Job 27:11 - Meaning and Application

Job’s friends had seen much misery and ruin come on wicked people, especially cruel oppressors. Job had said the same thing while the argument was still heated, and he had spoken with equal confidence about their prosperity. Now that the fight was dying down, he was ready to say where he agreed with them, and where he differed.

He agreed that wicked people are miserable, and that God will certainly deal with cruel oppressors. In time, in one way or another, God’s justice will repay them for the insults they have given him and the wrongs they have done to other people. This truth is strongly supported by the fact that even these angry men all agreed on it.

But Job disagreed with them here: they taught that these deserved judgments come at once and are plainly seen. They said wicked oppressors suffer pain all their lives, that ruin comes on them even in their success, that they will not grow rich, that their branch will not stay green, and that they will be destroyed before their time, as Eliphaz said (Job 15:20, Job 15:21, Job 15:29, Job 15:32). Bildad said their strength would be cut short and terrors would surround them (Job 18:7, Job 18:11). Zophar said he would throw up his riches and be in distress even in full success (Job 20:15, Job 20:22).

Job held that, in many cases, punishment does not come quickly, but is delayed for a time. He had already shown that punishment can be slow (chapters 21 and 24). Now he shows that it is still sure and severe, and that a delay is not the same as pardon.

Job first says he will explain this truth plainly (Job 27:11, Job 27:12): “I will teach you.” We should not refuse to learn even from people who are sick, poor, or difficult, if they speak what is true and good. He says he will teach them “that which is with the Almighty,” meaning God’s hidden plans and ways of dealing with wicked people, which people cannot judge too quickly. He will not hide this truth from them.

He says he will teach them “by the hand of God,” meaning by God’s strength and help. Anyone who teaches others needs God to guide them, open their ears (Isaiah 50:4), and open their lips. Those whom God teaches with a strong hand are best able to teach others (Isaiah 8:11). Job also says they should learn this because they have seen it for themselves, and because it would correct their judgment about him. Since they had seen these things, why were they being so empty and vain as to call him wicked just because he was suffering?

The truth he is about to set before them is the portion of a wicked man with God, especially of oppressors (Job 27:13). Their portion in this world may be wealth and honor, but their portion with God is ruin and misery. They may be beyond the reach of human power, but the Almighty can deal with them.

Job then shows that wicked people may prosper for a time, but ruin still follows them, and that ruin is their true inheritance.

They may prosper in their children, but ruin follows there too. Their children may be many, or highly honored, and raised to great estates (Job 27:14). Worldly people are said to be full of children (Psalm 17:14), and their children are also “full.” Parents often hope to live on through them and to be honored in their success. But the more children they leave, and the greater prosperity they leave them, the more targets they leave for God’s judgments. God has three severe judgments, sword, famine, and plague (2 Samuel 24:13).

Some of their children will die by the sword, perhaps in war, since they were raised to live by the sword like Esau (Genesis 27:40). People who train themselves for violence often die by violence, sooner or later. Others will die by famine (Job 27:14). Their descendants may not be able to keep the wealth left to them. They may be reduced to poverty and not have enough for daily needs, or they may be so dissatisfied that they are never content with what they have. Like the people in Haggai’s day, they eat but are not satisfied (Haggai 1:6).

Those who remain will be buried in death, meaning they will die of plague, which is called death (Revelation 6:8), and be buried quickly and without honor, as though buried like a donkey. Even their widows will not weep, either because they have no means to mourn properly, or because the men died unloved and unwanted. They had lived without being desired, and they died without being lamented. Their widows may even feel relieved to be rid of them.

They may also prosper in their estates, but ruin still attends them there too (Job 27:16-18). Suppose they are rich in money, silver, clothing, and household goods. They heap up silver in abundance like dust, and prepare clothes like clay. The image shows both great plenty and heavy burden. They pile up wealth as if worldly gain were their main business. They want more and more, until the silver tarnishes and the clothes are eaten by moths (James 5:2, James 5:3).

