He gives them security, and they are supported, and his eyes are upon their ways.
Job's friends insist that God punishes the wicked at once, in plain sight. So Job lists crimes that go unpunished, and this verse is the sharpest: God gives the wicked man a safe place to rest, and then watches him stay there.
Where the Verse Stands in Job's Argument
The chapter is Job's evidence that life does not run on his friends' neat formula. One writer draws out what that means for anyone under trial:
William KellyJob makes it perfectly clear that everything now is abnormal. You cannot judge God's feeling about the prosperity of man here below, for the righteous are often far more tried. It is no proof of anything wrong on their part. On the contrary, it is God putting them to the test, to show that they really are His. So submission of heart is what we are all called to under trial, and perfect confidence in God.
Another writer judges Job right here and his friends wrong. Their mistake was to treat God's dealings in this world as an exact measure of His righteousness:
J. N. DarbyThey press the teaching that God's government of the world is a full measure and display of His righteousness... Job shows that God does mark His disapproval of the wicked. Yet the circumstances they are often found in overturn the arguments of his friends.
Safety for the Wicked
Job's complaint is not only that judgment is slow. It is that God's own power seems to work on the wrong side:
Leslie M. GrantJob felt not only that God was slow to judge evil, but that God actually protected people while they went on in their wickedness... "He gives them security, and they are supported, and His eyes are upon their ways." Job knew this was true. God saw everything they were doing, yet kept on protecting them from harm.
Read with faith instead of grief, the same protection means something else. One writer thinks of a godless man who recovers when he looked certain to die:
Samuel RidoutHow often have we seen godless people brought low by sickness and then raised up almost from the grave. We know it is the goodness of God that would lead them to repentance. But in Job's disordered view it looked like a sign of God's favour.
Two Readings of "His Eyes Are upon Their Ways"
Commentators differ on the second half of the verse. Some hear a quiet warning: God keeps account even while He holds back His hand. That is how Leslie Grant takes it above, and some translations sharpen it to "but His eyes are upon their ways". Ridout reads it the other way. For him the watching eye is a kind one, since a hidden threat of judgment would blunt Job's complaint:
Samuel RidoutThey live on in security, and God's eye seems to look on them with favour. That fits Job's argument better than the other idea — that God seems to keep them going, while His eye is on their ways and He will judge them. Job's stress falls on the absence of any special judgment.
Either way, Job's problem stands. The safety is real, the watching is real, and the reckoning is nowhere in sight.
Why Judgment Waits
Job asks why the God who notices every evil lets it pass. One writer answers that God has given all judgment to one Person, and the reason is personal:
William KellyHow is it that He allows it to pass as He does, and that there is no day of retribution now? Well, we can perfectly answer that. It is all reserved for Christ... Christ was the One whom, without the slightest reason for it, without a cause, they hated. They hated both Him and the Father; and therefore it is reserved for the Lord Jesus to execute judgment.
By the end of the chapter Job does see judgment coming, and one writer finds the same struggle in Psalm 73:
F. B. HoleIt does appear that in the rest of the chapter Job is listing the evils that filled the earth in his day. They went on unjudged until the grave closed the history of the wicked... A very relevant question, close to the one raised in Psalm 73. At the end of the chapter Job, like the writer of that psalm, sees judgment coming upon them in the end.
The Practical Weight of the Verse
The verse only crushes the reader who expects God's books to balance before the funeral:
Leslie M. GrantJob at least saw that the wicked are lifted high only for a little while. Then they are brought low and taken away, like everyone else... If we consider this life only, then certainly everything is out of balance and frustrating. But all God's accounts are not settled on this side of the grave.
Summary
- Security given. God gives the wicked man a firm place to stand, and Job saw it as God shielding the very men He was watching.
- Security misread. That safety is God's goodness, meant to lead him to repentance. Job's grief made it look like God's approval.
- Security disputed. Commentators differ over "His eyes are upon their ways": a kind look, or a silent record for the day of judgment.
- Security temporary. The wicked go unjudged only until the grave, and God does not settle all His accounts on this side of it.
- Security answered. The day of reckoning is not cancelled but reserved. God has given all judgment to Christ, the One men hated without cause.