Job 20:26

In the end, not wealth but total darkness is hidden away for his treasures. He is heaping it up for the day of wrath. A fire not blown on, but burning from within, will consume him. And whatever escaped earlier judgments will then fare badly in his tent.

This doom is final, with no gleam of hope beyond. The sinner has stored up a treasure of "wrath for the day of wrath." Unquenchable fire consumes him — fire that needs no "blowing upon" to add to its fierceness. And those he leaves behind taste the same fire. The heavens are against him; their holy light only reveals his sin. Job had appealed to heaven and earth to witness to his righteousness (Job 16:18-19). Zophar hints at the absolute reverse. The heavens only declare his sin, and earth rises up against him in the judgment.

The description of the wicked is great; no fault can be found with what he says about those who are ungodly... Such is the portion of the wicked man from God. But the serious mistake Zophar made is twofold. Job had pleaded for pity. Not a word of pity comes from Zophar's lips. The whole speech is meant to tell Job, "You are that man!" And the second mistake: he does not consider Job's words for a moment. Those words could not come from the lips of an ungodly person, but from one who knows God.

This section presses Zophar's earlier words even harder. It declares the total, unrelieved wrath of God toward a wicked man. "Utter darkness is laid up for his treasures" (v.26). Total darkness will indeed be the case for all who reject the grace of God in Christ Jesus. Jude 13 calls it "the gloom of utter darkness forever." But Job had said, "In my flesh I shall see God" (ch.19:26): he certainly did not expect the gloom of utter darkness forever. Nor would the fire of hell consume him, as the wicked will experience... There was a good measure of truth in what he said. But to infer that Job belonged to such a class of evildoers was not only unfair; it was inexcusably false.

So Zophar keeps up this one great fact. There is a righteous God above, and there are unrighteous, wicked people below — and God always deals with these wicked people now. That was not true. God has always allowed a large part of the world to appear to prosper in their evil. The reason is that the time of judgment has not yet come.

Zophar has completed his terrible charges. He has pursued without pity a bruised and apparently dying man. He has refused Job's appeal for pity. He has ignored the declaration of his unshaken integrity. He has pressed his suspicion with an iron hand into the soul of the poor sufferer — all under the plausible excuse of piety pleading for God! However it may end, we feel that no help is to be got from Zophar and those like him. And we do not regret that we shall hear him no more — not until he comes in a very different spirit, to ask the prayers of the friend he has slandered.