17 "Still, how often does it happen that the wicked fail, or disaster strikes, or they get their just deserts? 18 How often are they blown away by bad luck? Not very often. 19 You might say, 'God is saving up the punishment for their children.' I say, 'Give it to them right now so they'll know what they've done!' 20 They deserve to experience the effects of their evil, feel the full force of God's wrath firsthand. 21 What do they care what happens to their families after they're safely tucked away in the grave? Fancy Funerals with All the Trimmings 22 "But who are we to tell God how to run his affairs? He's dealing with matters that are way over our heads. 23 Some people die in the prime of life, with everything going for them - 24 fat and sassy. 25 Others die bitter and bereft, never getting a taste of happiness. 26 They're laid out side by side in the cemetery, where the worms can't tell one from the other.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 21:17-26
Commentary on Job 21:17-26
(Read Job 21:17-26)
Job had described the prosperity of wicked people; in these verses he opposes this to what his friends had maintained about their certain ruin in this life. He reconciles this to the holiness and justice of God. Even while they prosper thus, they are light and worthless, of no account with God, or with wise men. In the height of their pomp and power, there is but a step between them and ruin. Job refers the difference Providence makes between one wicked man and another, into the wisdom of God. He is Judge of all the earth, and he will do right. So vast is the disproportion between time and eternity, that if hell be the lot of every sinner at last, it makes little difference if one goes singing thither, and another sighing. If one wicked man die in a palace, and another in a dungeon, the worm that dies not, and the fire that is not quenched, will be the same to them. Thus differences in this world are not worth perplexing ourselves about.