their death. But the Almighty keeps it with Himself until the moment of the account, irrespective of whether that moment is already on earth or only after this life (cf. 1Tim 5:24).

The wicked and the tyrants may have numerous descendants, but they will die a violent death or starve to death (Job 27:14). We have an example of this in what happened to the children of Haman, the hater of the Jews (Est 5:11; Est 9:6-10). “Be buried because of the plague” means to die by the pestilence (Job 27:15). The widows will not shed a tear. They may even be happy to be rid of him.

Of his “silver” and his beautiful “garments”, both of which he has in enormous quantities, he himself will have no lasting pleasure. They will be for “the just” and “the innocent” (Job 27:16-17; Pro 13:22; Est 8:1-2).

A house built “like the spider’s web” is a house that collapses just as quickly and easily as the web of a spider (Job 27:18; cf. Job 4:19). It is no more than a makeshift hut that a watchman makes in the vineyard during grape harvest time. Thus is the house of the wicked.

Whirled Away in His Wickedness

The wicked rich lays down to sleep without realizing that it may be for the last time (Job 27:19). When he opens his eyes, everything is gone. The Lord Jesus tells of such a person in the parable of the rich fool (Lk 12:16-21). His eyes, which for so long were closed to all that bears witness to God, will open in another world. The Lord Jesus tells of another rich man who lifted up his eyes in Hades, in the pains (Lk 16:23), which, by the way, is not a parable, but the real condition after death. Job describes this end calmly, because he knows that this is not his end.

Job 27:20-21 are reminiscent of the parable the Lord Jesus tells of a house built on the sand by a fool (Mt 7:24-27). When the floods come and winds blow and slam against it, it collapses. There is also a sudden aspect. The wicked man is suddenly struck and taken away by a scorching wind or a violent storm. The terrors overtake him, while it is impossible to avert them or resist them. It says so impressively: “And he is gone.”

All these disasters are sent by God over the wicked (Job 27:22). He will want to flee quickly, but that is impossible. If God does not spare, there is no escape. Thus God has not spared His Son, but judged Him in the place of all who believe in Him. But He does not spare the stubborn sinner who continues to resist Him (2Pet 2:4-5; Jn 3:36).

The fellowmen will be bewildered at the outcome of the prosperous wicked (Job 27:23). One will express audibly and visibly the terror that has afflicted them (Lam 2:15; cf. Rev 18:9).