Job 21:9

Zophar had spoken of the wicked being cut off, but Job has questions now that Zophar does not even try to answer. Sometimes wicked men are cut off, but some wicked men live and become old and become mighty in power above others (v.7). Why? Their children often get along well with hardly a setback (v.8). They seem to have nothing to fear and the discipline of God's government seems not to apply to them (v.9).

It 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 chastening… They are the ones who enjoy the world, if you leave God out and take the value people put on this present life. There is no denying the fact, explain it or not, if you look at the world as it is.

Zophar stuck to the particular cases where God judged some especially wicked men. Such cases do happen now and then… But that is very unusual. Other people swear to a lie, keep their money, and try to keep their good name, while all the time they are storing up wrath for the day of wrath… "Their houses are safe from fear." A robber breaks into one godly man's house; fire burns down another godly man's house over his head. Meanwhile here are wicked men of the worst kind, and no trouble like this ever reaches them!

The day is coming when the ungodly, instead of prospering, will be like chaff that the wind drives away. (Psalm 1) The friends moved that day forward. They fixed their eyes, blind as they were, on the present, like much of the Christian world, 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 except the haste and folly of those who judge before the time.

Asaph noticed this too, as he records in Psalm 73… He learned that God's accounts are not settled in this life: there is a future to be considered.

God does not bring this judgment on the unsaved, because they are not sons, and so they go without chastening. For Christians, though, it is a present reality that we do well to remember. A Christian is often amazed to find that he cannot get away with what he sees an unbeliever doing every day.

"No rod of God is upon them." Ah, but there will be!… "Therefore they say to God, 'Depart from us.'" Job's words are far more solemn and more true than the picture violent Zophar had painted. "We do not desire the knowledge of Your ways. What is the Almighty, that we should serve Him? And what profit do we get if we pray to Him?" This does not mean they say it out loud to people. It means that is what their conduct says to God.