22 Will any teach God knowledge, seeing that he judges those that are on high? 23 One dies in full prosperity, being wholly at ease and secure, 24 his loins full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. 25 Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of good. 26 They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them.
27 "Oh, I know your thoughts, and your schemes to wrong me. 28 For you say, "Where is the house of the prince? Where is the tent in which the wicked lived?' 29 Have you not asked those who travel the roads, and do you not accept their testimony, 30 that the wicked are spared in the day of calamity, and are rescued in the day of wrath? 31 Who declares their way to their face, and who repays them for what they have done? 32 When they are carried to the grave, a watch is kept over their tomb. 33 The clods of the valley are sweet to them; everyone will follow after, and those who went before are innumerable.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 21:22-33
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.
Commentary on Job 21:27-34
(Read Job 21:27-34)
Job opposes the opinion of his friends, That the wicked are sure to fall into visible and remarkable ruin, and none but the wicked; upon which principle they condemned Job as wicked. Turn to whom you will, you will find that the punishment of sinners is designed more for the other world than for this, Jude 1:14,15. The sinner is here supposed to live in a great deal of power. The sinner shall have a splendid funeral: a poor thing for any man to be proud of the prospect of. He shall have a stately monument. And a valley with springs of water to keep the turf green, was accounted an honourable burial place among eastern people; but such things are vain distinctions. Death closes his prosperity. It is but a poor encouragement to die, that others have died before us. That which makes a man die with true courage, is, with faith to remember that Jesus Christ died and was laid in the grave, not only before us, but for us. That He hath gone before us, and died for us, who is alive and liveth for us, is true consolation in the hour of death.