We’re not only the richest people in the world, but the richest in all of history. We’ll give account for that!
In our previous study, Job graphically describes the wrongs perpetrated on the poor and vulnerable in society (Job 24:1-17). What a pathetic scene, multiplied too many times in our own lands. “The wilderness yields food for them and for their children. They…glean in the vineyard of the wicked. They spend the night naked,…and have no covering in the cold. They are wet with the showers of the mountains, and huddle around the rock for want of shelter” (vv 5-8). Now there are no laws of gleaning, so the hungry often find their food in dumpsters. In the next section, Job discusses the fate of “those who rebel against the light” (v 13). Here commentators find a problem. Job has been arguing that his friends are wrong when they say the wicked are judged speedily, as they say Job had been. Is Job now agreeing with them? Is he—as the ESV suggests by prefacing the section with the words, “You say”—simply repeating back their view in sarcasm? Or does he have a different point altogether? Notice he is describing what should happen to them. “They should be swift on the face of the waters, their portion should be cursed in the earth” (v 18). To paraphrase, their possessions should be like trash swept away by the tide. “The womb should forget him, the worm should feed sweetly on him; he should be remembered no more” (v 20). But whatever should happen, for certain one thing would happen. “As drought and heat consume the snow waters, so the grave consumes those who have sinned” (v 19). Job says it’s true: Crime doesn’t pay, but it’s the poor victims who end up paying the most. Whatever the case, Job admonishes, don’t become calloused towards the needy. Remember, “He who has pity on the poor lends to the Lord” (Prov 19:17).