Job 20:10 - Meaning and Application

The misery of the wicked man in this world is described here at length, and the same point is repeated in different words. So it helps to gather the details under a few main headings. First, we see what his sin is, the sin for which he is punished.

One part of it is the lusts of the flesh, called here the sins of his youth (Job 20:11). These are the sins people are especially tempted to in those years. Forbidden pleasures feel sweet in his mouth (Job 20:12). He gives himself fully to bodily cravings and takes great delight in them, as if they were the best thing he could taste. He keeps them under his tongue, as if he wants to savor them as long as possible.

Keeping sin in his mouth also shows that he clings to it stubbornly. He does not give it up when he should kill it and turn from it. Instead, he holds fast to it and keeps going in the same way. It also shows how he thinks back on his sin with pleasure, like the adulterous woman who remembered her youth and repeated her sins (Ezekiel 23:19). Or it may mean that he hides his favorite sins carefully. As a hypocrite, he keeps his sinful habits secret so that people will think well of his religion, but God sees what is in the heart and even what is hidden under the tongue, and he will soon bring it out.

Another part of his sin is love of the world and its riches. He puts his happiness in money and property, so he sets his heart on them. He is greedy for them, swallowing riches as eagerly as a hungry man swallows food, always crying, “Give, give” (Job 20:15). What he wanted most was wealth, and he coveted it eagerly. He also worked hard for it (Job 20:18), not by honest labor in a lawful calling, but by using every means, right or wrong, to become rich. We should work, not to grow rich (Proverbs 23:4), but to be generous, so that we may have something to give (Ephesians 4:28).

He also promises himself great things from his wealth, shown by the rivers, floods, and brooks of honey and butter (Job 20:17). When he is disappointed, it means he had first filled himself with hopes of plenty. He expected a life full of sensual delight, but it never came.

A third part of his sin is violence, oppression, and injustice toward poor neighbors (Job 20:19). This was the sin of the giants before the flood, and it is one of the sins that most surely brings God’s judgments on nations and families. He has forsaken the poor, given them no care, shown them no kindness, and made no provision for them. At first he may have given alms as the Pharisees did, only to gain a reputation, but once that served his purpose, he stopped and left the poor behind. Good works done for the wrong reason do not last.

He has also crushed the poor and taken every chance to harm them. To make himself richer, he has robbed those who were already needy. He has violently taken away their houses, even though he had no right to them, just as Ahab took Naboth’s vineyard, not by hidden fraud, but by open force.

Now comes the punishment for this wickedness. He will be disappointed in all his hopes, and he will not find the satisfaction in wealth that he promised himself (Job 20:17). He will never see those rivers, floods, and brooks of honey and butter that he dreamed of enjoying. The world is never what lovers of it imagine it will be. The enjoyment always falls far below the expectation.

He will also be sick and weak in body. How little comfort wealth gives when health is gone! Pain and disease, especially when severe, spoil every pleasure. This wicked man has pushed bodily pleasure to the limit, but what real happiness can he have when his bones are full of the sins of his youth (Job 20:11), meaning the lasting effects of those sins? His drunkenness, gluttony, sexual sin, and wild living when he was young may have left him with lasting disease and pain. Those sins may have ruined his health and, as Solomon says, consumed his flesh and body (Proverbs 5:11). If he was a fighter in his youth, then the cuts and bruises he once ignored may now ache in his bones. He may carry these pains to the grave, or they may carry him there. So the sins of his youth lie down with him in the dust. Even the decay of his body in the grave is part of sin’s effect (Job 24:19), so that his iniquity is upon his bones there (Ezekiel 32:27). Sin follows sinners beyond death.

He will also be troubled and restless in his mind: “He shall not feel quietness in his belly” (Job 20:20). He does not have the calm that others think he has. He is always stirred up inside. The wealth he gained wrongly sits heavy on his conscience, like food that will not digest. No one should expect comfort from what was gained by injustice.

His unrest comes, first, from conscience looking backward and filling him with fear of God’s wrath. The sin that was sweet when he did it, and was rolled under his tongue like a delicacy, turns bitter when he thinks back on it. When he reviews it, it fills him with horror and distress. In his inward parts it turns sour (Job 20:14), like John’s little book, sweet in the mouth but bitter in the belly (Revelation 10:10). That is what sin becomes. It is turned into the gall of asps, the poison of snakes (Job 20:16), and so it proves fatal. What he once sucked in so sweetly will become poison to him. The flattering tongue will prove to be a serpent’s tongue. All the charm people think they see in sin will, once conscience wakes up, turn into fierce torment.

His trouble also comes from his cares as he looks ahead (Job 20:22).

When a wicked man is at the height of his wealth and feels safest, he will suddenly find himself in trouble. He may even feel trapped before anything outward has changed, because his own mind is full of fear and confusion. It is like the rich man in Jesus’ parable, whose land produced so much that he said, “What shall I do?” (Luke 12:17).

He will also be forced to give back what he gained by injustice. He swallowed up riches and thought they were safely his, as fixed as the food he had eaten. But he was deceived. He will vomit them up again, meaning he will lose them with great pain and reluctance. His own conscience may make him so uneasy that he returns what he took, but it will feel bitter, like forced vomiting, not like the joy of doing right.

If he refuses to return it, God’s providence will still make sure the stolen goods go back to their rightful owners. God will cast them out of his belly, even while the love of sin still remains in his heart. The cries of the poor, whom he crushed, will rise so strongly against him that he may have to send his children to beg for peace from those he wronged (Job 20:10). He will restore what he worked so hard to gain by oppression, but he will not be able to keep it or enjoy it.

To be made to restore stolen goods by God’s saving grace, as Zacchaeus was, is a great mercy. Zacchaeus, the tax collector, gave back four times as much and still had enough to help the poor (Luke 19:8). But to be forced to return them only by the terror of a guilty conscience, as Judas was, brings no comfort. Judas threw down the silver and went and hanged himself.

He will also be stripped of everything he has and reduced to poverty. The one who robbed others will himself be robbed (Isaiah 33:1). The innocent people he hurt may choose not to take revenge, saying as David did, “Evil comes from the wicked, but my hand shall not be against him” (1 Samuel 24:13). Even if they forgive him and do nothing back, God’s justice will act. Very often God makes wicked people suffer through the hands of other wicked people.

So when he is attacked from every side, he will not save any of the riches he wanted so badly (Job 20:20). He will not keep all of it, and in the end he will keep none of it. None of the food he enjoyed so much will remain for him (Job 20:21). His neighbors and relatives will see him in such poor condition that, when he dies, no one will care about his property. None of his family will expect to gain anything from what he leaves behind, or even want to handle his estate.

In all this, Zophar is clearly aiming these words at Job, who had lost everything and was brought to the very edge of ruin.