They spend their days in prosperity, and in peace they go down to Sheol.
Zophar had just insisted that the triumph of the wicked is short and their collapse certain. Job answers from life as he has seen it: people who ignore God enjoy comfort to the end, then die without the long agony he himself is bearing.
(A note on wording: the writers quoted below use an older translation — "they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave." ESV says "prosperity" instead of "wealth," and "Sheol" instead of "the grave." Both point to a death with no drawn-out misery.)
The Reply to Zophar
Job starts where Zophar stopped.
Leslie M. GrantZophar had spoken of the wicked being cut off. But Job now has questions that Zophar does not even try to answer. Sometimes wicked men are cut off. But some wicked men live on, grow old, and become more powerful than others (v.7). Why? Their children often get along well, with hardly a setback (v.8)... Their children enjoy life, with its music and dancing. They spend their days in wealth, and "in a moment go down to the grave" (vv.11-12). In other words, all through life they know nothing of the painful experiences Job is having, and then they die without suffering.
Days Spent in Prosperity
This is not about one rare exception.
William KellyIt is not just that you find one here and there. The wicked really take root in the world; they are at home there. "Their houses are safe from fear, and no rod of God is upon them." They come under no special discipline... They are the ones who enjoy the world, if you leave God out and take man's own estimate of present life. No one can dispute that this is the fact, whether you can explain it or not, if you look at the world as it is.
In a Moment to the Grave
The sting for Job is the contrast with his own case. Their exit is quick; his own affliction drags on.
F. B. HoleIt was not the case, he affirmed, that the wicked were always overwhelmed with disaster. On the contrary, they often lived, became old, mighty in power and prosperous, with their seed established in their sight. They had times of merriment and pleasure and at the end had no long drawn out misery such as he was enduring, but "in a moment go down to the grave [or, Sheol]." And all the time their attitude to God was, "Depart from us, for we desire not the knowledge of Thy ways."
What Ease Says to God
Verse 14 begins with "therefore." The comfort of verse 13 leads straight into it.
William Kelly"They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. Therefore, they say to God, Depart from us." Job's words are far more solemn and far more true than the violent picture Zophar had painted. "We do not want to know Your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? And what would we gain if we prayed to Him?" This does not mean they say that to other people. It means their way of life says it to God.
Judging Before the Time
Job could not explain it. He could still see that his friends' rule was false.
Samuel RidoutOne man dies quietly, surrounded by great prosperity — as the psalm says, "The wicked have no pangs in their death" — while another is cut off in misery. Both alike reach the same end in the grave. Since this is so, how wrong it is for his friends to lay down a fixed rule: that trouble in this life was always a sign of sin, and prosperity always a sign of righteousness, in the people it fell on. He had found no answer to his own problem. Even so, he could urge his friends to judge nothing before the time.
Where the Accounts Are Settled
Job's answer is a matter of timing.
William KellyThe friends judged too early. They fixed their blinded eyes on the present, as the professing Christian world does, instead of waiting, as Job did, for the resurrection and the kingdom... Look at these two men, each with a full cup, one of happiness, the other of misery; both lying dead together. Appearances prove nothing but the haste and folly of those who judge before the time.
Comfort can carry a person along, unaware, right to the end.
J Wilson SmithThey may be like the man asleep in his canoe, carried along unaware on the calm current that flowed without a sound toward the great falls of Niagara. Blinded by earthly prosperity and the absorbing interests of this life, they drift on until at last they "pass away" altogether, and are gone. They reach their end in time. They may die rich, only to spend a poor eternity.
Summary
- Observed. Job points to a plain fact: the wicked often prosper to the end, then die without the long pain he is bearing.
- Rooted. They are not rare exceptions — they take root in the world and are at home in it, with no visible rod of God upon them.
- Therefore. Comfort breeds contempt. Their way of life tells God "Depart from us," even if they never say the words.
- Premature. Reading wealth as God's approval and pain as guilt is judging before the time. The happy man and the miserable man both end in the grave.
- Deferred. The accounts are not closed in this life. Job waits for the resurrection and the kingdom — and a man may die rich only to spend a poor eternity.