But what good will it do them? They will not truly benefit from it themselves. Death will strip them, and if they are not stripped sooner, death will still take everything from them (Luke 12:20). God will even order things so that the righteous will wear their clothes and the innocent will divide their silver. The good will somehow come honestly into wealth the wicked gained dishonestly. The wealth of sinners is stored up for the righteous (Proverbs 13:22). God disposes of people’s estates as he pleases, and often makes their wills fail against their own wishes.

The righteous, whom he hated and persecuted, will one day control all his labor, and in time they will recover with interest what was taken from him by force. The Egyptians’ jewels became the Israelites’ pay. Solomon says that God makes sinners work like slaves for the righteous, because the sinner gathers and stores up wealth only for someone who is pleasing to God (Ecclesiastes 2:26).

And the righteous will use it well. They will not hoard the silver, as the man who gathered it did. Instead, they will share it with the poor, giving a portion to seven, and even to eight, which is the safest kind of saving. Money is like manure, useful only when it is spread out. When God makes good people rich, they must remember that they are only managers of it, and they will have to give an account.

What wicked people bring on their families through dishonest gain, good people bring on their families through wise use. “Whoever increases his wealth by unjust gain gathers it for someone who will be kind to the poor” (Proverbs 28:8). If we imagine them building strong and fine houses, those houses are still like a moth’s home in an old garment, from which it is soon shaken out (Job 27:18). He feels very safe in it, like a moth, and has no sense of danger, but it will last only a short time, like a hut that a guard sets up and soon takes down. Then his place will no longer know him.

Destruction also comes upon his own person, even if he lived long in health and comfort (Job 27:19). The rich man lies down to sleep in the middle of his plenty, saying to himself, “Take your ease,” and he rests as if wealth were his strong city. He may seem very content and secure to others, but he will not be calm inside. He does not sleep as peacefully as people think. His wealth will not let him rest, at least not as sweetly as the working man sleeps (Ecclesiastes 5:12).

He lies down, but he is full of tossing back and forth until dawn. Then he opens his eyes, and it is all gone. His worries increase his fears, and both together make him uneasy. So when we follow him to bed, we do not find him happy there. But the account ends by showing how miserable he is in death and after death.

He is miserable in death. Death becomes the king of terrors to him (Job 27:20, Job 27:21). When a fatal disease strikes him, he is overwhelmed with fear. Terrors sweep over him like flooding waters, and he trembles at the thought of leaving this world, and even more at the thought of entering another. His sickness is mixed with sorrow and anger, as Solomon also says (Ecclesiastes 5:17). These terrors may drive him either into quiet, bitter despair, so that the storm of God’s wrath seems to steal him away in the night, unnoticed, or into loud, open despair, so that he is carried off like a man caught in a storm and hurled out of his place by an east wind.

To a godly person, death is like a fair wind carrying him to the heavenly country. To a wicked person, it is like an east wind, a storm that rushes him away in fear and confusion to destruction. He is miserable after death as well. His soul comes under God’s just anger, and that is what fills him with dread as death approaches (Job 27:22). “For God will hurl judgments at him and not spare.” While he lived, he enjoyed God’s sparing mercy. Now the time of patience is over, and God will not spare, but will pour out the full cups of his wrath.

What God casts down on a person, no one can escape or endure. Scripture speaks of God throwing great stones from heaven on the Canaanites (Joshua 10:11), and that was terrible enough. But far worse is his pouring the full weight of his anger on a guilty conscience, like a heavy load of lead (Zechariah 5:7, 8). The lost sinner, seeing God’s wrath break in on him, would like to flee from God’s hand, but he cannot. The gates of hell are shut and locked, the great gulf is fixed, and it will do no good to cry out for shelter in rocks and mountains. Those who refuse now to run to God’s open arms of grace will not be able later to escape his arms of wrath, which will soon be stretched out to judge them.

His memory also falls under the just judgment of all people (Job 27:23). Men will clap their hands at him, meaning they will rejoice in God’s judgments when he is cut off, and they will be glad to see him fall. “When the wicked perish, there are shouts of joy” (Proverbs 11:10). When God lays him in the grave, people will hiss at him as they leave his name marked with lasting shame. In the very place where he was once praised and admired, he will be mocked (Psalm 52:7), and even his ashes will be trampled on.