Job 21:1
in Job 21Then Job answered:
BSB
The same verse in ASV and KJV ▾
ASV
Then Job answered and said,
KJV
But Job answered and said,
⋯
This verse in Job 21
Commentary
5 notes on this verseBut Job answered and said. In reply to what Zophar had asserted, concerning the prosperity of the wicked being only for a short time, Job 20:5; the contrary to which he most clearly proves, and that in many instances their prosperity continues as long as they live; that they die in it, and it is enjoyed by their posterity after them.
This site's exposition
Then Job answered
on Job 21:1-3
Job asks for one thing the friends have not given him, a hearing, and says "let this be your consolation to me". Gill notes that the request is modest, the courtesy their silence at 2:13 once offered and their reproaches in chapter 19 have since withdrawn.
The record, by era
The Medieval Church1 voice
In the preceding chapter Sophar had already consented to the opinion of Job, at least in part. He had affirmed that sins were punished after death, although he still retained in this his own opinion that sins were also punished temporally in this life. For …
The Puritans and the Awakening2 voices
He owns that God does sometimes hang up a wicked man as it were in chains, in terrorem --as a terror to others, by some visible remarkable judgment in this life, but denies that he always does so; nay, he maintains that commonly he does otherwise, suffering even the worst of sinners to live all their days in prosperity and to go out of the world without any visible mark of his wrath upon them.
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.
The words behind it
3 Hebrew wordsEvery Hebrew word of this verse in the order it stands, with what it means and the door to its own study. The last column counts the times a word stands in the whole Bible: the rarer the word, the more the places it appears belong together.
| Hebrew | Sound | Meaning | Word study | In the Bible |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| וַיַּ֥עַן | vaiyaan | and he answered | H6030 → | 331 times |
| אִיּ֗וֹב | ʾiyov | Job | H347 → | 58 times |
| וַיֹּאמַֽר׃ | vaiyomar | and he said | H559 → | 5305 times |
וַיַּ֥עַןand he answered
vaiyaanH6030 →331 times
אִיּ֗וֹבJob
ʾiyovH347 →58 times
וַיֹּאמַֽר׃and he said
vaiyomarH559 →5305 times
A shaded row is a word that stands 400 times or fewer in the Bible.
About Job
Who and where
1 name in this verse with a page on the site.
This page draws on John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament (1748-1763); John Gill, Exposition of the Old Testament; Matthew Henry, Commentary on the Whole Bible and Thomas Aquinas, Commentary on Job.