That they are like straw before the wind, and like chaff that the storm carries away?
Job's friends had pressed one rule: God punishes the wicked here and now. Here Job takes their own picture of wind sweeping chaff off the threshing floor, and turns it into a question.
The picture behind the words
The image comes from harvest work. Grain was trodden out on an open floor, and the wind was let through to separate what had weight from what had none.
L M GrantWhen they threshed grain on the threshing floor, they opened doors at both ends. The wind blew through and took away the chaff. The wheat stayed, because it was heavier. The chaff was of no value, and unbelievers have no moral weight.
So the figure says two things at once about the wicked: they have no value, and the wind carries them away.
The question: "how often?"
Job does not deny that the wicked end as chaff. He denies that we see it happen often in this life.
Leslie M. GrantThey may be like straw or chaff before the wind, and so death carries them away in the end. But judgment in the present does not seem to fall often.
Job's admission, and his blind spot
Job does not argue only one side here. He admits the part of his friends' case that stands, though there was more he still had to learn.
William KellyHe presses the point that the present world does not show God's moral government. But he admits that a blow from God falls on men while they seem to prosper. In a moment their lamp goes out. So he allows for exceptional dealings. There was another kind of dealing that he did not yet see, and he had to learn it. God works among His own by chastening, trial, or discipline. He does this as surely as He may lay His hand on the wicked in solemn judgment.
Real, but still future
If the wind does not carry the wicked off now, when does it? Job looks ahead — and that is where his friends went wrong.
William KellyHow often, he asks, does their lamp go out? How often does destruction break on them, as God sees fit to measure out in His anger? It may be now and then, hardly often; it is false to say always. The day is coming when the ungodly, instead of prospering, shall be like the chaff which the wind drives away. The friends set the date too early. They fixed their eyes — blinded, sadly — on the present, instead of waiting, as Job did, for the resurrection and the kingdom.
What the verse asks of the reader
Job ends not with a theory but with a restraint. The wicked die in all sorts of ways — some in comfort, some in misery.
Samuel RidoutOne dies quietly, surrounded by prosperity — as the psalm says, the wicked have no pangs in their death. Another is cut off in misery. Both alike reach a common end in the grave. Since that is so, his friends had no business laying down a fixed rule. They claimed that judgment in this life was always a sign of sin in the person affected. They claimed prosperity was always a sign of righteousness. He had found no solution to his own problem. But he could still urge his friends to "judge nothing before the time."
Commentators put the weight in different places. Some stress that God's blows do fall now and then. Others point to the reckoning still to come. All agree on one thing: Job's friends had turned a rare event into a fixed law.
Summary
- Chaff. The picture comes from the threshing floor. The wind carries off the husk because it has no weight. The wicked have no moral weight either.
- Question. Job does not deny the picture. He asks how often anyone sees it. Present judgment on the wicked is the exception, not the rule.
- Concession. Job now admits the truth in his friends' side: God's blow does sometimes fall, and a man's lamp does go out in a moment.
- Timing. The friends set the date too early. They wanted the whole account settled now, instead of waiting for the resurrection and the kingdom.
- Restraint. The wicked die in comfort and in misery alike. So no one can read a person's standing with God from their circumstances. Judge nothing before the time.