Companion: Deep Study
A condensed companion to the full study. For each section of the expanded outline: key insights, applications, and the application questions for discussion.
Section 1 — Provoked to Answer: The Joy of the Godless Is Brief (Job 20:1–5)
Key Insights
- Zophar answers Job’s warning of judgment (19:29) out of haste and wounded honor, while claiming to speak from understanding.
- He passes over Job’s great confession, “For I know that my Redeemer lives” (19:25), without a word.
- His thesis is that “the exulting of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless but for a moment” (v. 5).
- The thesis is true as God’s final verdict but false as a rule for reading any one life or as a charge against Job.
- Christ is the Redeemer Zophar ignored, whose lasting joy was won through the cross (Hebrews 12:2).
Applications
- When rebuked, be quick to hear and slow to speak before calling your irritation wisdom (James 1:19).
- Listen for the faith in a sufferer’s words, not only the complaint.
- Never read someone’s illness, loss or poverty as proof of hidden sin (John 9:3).
Application Questions
- When someone’s rebuke stings you, do you tend to answer quickly from wounded pride, or do you examine whether their words contain truth?
- Have you ever quietly concluded that someone’s hardship must be the result of their sin? How should the book of Job correct that habit?
Section 2 — The Towering Man Who Vanishes Like a Dream (Job 20:6–11)
Key Insights
- The wicked man rises until his head reaches the clouds, like the proud king of Babylon (Isaiah 14:14).
- Zophar’s coarse image of dung (v. 7) pictures worldly glory as worthless and discarded when God removes it.
- “He will fly away like a dream and not be found” (v. 8).
- Zophar turns Job’s own lament about his frailty (7:8) into a description of the wicked.
- Christ humbled Himself to the cross and was exalted, so the way up in God’s kingdom is the way of the cross (Philippians 2:9).
Applications
- Do not measure life by height; lay up treasure in heaven (Matthew 6:20).
- Use youthful strength to serve your Creator rather than to trust in yourself (Ecclesiastes 12:1).
- These verses teach no generational curse: each person answers for his own sin (Ezekiel 18:20).
Application Questions
- In what area of your life are you building height that you hope will make you secure?
- How should the image of the wicked vanishing like a dream change the way you feel when you envy the success of ungodly people?
Section 3 — Sweet in the Mouth, Venom Within (Job 20:12–16)
Key Insights
- “Though evil is sweet in his mouth, though he hides it under his tongue” (v. 12).
- Cherished sin is savored, prolonged and hidden, but never hidden from God.
- What tasted sweet becomes the venom of cobras within, because sin carries its own judgment.
- God Himself casts out riches that were greedily swallowed (v. 15).
- Christ drank the bitter cup of judgment against sin so that sinners might taste that the LORD is good (Matthew 26:39).
Applications
- Name the sin you are holding under your tongue and put it to death (Colossians 3:5).
- Fight sin’s sweetness with a greater sweetness: God’s word and Christ Himself (Psalm 119:103).
- This describes sin loved and unrepented, not the struggling believer, and it is no diagnosis of illness.
Application Questions
- Is there a sin you are holding in your mouth, savoring in secret, and reluctant to let go?
- Have you tasted the bitterness that follows sin? How has God used that bitterness to draw you back to Himself?
Section 4 — Swallowed Riches and the Plunder of the Poor (Job 20:17–22)
Key Insights
- The wicked man never enjoys the honey and curds he dreamed of, and he must give back what he gained (v. 18).
- His crime is oppression: “For he has crushed and abandoned the poor; he has seized a house that he did not build” (v. 19).
- Zophar’s charge against Job was false, for Job had delivered the poor and the fatherless (29:12).
- The root of greed is a restless heart that knows no contentment (v. 20).
- Christ came to proclaim good news to the poor and to give rest to the restless (Luke 4:18).
Applications
- Examine wages, contracts, rents and business dealings, for oppressing the poor insults God (Proverbs 14:31).
- Where you have wronged someone, make restitution as Zacchaeus did (Luke 19:8).
- Apply these verses without political partisanship, and report fraud and abuse to civil authorities.
Application Questions
- In your work, business or personal finances, is there any way you are profiting at the expense of someone more vulnerable than you?
- If you have wronged someone financially, what would restitution look like, and what keeps you from making it?
Section 5 — The Burning Anger of God and the Arrow That Finds Its Mark (Job 20:23–25)
Key Insights
- The glutton is filled at last with a meal of burning anger from God (v. 23).
- “He will flee from an iron weapon; a bronze arrow will strike him through” (v. 24).
- God’s wrath against unrepentant sin is real, personal and inescapable.
- Henry answers the terror in one line: there is no shelter but in Christ, the covert from the storm (Isaiah 32:2).
- Christ bore that wrath, for “the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all” (Isaiah 53:6).
Applications
- Take God’s wrath seriously, because the cross makes no sense without it (John 3:36).
- When conscience accuses you, flee to God, not from Him, through Christ (Romans 8:1).
- Never read accidents, violence or sudden death as God’s verdict on particular people (Luke 13:5).
Application Questions
- Do you take the reality of God’s wrath seriously, or have you quietly set it aside as outdated or unloving?
- When you become aware of God’s displeasure over your sin, do you flee from Him or to Him?
Section 6 — Heaven and Earth Bear Witness: The Wicked Man’s Portion (Job 20:26–29)
Key Insights
- Darkness is stored up for the wicked man’s treasures, and a fire no human kindled consumes him (v. 26).
- “The heavens will reveal his iniquity, and the earth will rise up against him” (v. 27), a pointed reply to Job’s appeal to his Witness in heaven.
- The chapter closes with the wicked man’s portion and heritage decreed by God (v. 29).
- As Henry says, never was doctrine better explained or worse applied.
- Christ, who will judge all hidden things, has borne the iniquity of His people and given them an inheritance kept in heaven (1 Peter 1:4).
Applications
- Live now in the light, since nothing hidden will stay hidden (Hebrews 4:13).
- Hold possessions loosely, because God Himself is your portion (Psalm 73:26).
- Pronounce no verdict on anyone’s soul, not even Zophar’s, who was restored through Job’s prayer (42:9).
Application Questions
- If the heavens will one day reveal all iniquity, what is there in your life that you would not want revealed, and what will you do about it now?
- What do you most count on as your portion and inheritance in life?
Zophar described the wicked man’s portion truly and aimed it falsely; Christ took that portion upon Himself at the cross so that everyone who trusts Him may have God as his portion forever.
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