Bitter Zophar just heaps it on Job with his self-righteousness and forceful language.
“This is why my unsettling thoughts compel me to answer, because I am upset! I have heard a rebuke that insults me, and my understanding makes me reply” (Job 20:2-3).
Seriously how self-righteous can that be? ‘My understanding makes me reply’ is a comment to set forth great wisdom and understanding from someone who knows nothing. Zophar continues.
“…the happiness of the godless has lasted only a moment? Though his arrogance reaches heaven, and his head touches the clouds, he will vanish forever like his own dung” (Job 20:4-7).
“He swallows wealth but must vomit it up; God will force it from his stomach. He will suck the poison of cobras…” (Job 20:15-16).
Vanish like dung? Suck the poison of cobras?
“This is the wicked man’s lot from God, the inheritance God ordained for him” (Job 20:29).
Zophar lays it on thick. Job is wicked. No matter what he says otherwise, he is wicked and his suffering proves it. And what happens to the wicked? They will enjoy their evil but only for a moment (Job 20:5), then God will strike them with catastrophe and suffering and demise.
In this I think of two things:
- We know all of Job’s friends (with the possible exception of Elihu to come) misrepresent God as God says that himself.
- The Scripture will say (in the future) that it is God’s kindness that leads mankind to repentance (Rom 2:4).
Job is now going to answer him. He is going to say the exact opposite about the wicked. Something in my dark times even I have observed.
