When disaster brings sudden death, he mocks at the calamity of the innocent.
Job is answering Bildad, and his words have turned dark. He has just said that God destroys the blameless and the wicked alike; now he charges God with amusement while disaster sweeps the innocent away — a true picture of the world, or a false picture of God? (Older translations read "he laughs at the trial of the innocent"; the sense is the same.)
The question behind the outburst
Job did not reach this sentence out of nowhere. Chapter 9 is his search for one answer: how can a man be right with God? He tests each possibility and throws it away, including the idea of clearing his own name.
F. B. HoleAt verse 20, Job suggested another possible answer. How could he be just with God? Well, could he justify himself? This would at least mean giving up the defiant attitude. It would be an unspoken admission that he was wrong, and so needed to be justified. Self-justification is a very attractive idea. Yet Job only raised it in order to dismiss it as unworkable. He knew he had only to open his mouth to condemn himself.
What Job saw was real
The facts Job pointed at are not imaginary. A scourge — a disease sweeping through a country — does not check a person's character before it strikes.
J. N. DarbyJob is troubled in his soul about it. "He destroys the perfect and the wicked. If a scourge slays suddenly, He will laugh at the trial of the innocent." A scourge comes, and perhaps the best family falls victim to it. Shall I give up God then, and not trouble myself about it? But he has to do with God, and he cannot help it. He cannot escape His hand.
Mistaking patience for mockery
Job is so uneasy about what he is saying that he keeps God's name out of these verses. The delay he calls mockery is really God holding back judgment.
William KellyJob grows bolder and says it out. Yet his piety still holds back the name of God, as in verses 22 and following. He shrank from seeming to put God's rule of the world on trial. But he does speak bitterly of God's patience while judgment delays, as if God were mocking at the trial of the innocent. This is what no saint should conclude from His allowing wrong and sorrow for a little while.
The voice behind the words
Read plainly, the verse says God enjoys the death of the innocent. That is no longer a complaint about circumstances. It is a charge against God's character, and one writer traces where such a thought comes from.
Arno Clemens GaebeleinHe assumes indifference. He says it is all the same to him whether he is right or wrong, for God destroys the perfect and the wicked alike. In other words, He is an unjust God. When the scourge of disease marches through the land and kills suddenly, He only mocks at the innocent who are taken away. The earth is given by Him into the hands of the wicked; injustice reigns everywhere. If God has not done all this, who then is it? These are horrible words. Some being must have whispered them into his despairing soul — the being who accuses God to His people as much as he accuses God's people before Him.
Why the world looks this way
Job's error is not in his eyesight but in his timing. He judges the world as if God had already settled every account.
J. N. DarbyThis was what Job found so hard to understand — how those who did evil prospered, while the righteous were persecuted. This is just because the time of judgment has not come. The time of mercy is going on now, and we cannot have mercy and judgment at once. So all is a riddle now. There is too much badness for man to think that things come from God. And there is too much goodness, even in all the ruin and misery, for him to say that they do not come from God.
The answer to the suspicion
Later in the book another voice answers this suspicion head on. Job feared that God's greatness leaves Him careless about small sufferers.
Samuel RidoutIn one word he sweeps away the unholy suspicions Job had been harbouring — "God is great, and does not despise anyone." He is infinite in power, yet He looks with compassion on the weakest of His creatures... How comforting is the truth, "He despises no one!" His greatness is never an occasion for scorn. His wisdom is infinitely powerful, but never used against weakness.
Summary
- Facts: Job's observation is honest. Disaster falls on the best families just as often as on the worst.
- Conclusion: What he built on it is false. From real facts he makes an unjust God, amused by the suffering of the innocent.
- Source: The accuser whispers such thoughts. He slanders God to His people as much as he slanders them to God.
- Timing: The world looks like mockery only because judgment has not yet come. This is the time of mercy, so all stays a riddle.
- Character: God is great and despises no one. His greatness is never an occasion for scorn.