In these verses,

I.Job opposes the opinion of his friends, which he saw they still adhered to, that the wicked are sure to fall into such visible and remarkable ruin as Job had now fallen into, and none but the wicked, upon which principle they condemned Job as a wicked man. "I know your thoughts," says Job (Job 21:27); "I know you will not agree with me; for your judgments are tinctured and biassed by your piques and prejudices against me, and the devices which you wrongfully imagine against my comfort and honour: and how can such men be convinced?" Job's friends were ready to say, in answer to his discourse concerning the prosperity of the wicked, "Where is the house of the prince? Job 21:28. Where is Job's house, or the house of his eldest son, in which his children were feasting? Enquire into the circumstances of Job's house and family, and then ask, Where are the dwelling-places of the wicked? and compare them together, and you will soon see that Job's house is in the same predicament with the houses of tyrants and oppressors, and may therefore conclude that doubtless he was such a one."

II.He lays down his own judgment to the contrary, and, for proof of it, appeals to the sentiments and observations of all mankind. So confident is he that he is in the right that he is willing to refer the cause to the next man that comes by (Job 21:29): "Have you not asked those that go by the way - any indifferent person, any that will answer you? I say not, as Eliphaz (Job 5:1), to which of the saints, but to which of the children of men will you turn? Turn to which you will, and you will find them all of my mind, that the punishment of sinners is designed more for the other world than for this, according to the prophecy of Enoch, the seventh from Adam, Jde 1:14. Do you not know the tokens of this truth, which all that have made any observations upon the providences of God concerning mankind in this world can furnish you with?" Now,

1.What is it that Job here asserts? Two things: - (1.) That impenitent sinners will certainly be punished in the other world, and, usually, their punishment is put off until then. (2.) That therefore we are not to think it strange if they prosper greatly in this world and fall under no visible token of God's wrath. Therefore they are spared now, because they are to be punished then; therefore the workers of iniquity flourish, that they may be destroyed for ever, Psa 92:7. The sinner is here supposed, [1.] To live in a great deal of power, so as to be not only the terror of the mighty in the land of the living (Eze 32:27), but the terror of the wise and good too, whom he keeps in such awe that none dares declare his way to his face, Job 21:31. None will take the liberty to reprove him, to tell him of the wickedness of his way, and what will be in the end thereof; so that he sins securely, and is not made to know either shame or fear. The prosperity of fools destroys them, by setting them (in their own conceit) above reproofs, by which they might be brought to that repentance which alone will prevent their ruin. Those are marked for destruction that are let alone in sin, Hos 4:17. And, if none dares declare his way to his face, much less dare any repay him what he has done and make him refund what he has obtained by injustice. He is one of those great flies which break through the cobwebs of the law, that hold only the little ones. This emboldens sinners in their sinful ways that they can brow-beat justice and make it afraid to meddle with them. But there is a day coming when those shall be told of their faults who now would not bear to hear of them, those shall have their sins set in order before them, and their way declared to their face, to their everlasting confusion, who would not have it done here, to their conviction, and those who would not repay the wrongs they had done shall have them repaid to them. [2.] To die, and be buried in a great deal of pomp and magnificence, Job 21:32, Job 21:33. There is no remedy; he must die; that is the lot of all men; but every thing you can think of shall be done to take off the reproach of death. First, He shall have a splendid funeral - a poor thing for any man to be proud of the prospect of; yet with some it passes for a mighty thing. Well, he shall be brought to the grave in state, surrounded with all the honours of the heralds' office and all the respect his friends can then pay to his remains. The rich man died, and was buried, but no mention is made of the poor man's burial, Luk 16:22. Secondly, He shall have a stately monument erected over him. He shall remain in the tomb with a Hic jacet - Here lies, over him, and a large encomium. Perhaps it is meant of the embalming of his body to preserve it, which was a piece of honour anciently done by the Egyptians to their great men. He shall watch in the tomb (so the word is), shall abide solitary and quiet there, as a watchman in his tower. Thirdly, The clods of the valley shall be sweet to him; there shall be as much done as can be with rich odours to take off the noisomeness of the grave, as by lamps to set aside the darkness of it, which perhaps was referred to in the foregoing phrase of watching in the tomb. But it is all a jest; what is the light, or what the perfume, to a man that is dead? Fourthly, It shall be alleged, for the lessening of the disgrace of death, that it is the common lot: He has only yielded to fate, and every man shall draw after him, as there are innumerable before him. Note, Death is the way of all the earth: when we are to cross that darksome valley we must consider, 1. That there are innumerable before us; it is a tracked road, which may help to take off the terror of it. To die is ire ad plures - to go to the great majority. 2. That every man shall draw after us. As there is a plain track before, so there is a long train behind; we are neither the first nor the last that pass through that dark entry. Every one must go in his own order, the order appointed of God.

