Job 20 Summary - 5 Minute Bible Study
Job 20 Short Summary:
In Job 20, Zophar speaks up again to describe the way God opposes all wicked men. God brings the elements of the earth to bear on the wicked to curse their existence and humble them for their evil. Zophar implied that Job was such a wicked man, receiving the expected fate of an unrepentant sinner.
Job 20 Bible Study
SHORT OUTLINE OF THE BOOK OF JOB
Job 1-2 – Job is Persecuted by Satan
Job 3-37 – Job and His Friends Discuss the Reason He is Experiencing Persecution
Job 38-41 – God Speaks with Job and Reveals His Greatness to Him.
Job 42 – God Restores What Job Lost
WHEN:
The date of the writing of Job is unknown and still debated. Some believe it was written during the time of the patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob) or even earlier, while others suspect it was written during the time of Judah’s Babylonian captivity (607-537 B.C.).
I take the earlier date. The description of Job as the “greatest of all the people of the east” (1:3) and an absence of references to Israel, Jerusalem, and the Temple suggests to me that this book was written early.
KEY CHARACTERS:
Job – A blameless and upright man who Satan persecuted in an attempt to turn his heart away from God.
Zophar – Zophar was the last of Job’s friends to speak in chapter 11. He was arguably the harshest on Job.
WHERE:
Job lived in the land of Uz. Most scholars surmise the land of Uz was in northern Saudi Arabia, either immediately south of the Dead Sea, I the land that would become known as Edom, or immediately east of the Dead Sea, which is today the country of Jordan.
OUTLINE:
THE WICKED WILL NOT SUCCEED FOR LONG (20:1-29):
After Job’s comments in chapter 19, Zophar said that his spirit was stirred up inside him and he couldn’t help but respond.
As several of Job’s friends had done, Zophar appealed to the ancient “wisdom,” a set of popular traditions that posited that wicked men are always swiftly punished by God.
“The exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment?” (20:5).
A wicked man may rise to prominence and notoriety, but God will humble him so thoroughly that it will be as if he vanished from the earth. Fame one day, obscurity the next.
Zophar said that a wicked man may enjoy the fruits of his evil deeds for a while, but God would turn those fruits into poison. Evil is sweet in the wicked man’s mouth, but God turns it to venom in his stomach.
The evil man “will suck the poison of cobras; the tongue of a viper will kill him” (20:16).
God will cause his business dealings to fail and take back what he stole from others.
The man’s evil will ultimately leave his children begging for bread, if they manage to survive at all.
God will “send His burning anger against him and rain it upon him into his body” (20:23).
He will be in constant flight from violent enemies, and some wicked men God will cause to be struck down at the point of an arrow or iron weapon (20:24).
Everything in his home will be consumed and he will be devoured as if by fire.
God will expose his sin, and in consequence, the earth and all its elements will rise up to punish him.
What Zophar was implying is clear, He believed Job was receiving the judgement of God, the fate of a wicked man.
APPLICATION
There is no denying that sin is sweet to the taste. Sinning is appealing and sometimes it feels good to sin.
If sin didn’t have a sweetness to it, the Devil wouldn’t be able to convince anyone to do it.
We need to know that sin tastes good on the pallet, but it’s equally important to know that sin turns to poison by the time it hits your stomach.
It’s a lot like junk food, it tastes good while you’re eating it, but when it’s in your stomach you feel terrible.
Eve ate the fruit in the Garden of Eden because it was “a delight to the eyes” (Gen 3:6).
Have you ever heard of those maniacs who hide sharp objects in trick or treat candy? Is there a better picture of Satan?
Sin is sugar-coated poison pills.
