Job 22:20

He gives him very good counsel, assuring him that, if he would take it, God would return in mercy to him and he should return to his former prosperity,

It is our honour that we are made capable of this acquaintance, our misery that by sin we have lost it, our privilege that through Christ we are invited to return to it; and it will be our unspeakable happiness to contract and cultivate this acquaintance.

The triumphant speech of the pious. If "substance" be retained, translate, rather as the Septuagint, "Has not their substance been taken away, and . . . ?" But the Hebrew is rather, "Truly our adversary is cut down" [GESENIUS].

Whereas our substance is not cut down - Margin, or, “Estate” Gesenius supposes that this means our adversary or enemy. The word used here (קים qı̂ym) he regards as derived from קוּם qûm - to rise, to rise up; and, hence, it may have the sense of rising up against, or an enemy. So Noyes understands it, and renders it: “Truly, our adversary is destroyed; And fire hath consumed his abundance.” Rosemmuller accords with this, and it seems to me to be the correct view. According to this, it is the language of the righteous Job 22:19 when exciting over the punishment of the wicked, saying, “Our foe is cut down.” Jerome renders it, Nonne succisa est erectio eorum, etc. The Septuagint, “Has not their substance ὑπόστασις hupostasis disappeared?” The sense is not materially different. If the word “substance,” or “property,” is to be retained it should be read as a question, and regarded as the language of the righteous who exult. “Has not their substance been taken away. and has not the fire consumed their property?” Dr. Good strangely renders it, “For our tribe is not cut off.” But the remnant of them - Margin, “their excellency.” Hebrew יתרם yı̂thrām. Jerome, “reliquias eorum” - “the remnants of them.” Septuagint, κατάλειμμα kataleimma - “the residue,” or “what is left.” The Hebrew word יתר yether means, “the remainder, the residue, the rest;” then, what is redundant, more than is needed, or that abounds; and then, “wealth,” the superabundant property which a man does not “need” for his own use or family. The word here probably means that which the rich sinner possessed. The fire consumeth - Or, hath consumed. It has been supposed by many that the allusion here is to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it cannot be denied that such an allusion is possible. If it were “certain” that Job lived before that event, there could be little objection to such a supposition. […]