2.From all this Job infers the impertinency of their discourses, Job 21:34. (1.) Their foundation is rotten, and they went upon a wrong hypothesis: "In your answers there remains falsehood; what you have said stands not only unproved but disproved, and lies under such an imputation of falsehood as you cannot clear it from." (2.) Their building was therefore weak and tottering: "You comfort me in vain. All you have said gives me no relief; you tell me that I shall prosper again if I turn to God, but you go upon this presumption, that piety shall certainly be crowned with prosperity, which is false; and therefore how can your inference from it yield me any comfort?" Note, Where there is not truth there is little comfort to be expected.

Yet shall he be brought to the grave,.... Or "and", "or yea he shall be brought", &c. (a); for the meaning is not, that though he is great in life he shall be brought low enough at death; for Job is still describing the grand figure wicked men make, even at death, as well as in life; for he is not only brought to the grave, as all men are, it being the house appointed for all living, and every man's long home; but the wicked rich man is brought thither in great funeral pomp, in great state, as the rich sinner was buried, Ecc 8:10; or "to the graves" (b), the place where many graves are, the place of the sepulchres of his ancestors; and in the chiefest and choicest of them he is interred, and has an honourable burial; not cast into a ditch, or buried with the burial of an ass, as Jehoiakim was, being cast forth beyond the gates of the city, Jer 22:19; and shall remain in the tomb; quiet and undisturbed, when it has been the lot of others to have their bones taken out of their grave, and spread before the sun, see Jer 8:1; and even some good men, who have had their graves dug up, their bones taken out and burnt, and their ashes scattered about, as was the case of that eminent man, John Wickliff, here in England. The word for "tomb" signifies an "heap" (c), and is sometimes used for an heap of the fruits of the earth; which has led some to think of the place of this man's interment being in the midst of a corn field; but the reason why a grave or tomb is so called is, because a grave, through a body or bodies being laid in it, rises up higher than the common ground; and if it has a tomb erected over it, that is no other than an heap of stones artificially put together; or it may be so called from the heaps of bodies one upon another in a grave, or vault, over which the tomb is, or where every part of the body is gathered and heaped (d); from this sense of the word some have given this interpretation of the passage, that the wicked man shall be brought to his grave, and abide there, after he has heaped up a great deal of wealth and riches in this world; which, though a truth, seems not to be intended here, any more than others taken from the different signification of the word translated "remain". It is observed by some to signify to "hasten" (e), from whence the almond tree, which hastens to put forth its bloom, has its name, Jer 1:10; and so give this as the sense, that such a man, being of full age, is ripe for death, and, comes to his grave, or heap, like a shock of corn in its season. Others observe, that it signifies to "watch"; and so in the margin of our Bibles the clause is put, "he shall watch in the heap" (f), which is differently interpreted; by some, that he early and carefully provides himself a tomb, as Absalom in his lifetime set up a sepulchral pillar for himself, Sa2 18:18; and Shebna the scribe, and Joseph of Arimathea, hewed themselves sepulchres out of the rock, Isa 22:15; and others think the allusion is either to statues upon tombs, as are still in use in our days, where they are placed as if they were watching over the tombs; or to bodies embalmed, according to the custom of the eastern countries, especially the Egyptians, which were set up erect in their vaults, and seemed as if they were alive, and there set to watch the places they were in, rather than as if buried there; or, according to others, "he shall be watched", or "the keeper shall watch at", or "over the tomb" (g), that the body is not disturbed or taken away; but the sense our version gives is best, and most agrees with the context, and the scope of it, and with what follows.

(a) "et ipse", Pagninus, Montanus, &c. (b) "ad sepulchra", V. L. Montamus, Vatablus, Drusius, Beza, Mercerus, Michaelis, Schultens; "in sepulchra", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator. (c) "super acervo", Montanus, Codurcus; so Bolducius, Mercerus. (d) Vid. David de Pomis Lexic. fol. 14. 3. (e) "festinabit", Pagninus; so some in Vatablus, and Ben Melech. (f) "Vigilabit", V. L. Tigurine version, Montanus; "vigilat", Michaelis, Schultens; "erit tanquam vigil", Bolducius. (g) "Vigilabitur", Beza; "vigilatur", Cocceius; so Calovius.

That is, who dares to charge him openly with his bad ways? namely, in this present life. He shall, I grant (Job 21:30), be "repaid" hereafter.