Job Chapter 20

Zophar Speaks a Second Time

A. Zophar answers Job.

1. (Job 20:1–3) Zophar describes his turmoil.

“Then answered Zophar the Naamathite, and said,
Therefore do my thoughts cause me to answer,
And for this I make haste.
I have heard the check of my reproach,
And the spirit of my understanding causeth me to answer.” (Job 20:1–3, KJV)

Zophar begins his second speech by admitting that Job’s words have deeply unsettled him. Though he presents himself as measured and rational, his opening confession reveals inner agitation rather than calm discernment. His “thoughts” compel him to speak, not patience or humility. The phrase “for this I make haste” suggests impulsiveness. Zophar is reacting, not carefully weighing Job’s argument or the moral complexity of his situation.

Zophar interprets Job’s previous speech, especially Job’s declaration of a living Redeemer and future vindication, as a personal rebuke. Rather than allowing Job’s testimony to challenge his assumptions, he takes offense. The “check of my reproach” indicates that Zophar feels corrected or exposed, yet instead of self-examination, his response is defensive. He believes the reproach demands an answer.

When Zophar appeals to “the spirit of my understanding,” he claims intellectual and moral clarity. However, the narrative consistently shows that while Zophar speaks with confidence, his understanding is rigid and flawed. He assumes that long-standing moral formulas automatically apply to Job’s case. Zophar mistakes certainty for wisdom. His speech will be eloquent and forceful, but it will lack compassion and fail to engage with the substance of Job’s faith.

2. (Job 20:4–11) The short triumph of the wicked man.

“Knowest thou not this of old,
Since man was placed upon earth,
That the triumphing of the wicked is short,
And the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment?
Though his excellency mount up to the heavens,
And his head reach unto the clouds;
Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung:
They which have seen him shall say, Where is he?
He shall fly away as a dream, and shall not be found:
Yea, he shall be chased away as a vision of the night.
The eye also which saw him shall see him no more;
Neither shall his place any more behold him.
His children shall seek to please the poor,
And his hands shall restore their goods.
His bones are full of the sin of his youth,
Which shall lie down with him in the dust.” (Job 20:4–11, KJV)

Zophar appeals to what he considers ancient and universal truth. “Knowest thou not this of old” is a rhetorical move designed to shut down debate. He assumes that what he is about to say is beyond dispute, established since mankind was placed on the earth. This appeal to antiquity substitutes tradition for careful discernment. Zophar offers no proof, only the assertion that everyone knows this to be true.

His central claim is simple and inflexible, the prosperity of the wicked is brief, and their joy is fleeting. By labeling Job implicitly as a “hypocrite,” Zophar reveals his settled conclusion. He has already decided that Job’s former prosperity must have been the false happiness of a wicked man. In Zophar’s theology, suffering is the inevitable exposure of hypocrisy.

Zophar paints the wicked man in exaggerated terms. His “excellency” rises to the heavens, his head reaches the clouds, suggesting arrogance, pride, and apparent success. Yet this height only makes the fall more dramatic. The wicked man perishes permanently, compared in shocking language to refuse. This graphic imagery is intended to humiliate as much as to warn. Zophar is not merely stating a moral principle, he is aiming it directly at Job.

The disappearance of the wicked is described as complete and irreversible. Like a dream or a night vision, he vanishes without trace. Those who once saw him will ask, “Where is he?” This reflects Zophar’s belief that the wicked leave no enduring legacy, no lasting remembrance, and no future hope.

Zophar continues by extending judgment to the wicked man’s family. His children are reduced to seeking favor from the poor, reversing the family’s former status. The wealth accumulated unjustly must be restored, whether by force or restitution. Zophar presents this as moral inevitability, though he ignores the reality that in the fallen world, such justice is often delayed or absent.

The final image is deeply physical. The bones of the wicked are “full of the sin of his youth.” Zophar suggests that guilt is embedded in the body itself, carried from early life into death. Whatever strength or vitality once filled him will lie down in the dust with him. This statement stands in deliberate contrast to Job’s hope of seeing God in his flesh. Zophar implicitly rejects the idea of resurrection or posthumous vindication. For him, death is the final seal of judgment.

Zophar’s error is not in recognizing that wickedness ultimately fails, Scripture affirms that truth elsewhere. His error is absolutizing the principle and applying it mechanically to Job. He allows no category for righteous suffering, no room for mystery, and no patience for faith that waits beyond death for vindication. His speech is eloquent, forceful, and traditional, but it is morally harsh and theologically incomplete.

B. The misery of the wicked man.

1. (Job 20:12–19) The frustrated life of the wicked man.

“Though wickedness be sweet in his mouth,
Though he hide it under his tongue;
Though he spare it, and forsake it not;
But keep it still within his mouth:
Yet his meat in his bowels is turned,
It is the gall of asps within him.
He hath swallowed down riches, and he shall vomit them up again:
God shall cast them out of his belly.
He shall suck the poison of asps:
The viper’s tongue shall slay him.
He shall not see the rivers, the floods, the brooks of honey and butter.
That which he laboured for shall he restore, and shall not swallow it down:
According to his substance shall the restitution be, and he shall not rejoice therein.
Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor;
Because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not.” (Job 20:12–19, KJV)

Zophar now intensifies his description of the wicked man by focusing on inward frustration rather than outward loss. He begins with the imagery of taste and appetite. Wickedness is portrayed as something deliberately savored, hidden under the tongue, cherished and prolonged. The wicked man does not stumble into evil, he preserves it, enjoys it, and refuses to release it. Zophar’s imagery suggests intentionality and delight in sin rather than ignorance or weakness.

