Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 21:8
Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
8. They have the additional felicity of seeing their children grow up beside them a pathetic touch from the hand of the man whose sons had been taken from him.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Their seed – Their children – their posterity.
Is established in their sight – Around them, where they may often see them – where they may enjoy their society. The friends of Job had maintained, with great positiveness and earnestness, that the children of wicked people would be cut off. See Job 18:19; Job 20:28. This position Job now directly controverts, and says that it is a fact, that so far from being cut off, they are often established in the very presence of their ungodly parents, and live and prosper. How, he asks, is this consistent with the position, that God deals with people in this life according to their character?
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 8. Their seed is established] They see their own children grow up, and become settled in the land; and behold their children’s children also; so that their generations are not cut off. Even the posterity of the wicked continue.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Their seed; either,
1. The fruits of their ground; or rather,
2. Their children; as it is explained in the next branch of the verse, the words both here and there used being commonly so understood.
Their seed is established, i.e. they multiply and prosper greatly. In their sight; which is a great addition to their happiness.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
8. In opposition to Job 18:19;Job 5:4.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Their seed is established in their sight with them,…. Which is to be understood not of seed sown in the earth, and of the permanence and increase of that, but of their children; to have a numerous progeny, was reckoned a great temporal blessing, and to have them settled happily and comfortably in the world was an additional one; and what contributed still more to their felicity was, that they were well settled during their life, or they yet living, and with their eyes beholding their prosperous and stable condition; and also “with them”; near them, in the same neighbourhood, or at no great distance from them; or even in like circumstances with them, equally as well settled and as prosperous as themselves, as this phrase is sometimes used, see Ps 106:6;
and their offspring before their eyes; their children’s children, as the Targum, and so the Vulgate Latin version; so that prosperity attends not only wicked men and their children, but also their grandchildren, and they live to see these grown up and settled in the world, and in thriving circumstances; all which must give them pleasure, and be matter of honour and glory to them, Pr 17:6. Now this is diametrically opposite to Zophar’s notion of the short continuance of the prosperity of wicked men, and of the low and miserable condition of their children, Job 20:5.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(8) Their seed is established in their sight.Not only are they mighty in power themselves, but they leave their power to their children after them (comp. Psa. 17:14). This contradicts what Eliphaz had said (Job. 15:34), what Bildad had said (Job. 18:19), and what Zophar had said (Job. 20:10).
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
8. Their offspring The children of the wicked live on, while his own are dead. The thought which he twice repeats in this verse, and which he resumes in the 11th, by contrast points most pathetically to the darkest phase of his inexpressible calamity, of which it is to be remarked he never directly speaks. This very silence, more eloquent than words, is the natural outgrowth of untold calamity, (Job 6:3.) The naturalness of the book, seemingly beyond the power of invention, must impress the reader at every step.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
(8) Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes. (9) Their houses are safe from fear, neither is the rod of God upon them. (10) Their bull gendereth, and faileth not; their cow calveth, and casteth not her calf. (11) They send forth their little ones like a flock, and their children dance. (12) They take the timbrel and harp, and rejoice at the sound of the organ. (13) They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
Job gives, in these verses, a most masterly description of prosperous sinners: and every age of the Church affords numberless living examples, that the account is not heightened. Observe, what a view the man of Uz gives, in the first place, of their mirth. They are unvisited by affliction. The rod of GOD, as a kind father, is not felt by them. Observe the training of their children. What a melancholy picture is this of an ungodly house: They send them forth, to the dance. Alas! what thousands of graceless parents there are, in the present day, who do this, and are regardless of their children’s eternal welfare. They take the timbrel and the harp (the same fashionable instruments which the frivolous make chief part of the education of our day); but not a word of taking the Bible, or the sweet sounds of the gospel of JESUS, for their little ones to be brought up in the knowledge of it: but the whole system tends to this end, how to excel in that, which the stage dancers and the lowest of animals excel in, as well as they! Observe in what striking terms Job describes the result of all this: they spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. And who that looks round, and contemplates what is daily going on in the carnal world before their eyes, can require further evidence of the truth of this now, as well as in Job’s days. Read what Asaph hath remarked to the same effect, and compare the scriptures together. Psa 73:3-20 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 21:8 Their seed is established in their sight with them, and their offspring before their eyes.
Ver. 8. Their seed is established in their sight with them ] Some understand it of their seed sown in the fields, nor blasted nor wasted, but timely gathered into their barns and granaries; and so by offspring, Germina, they, taking it literally, conceive to be meant their plants, trees, flowers, fruits, all which come kindly, and grow to their minds. But better interpret it of their children and nephews, whom they have many, healthy, lusty, and lively, Multos, sanos, vegetos, et viraces, and not unfitly compared to seed; as if the parents were but only the husks; and to branches or sprigs, because they may be, and must be, bent betime to the best things, before they be aged and crooked in their evil practices, refusing to be rectified.
And their offspring before their eyes
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Job 5:3, Job 5:4, Job 18:19, Job 20:10, Job 20:28, Pro 17:6
Reciprocal: Gen 36:15 – Eliphaz