Job 20:19

What he worked for will not support him now (v.18), and he gets no enjoyment from what his past business earned. Zophar thinks the reason is that "he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build" (v.19). Of course this may be true of some wicked men. But to charge Job with such a crime was itself a repulsive crime.

What he worked for he must give back; he does not swallow it down. He takes no joy in the property he traded for. He ground down the poor and abandoned them, and he seized a house that was not his to build. He is cut off before his plans ripen and before he can enjoy them. His inward greed is never satisfied, so he will not escape with what he values most — not even a scrap left for him to eat — and his wealth does not last.

Ahab came down to look at the vineyard he had gained by having Naboth murdered, and there he had to hear the prophet announce his doom. This man is like him: he can get no joy from what he owns. The unfinished house he took stands as a monument to his crime, and he cannot even take his most treasured belongings with him.

Reading Job 20 we can see the hint that lay under his statements about various acts of wickedness: Job had been guilty of them. Job was the man who had worked to swallow down what belonged to others and to oppress the poor; the man who had violently taken away a house he had not built, and so on. The fact is that a man who bases his argument on his own intuition is always very dogmatic and sure of himself. He has to be. It makes up for the lack of outward evidence that would back up his claims.

And was not Job the rescuer of the poor, the orphan, the dying, and the widow? This field of his kind and righteous work was wide. He put on justice, and it fitted him; judgment suited him like a robe and turban. He was eyes to the man who had none, and feet to the lame, and a father to the needy, sparing no effort to look into a case he did not know. Evil-doers had just as much reason to dread his righteous zeal: he would break the teeth of bad men and pull the prey out of their jaws.

The rich might look like the more tempting target for greedy men, but they can protect themselves in ways the poor would not or could not try. So bad men flatter the rich for profit, while they rob or oppress the very people they ought to pity. But Jehovah has His eye on such wickedness, at the very gate where justice should flow. He pleads the cause of the poor and the afflicted, and He repays the plunderers heavily.