Now that Job has responded to Bildad, the third companion, Zophar, taks a shot at Job.
Job 20:1-3, You offend me!
Then Zophar the Naamathite replied:
"My troubled thoughts prompt me to answer
because I am greatly disturbed.
I hear a rebuke that dishonors me,
and my understanding inspires me to reply.
Poor Zophar is offended. Job has rebuked him and Zophar takes umbrage in a chaismic stanza:
A: my thoughts make me anwer
B: I am disturbed
B: I am dishonored
A: my thoughts make me reply
Job 20:4-11, Evil lasts only briefly
"Surely you know how it has been from of old,
ever since man was placed on the earth,
that the mirth of the wicked is brief,
the joy of the godless lasts but a moment.
Though his pride reaches to the heavens
and his head touches the clouds,
he will perish forever, like his own dung;
those who have seen him will say, `Where is he?'
Like a dream he flies away,
no more to be found,
banished like a vision of the night.
The eye that saw him will not see him again;
his place will look on him no more.
His children must make amends to the poor;
his own hands must give back his wealth.
The youthful vigor that fills his bones will lie with him in the dust.
The joy of evil people is only short and temporary, says Zophar. This is the oldest wisdom, back to the creation of mankind. (The older the knowledge, the wiser, one assumes.) Even if the godless reach, for a moment, to the clouds, they will fall and be forgotten, with their children given back their wealth. (I am reminded of the Chronicler's comment on the reign of Judean king Jehoram, "He passed away, to no one's regret", 2 Chronicles 21:20.)
Zophar argues for a divine axiom of retribution: evil people are punished and (presumably) good people are rewarded.
Job 20:12-19, Sour stomach
"Though evil is sweet in his mouth
and he hides it under his tongue,
though he cannot bear to let it go
and keeps it in his mouth,
yet his food will turn sour in his stomach;
it will become the venom of serpents within him.
He will spit out the riches he swallowed;
God will make his stomach vomit them up.
He will suck the poison of serpents;
the fangs of an adder will kill him.
He will not enjoy the streams,
the rivers flowing with honey and cream.
What he toiled for he must give back uneaten;
he will not enjoy the profit from his trading.
For he has oppressed the poor and left them destitute;
he has seized houses he did not build.
The joy of evil is so very short, argues Zophar. The wicked man is forced to vomit the evil he eats and spit out the riches he swallows. Beautiful streams of honey and cream he cannot enjoy; if he oppresses the poor he does not get to build on the houses he seizes. No one should want to be evil.
(This is far too simplistic. If evil were so quickly punished, it would not exist. If lies were not rewarded, no one would lie.)
Job 20: 20-25a, Pulling an arrow from his back
"Surely he will have no respite from his craving;
he cannot save himself by his treasure.
Nothing is left for him to devour;
his prosperity will not endure.
In the midst of his plenty, distress will overtake him;
the full force of misery will come upon him.
When he has filled his belly,
God will vent his burning anger against him
and rain down his blows upon him.
Though he flees from an iron weapon,
a bronze-tipped arrow pierces him.
He pulls it out of his back,
the gleaming point out of his liver.
Zophar lists all the calamities that eventually come upon the wicked. If their own actions don't lead to misery, God will attack them, "raining down blows upon him." The wicked man will have to pull an arrow out of his own back, an arrow through his liver! Zophar essentially repeats Job's own complaints of Job 16:13-14, of God attacking him.
Job 20:25b-29, Terrors and cravings
Terrors will come over him;
total darkness lies in wait for his treasures.
A fire unfanned will consume him
and devour what is left in his tent.
The heavens will expose his guilt;
the earth will rise up against him.
A flood will carry off his house,
rushing waters on the day of God's wrath.
Such is the fate God allots the wicked,
the heritage appointed for them by God."
As Job has described his terrors, so Zophar paints the terrors that come over the evil man. If Job wants a trial before God (says Hartley), Zophar says that the heavens and the earth will rise up and witness against him. (The concept of the earth as a witness arises, points out Hartley, in Micah 6:1-2.)
Zophar believe his axiom of retribution is iron clad. Evil is punished! Conversely, goodness is rewarded, so Job must have been evil. One message of the book of Job is that arguments like Zophars', so common among the righteous, are so wrong!
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