Yet this sweetness is temporary. What is pleasant in the mouth becomes bitter in the stomach. Zophar describes an inevitable internal reversal. Sin that delights the senses eventually poisons the inner life. The comparison to the gall and venom of serpents underscores the lethal nature of sin once it is fully digested. Zophar’s point is that evil never remains neutral. It always turns inward and destroys the one who embraces it.

The imagery of wealth follows naturally. The wicked man swallows riches greedily, but cannot keep them. What is taken unjustly cannot be retained peacefully. Zophar insists that God Himself forces the wicked to disgorge their gain. This is not merely social consequence or chance misfortune, but divine intervention. God casts the wealth out of the belly, emphasizing that judgment comes from above, not merely from circumstance.

The repeated reference to venom reinforces the theme. What the wicked thought would nourish him becomes deadly. Zophar piles image upon image to drive home his moral certainty. The wicked man cannot enjoy abundance, cannot find satisfaction, and cannot see the rivers of blessing described in poetic language as honey and butter. The language recalls covenant imagery of prosperity and peace, blessings that the wicked are excluded from by their own conduct.

Zophar then stresses restitution without joy. The wicked man must give back what he labored for, but without any sense of satisfaction. Even when justice is done, there is no rejoicing. Gain without righteousness yields no fulfillment. This reinforces Zophar’s belief that sin carries built in punishment.

Finally, Zophar names the moral cause of this frustration. The wicked man has oppressed and abandoned the poor. He has seized what he did not build. This is social injustice, exploitation, and violence. At this point, the implication toward Job becomes unmistakable. Zophar is no longer speaking in abstract terms. He is painting Job’s losses as evidence that Job himself must have lived this kind of predatory life, despite everything Scripture has already told the reader about Job’s integrity.

Zophar’s theology allows no space for innocent suffering. If frustration exists, it must be earned. His moral logic is consistent, but it is cruel.

2. (Job 20:20–29) The dark destiny of the wicked man.

“Surely he shall not feel quietness in his belly,
He shall not save of that which he desired.
There shall none of his meat be left;
Therefore shall no man look for his goods.
In the fulness of his sufficiency he shall be in straits:
Every hand of the wicked shall come upon him.
When he is about to fill his belly,
God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him,
And shall rain it upon him while he is eating.
He shall flee from the iron weapon,
And the bow of steel shall strike him through.
It is drawn, and cometh out of the body;
Yea, the glittering sword cometh out of his gall:
Terrors are upon him.
All darkness shall be hid in his secret places:
A fire not blown shall consume him;
It shall go ill with him that is left in his tabernacle.
The heaven shall reveal his iniquity;
And the earth shall rise up against him.
The increase of his house shall depart,
And his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.
This is the portion of a wicked man from God,
And the heritage appointed unto him by God.” (Job 20:20–29, KJV)

Zophar concludes his speech by portraying the final destiny of the wicked as relentless and inescapable. The wicked man knows no inner peace. Even when outwardly full, inwardly he is restless. Desire is never satisfied. Nothing is preserved, nothing endures. Zophar presents anxiety as the defining mark of wicked prosperity.

In a striking paradox, Zophar claims that even in abundance the wicked man is distressed. Self sufficiency becomes the very context in which judgment strikes. When there seems to be nothing lacking, everything collapses. Zophar portrays calamity as sudden, comprehensive, and unavoidable. Every hand of misery comes against the wicked man at once.

God is explicitly named as the agent of wrath. Judgment rains down while the wicked man is eating, emphasizing the interruption of pleasure by divine justice. Zophar stresses inevitability. Escape from one danger only leads into another. Iron weapons and bronze bows ensure that there is no refuge. The wicked man cannot outrun judgment.

The violent imagery intensifies. The weapon pierces the body, emerges from the gall, and terrors overwhelm him. Zophar deliberately echoes Job’s earlier complaints about being pierced by God’s arrows, but now throws those words back at Job as deserved judgment. What Job experienced unjustly, Zophar insists must be proof of guilt.

Darkness consumes everything the wicked has stored. An unfanned fire, not kindled by man but by God, devours what remains. Even those left behind in his dwelling suffer. Judgment extends beyond the individual to everything associated with him.

Zophar then universalizes the exposure. Heaven reveals the wicked man’s iniquity, and earth itself rises against him. There is no hiding place, no appeal, no advocate. The increase of his house departs, and his goods flow away in the day of God’s wrath. Zophar reduces divine judgment almost entirely to material loss, revealing his shallow conception of ultimate justice.

He closes with a firm summary. This, he declares, is the portion and heritage appointed by God to the wicked man. In Zophar’s mind, the case is closed. He leaves no room for repentance, mercy, or restoration. His theology is final, mechanical, and merciless.

Zophar is not entirely wrong. Scripture affirms that wickedness is ultimately self destructive and that God judges injustice. Yet Zophar’s fatal error is his rigid application. He mistakes general moral truth for absolute diagnostic rule. He ignores mystery, grace, and the possibility of righteous suffering. In doing so, he becomes an accuser rather than a comforter, and his speech marks the final hardening of the friends against Job.