A Devotion from D.A. Carson
Exodus 4; Luke 7; Job 21; 1 Corinthians 8
THE SECOND SPEECH OF ZOPHAR (JOB 20) brings to a conclusion the second round from the three
“miserable comforters.” Job’s response (Job 21) brings the cycle to a close.
If they cannot give him any other consolation, Job says, the least they can do is listen while
he replies (21:2). When he is finished, they can continue their mocking (21:3).
The heart of Job’s response is thought-provoking to anyone concerned with morality and
justice: “Why do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?” (21:7). Not only is
there no obvious pattern of temporal judgment on the transparently wicked, but all too
frequently the reverse is the case: the wicked may be the most prosperous of the lot. “Their
bulls never fail to breed; their cows calve and do not miscarry” (21:10). They have lots of
healthy children, they sing and dance. While they display total disinterest in God (21:14), they
enjoy prosperity (21:13). It is rare that they are snuffed out (21:17). As for popular proverbs
such as “God stores up a man’s punishment for his sons” (21:19), Job is unimpressed; the truly
wicked do not care if they leave their families behind in misery, provided they are comfortable
themselves (21:21). That is why the wicked need to “drink of the wrath of the Almighty” (21:20)
themselves—and that is not what usually happens. True, God knows everything; Job does not
want to deny God’s knowledge and justice (21:22). But facts should not be suppressed. Once
the rich and the poor have died, they face the same decomposition (21:23–26). Where is the
justice in that?
Even allowing for Job’s exaggerations—after all, some wicked people do suffer temporal
judgments—his point should not be dismissed. If the tallies of blessing and punishment are
calculated solely on the basis of what takes place in this life, this is a grossly unfair world.
Millions of relatively good people die in suffering, poverty, and degradation; millions of
relatively evil people live full lives and die in their sleep. We can all tell the stories that
demonstrate God’s justice in this life, but what about the rest of the stories?
The tit-for-tat morality system of Job’s three interlocutors cannot handle the millions of
tough cases. Moreover, like them, Job does not want to impugn God’s justice, but facts are
facts: it is not a virtue, even in the cause of defending God’s justice, to distort the truth and
twist reality.
In the course of time it would become clearer that ultimate justice is meted out after
death—and that the God of justice knows injustice himself, not only out of his omniscience, but
out of his experience on a cross.