17 He will not enjoy the streams, the rivers flowing with honey and cream.
17 He shall not see the rivers, the floods,
17 He will not look upon the rivers, the streams flowing with honey and curds.
17 No quiet picnics for them beside gentle streams with fresh-baked bread and cheese, and tall, cool drinks.
17 He will not see the streams, The rivers flowing with honey and cream.
17 They will never again enjoy streams of olive oil or rivers of milk and honey.
33 He will be like a vine stripped of its unripe grapes, like an olive tree shedding its blossoms.
33 He shall shake off his unripe grape as the vine, and shall cast off his flower as the olive.
33 He will shake off his unripe grape like the vine, and cast off his blossom like the olive tree.
33 They'll be like fruit frost-killed before it ripens, like buds sheared off before they bloom.
33 He will shake off his unripe grape like a vine, And cast off his blossom like an olive tree.
33 They will be like a vine whose grapes are harvested too early, like an olive tree that loses its blossoms before the fruit can form.
(Read Job 15:17-35)
Eliphaz maintains that the wicked are certainly miserable: whence he would infer, that the miserable are certainly wicked, and therefore Job was so. But because many of God's people have prospered in this world, it does not therefore follow that those who are crossed and made poor, as Job, are not God's people. Eliphaz shows also that wicked people, particularly oppressors, are subject to continual terror, live very uncomfortably, and perish very miserably. Will the prosperity of presumptuous sinners end miserably as here described? Then let the mischiefs which befal others, be our warnings. Though no chastening for the present seemeth to be joyous, but grievous, nevertheless, afterward it yieldeth the peaceable fruits of righteousness to them that are exercised thereby. No calamity, no trouble, however heavy, however severe, can rob a follower of the Lord of his favour. What shall separate him from the love of Christ?
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 20:17
Commentary on Job 20:10-22
(Read Job 20:10-22)
The miserable condition of the wicked man in this world is fully set forth. The lusts of the flesh are here called the sins of his youth. His hiding it and keeping it under his tongue, denotes concealment of his beloved lust, and delight therein. But He who knows what is in the heart, knows what is under the tongue, and will discover it. The love of the world, and of the wealth of it, also is wickedness, and man sets his heart upon these. Also violence and injustice, these sins bring God's judgments upon nations and families. Observe the punishment of the wicked man for these things. Sin is turned into gall, than which nothing is more bitter; it will prove to him poison; so will all unlawful gains be. In his fulness he shall be in straits, through the anxieties of his own mind. To be led by the sanctifying grace of God to restore what was unjustly gotten, as Zaccheus was, is a great mercy. But to be forced to restore by the horrors of a despairing conscience, as Judas was, has no benefit and comfort attending it.