Job 21:26 | KingComments | STEP | No one can tell God how to deal with people. It is presumptuous to think that God should behave the way we think He should behave. This is a form of “teaching God” ( ). God is the Judge of even the highest created beings, the angels. So who can tell Him how He should do His work? No one, of course. God knows what He does when He allows the wicked to live, sometimes for a long time, sometimes for a short time. Therefore, the friends’ assertion that judgment in this life is always a sign of sin and prosperity of righteousness is false. It is good not to judge anything before time ( ). There is much inequality in dying and the life that preceded it, Job says to his friends. This concerns not only age – one dies young, the other old – but also circumstances. A person can die in the strength of his life, without having known any worries ( ). He has also lived in peace, without fear. His circumstances do not at all indicate anything of God’s anger that would rest upon him and come upon him through his death. That his pails are full of milk (as it also can be translated) prove that his cows produce a lot of milk ( ). He himself is in good health and full of life when he dies. Another, on the other hand, dies very differently. He dies in bitterness of soul ( ). The life he has had has been a life of misery. He has not eaten of the good. He had little or no pleasure during his life, but was filled with sorrow. That is a big difference in the life and death of two people. It’s different in their deaths. After their death they lie together in the dust of death, in the grave ( ). Their fate is equal then. Both are covered with and eaten by worms ( ). In the realm of the dead, all the wicked are equal. Prosperity or adversity in life does not give one a better place in the realm of the dead than the other. The bed of feathers of the rich and the bed of straw of the poor is changed in death for both into the dust of the earth. They lie down in it. The silk covering under which the rich one has lain and the rag covering under which the poor one has lain has turned into worms for both of them.

‏ Job 21:26

People Live and Die Differently

No one can tell God how to deal with people. It is presumptuous to think that God should behave the way we think He should behave. This is a form of “teaching God” (Job 21:22). God is the Judge of even the highest created beings, the angels. So who can tell Him how He should do His work? No one, of course. God knows what He does when He allows the wicked to live, sometimes for a long time, sometimes for a short time. Therefore, the friends’ assertion that judgment in this life is always a sign of sin and prosperity of righteousness is false. It is good not to judge anything before time (1Cor 4:5).

There is much inequality in dying and the life that preceded it, Job says to his friends. This concerns not only age – one dies young, the other old – but also circumstances. A person can die in the strength of his life, without having known any worries (Job 21:23). He has also lived in peace, without fear. His circumstances do not at all indicate anything of God’s anger that would rest upon him and come upon him through his death. That his pails are full of milk (as it also can be translated) prove that his cows produce a lot of milk (Job 21:24). He himself is in good health and full of life when he dies.

Another, on the other hand, dies very differently. He dies in bitterness of soul (Job 21:25). The life he has had has been a life of misery. He has not eaten of the good. He had little or no pleasure during his life, but was filled with sorrow. That is a big difference in the life and death of two people.

It’s different in their deaths. After their death they lie together in the dust of death, in the grave (Job 21:26). Their fate is equal then. Both are covered with and eaten by worms (Isa 14:11). In the realm of the dead, all the wicked are equal. Prosperity or adversity in life does not give one a better place in the realm of the dead than the other. The bed of feathers of the rich and the bed of straw of the poor is changed in death for both into the dust of the earth. They lie down in it. The silk covering under which the rich one has lain and the rag covering under which the poor one has lain has turned into worms for both of them.