Morning Bible Study: Job 21:7-16

7 Why do the wicked continue to live,
growing old and becoming powerful?
8 Their children are established while they are still alive,
and their descendants, before their eyes.
9 Their homes are secure and free of fear;
no rod from God strikes them.
10 Their bulls breed without fail;
their cows calve and do not miscarry.
11 They let their little ones run around like lambs;
their children skip about,
12 singing to the tambourine and lyre
and rejoicing at the sound of the flute.
13 They spend their days in prosperity
and go down to Sheol in peace.
14 Yet they say to God, “Leave us alone!
We don’t want to know your ways.
15 Who is the Almighty, that we should serve him,
and what will we gain by pleading with him?” 
16 But their prosperity is not of their own doing.
The counsel of the wicked is far from me!

Commentary
(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)

"Job says, Remarkable judgments are sometimes brought upon notorious sinners, but not always. Wherefore is it so? This is the day of God's patience; and, in some way or other, he makes use of the prosperity of the wicked to serve his own counsels, while it ripens them for ruin; but the chief reason is, because he will make it appear there is another world. 

These prospering sinners make light of God and religion, as if because they have so much of this world, they had no need to look after another. But religion is not a vain thing. If it be so to us, we may thank ourselves for resting on the outside of it. Job shows their folly."

Morning Bible Study: Job 21:1-6

Job’s Reply to Zophar

21:1 Then Job answered:

2 Pay close attention to my words;

let this be the consolation you offer.

3 Bear with me while I speak;

then after I have spoken, you may continue mocking.

4 As for me, is my complaint against a human being?

Then why shouldn’t I be impatient?

5 Look at me and shudder;

put your hand over your mouth.

6 When I think about it, I am terrified

and my body trembles in horror.

Commentary

(the following is from Matthew Henry's Concise Commentary, 1706 -- www.christianity.com)

"Job comes closer to the question in dispute. This was, Whether outward prosperity is a mark of the true church, and the true members of it, so that ruin of a man's prosperity proves him a hypocrite? This they asserted, but Job denied. If they looked upon him, they might see misery enough to demand compassion, and their bold interpretations of this mysterious providence should be turned into silent wonder."