Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 22:20
Whereas our substance is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth.
Whereas our substance is not cut down – Margin, or, Estate Gesenius supposes that this means our adversary or enemy. The word used here ( qym) he regards as derived from qum – 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 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 ythram. Jerome, reliquias eorum – the remnants of them. Septuagint, kataleimma – the residue, or what is left. The Hebrew word 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. The only objection would be, that a reference to such an event was not more prominent. It would be a case just in point in the argument of the three friends of Job, and one to which it might be supposed they would have appealed as decisive of the controversy. They lived in the vicinity. They could not have been strangers to so remarkable an occurrence, and it would have furnished just the argument which they wished, to prove that God punishes the wicked in this life. If they lived after that event, therefore, it is difficult to account for the fact, that they did not make a more distinct and prominent allusion to it in their argument. It is true, that the same remark may be made respecting the allusion to the flood, which was a case equally in point, and in reference to which the allusion, if it exist at all, is almost equally obscure. So far as the language here is concerned, the reference may be either to the destruction of Sodom, or to destruction by lightning, such as happened to the possessions of Job, Job 1:16; and it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine which is correct. The general idea is, that the judgments of heaven, represented by fire, had fallen on the wicked, and that the righteous, therefore, had occasion to rejoice.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 20. Whereas our substance is not cut down] We, who fear the Lord, still continue in health and peace; whereas they who have departed from him are destroyed even to their very remnant.
Mr. Good thinks that kimanu, which we translate our substance, is the same as the Arabic [Arabic] our people or tribe; and hence he translates the clause thus: “For our tribe is not cut off; while even the remnant of these a conflagration consumed.” The reference here is supposed to be to the destruction of the men of Sodom and Gomorrah. A judgment by a flood took off the world of the ungodly in the days of Noah. Their remnant, those who lived in the same ungodly way, were taken off by a judgment of fire, in the days of Lot. Eliphaz introduces these two examples in order to terrify Job into a compliance with the exhortation which immediately follows.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Whereas; or, when; or, seeing that; or, because; for this Hebrew particle im is oft used for chi. And so the following words may contain the reason of the joy and laughter of the innocent, mentioned Job 22:19, because when wicked men are destroyed, they are preserved; because
our substance, i.e. our souls, and bodies, and subsistence,
was now cut down. He should have said their substance, i.e. the substance of the righteous; but he changeth the person, and saith,
our substance; either as including himself in the number of righteous persons, and thereby intimating that he pleaded the common cause of all such, whilst Job pleaded the cause of the wicked, as is elsewhere observed; or because he would hereby thankfully acknowledge some eminent and particular preservation given to him amongst other righteous men; or because he and his brethren were of the same substance with and descended from the loins of them whom God had miraculously preserved, when others round about them were cut off; as God had done for Abraham and his posterity, of which race these are conceived to have been. And a like change both of person and number we find Hos 12:4, He found him (i.e. Jacob) in Beth-el, and there he spake with us, i.e. with him, as representing us, and for all our good.
The remnant; all that was left undestroyed in the general calamity. Or, their excellency; all their desirable and delectable things. Of them, i.e. of those who are opposed to the righteous, and in whose destruction the righteous rejoiced.
The fire, to wit, of Gods wrath: some dreadful judgment, either proper fire, possibly that which destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, which such knowing and inquisitive persons could not be ignorant of, as a thing done near their times and places; or some other sore calamity; for such oft come under the name of fire. But this whole verse is and may be otherwise rendered, and that interrogatively. Is not (or rather, was not, the Hebrew prefix he being here understood, after the manner of the language, from Job 22:15, where it is expressed) our substance (i.e. almost all our nature and kind) cut off, (almost all destroyed in the flood,) and did not the fire consume a
remnant of them, i.e. of mankind, and of ungodly men, in Sodom and Gomorrah?
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
20. The triumphant speech of thepious. If “substance” be retained, translate, rather as theSeptuagint, “Has not their substance been taken away, and. . . ?” But the Hebrew is rather, “Truly ouradversary is cut down” [GESENIUS].The same opposition exists between the godly and ungodly seed asbetween the unfallen and restored Adam and Satan (adversary);this forms the groundwork of the book (Job 1:1-2;Gen 3:15).
remnantall that “isleft” of the sinner; repeated from Job20:26, which makes UMBREIT’Srendering “glory” (Margin), “excellency,”less probable.
firealluding to Job(Job 1:16; Job 15:34;Job 18:15). First is mentioneddestruction by water (Job22:16); here, by fire (2Pe3:5-7).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Whereas our substance is not cut down,…. As yours is; Noah and his family were preserved in the ark, and the creatures with him, and sufficient sustenance was laid up for them all, when everything relating to the wicked was destroyed: but this may be thought too restrictive, as well as what follows too subtle, that this should respect the human species not being cut down and utterly destroyed in the flood, but preserved in and restored by Noah and his family; it may perhaps be thought better to interpret these words as the words of Eliphaz and his friends, joining with the righteous and the innocent, putting themselves in their number, and rejoicing with them at the destruction of the wicked, and as having a particular regard to Job’s case, and the difference between him and them; his substance being cut down, and he stripped of all; whereas they were not deprived of theirs, but it continued with them, and they in the full possession of it; the reason of which difference was, he was a wicked man, and they righteous and innocent; but by others, who also take them to be the words of the righteous triumphing over the wicked, they are rendered thus; “is not he cut off that rose up against us?” g Our enemy and adversary, he is no more, he can do us no more hurt, and we are delivered out of his hand:
but the remnant of them the fire consumes; which Aben Ezra, Ben Gersom, and others, interpret of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the other cities, by fire; which would have had some appearance of truth, if the destruction had been of the whole world, and as general as the flood was, or more so, and had cleared the world of the remnant of the ungodly, whereas it was only of a few cities: rather it may be Eliphaz glances at the case of Job, as different from him and his friends, that when their substance was untouched, the remnant of Job’s was consumed by fire; what were left by the Chaldeans and Sabeans were destroyed by fire from heaven; though if it could be thought that Eliphaz had knowledge of the general conflagration at the last day, and had that in view, it would afford a better sense; but it may be he does not mean material, but metaphorical fire, the fire of divine wrath, which will consume the wicked, root and branch, and leave them nothing.
g “annon exscinditur qui insurgit contra nos”, Schmidt, Michaelis.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
(20) Whereas our substance . . .These are probably the words of the righteous and the innocent: Surely they that did rise up against us are cut off, and the remnant of them the fire hath consumed. The rendering in the Authorised Version is probably less correct, though in that also these words seem to be those of the innocent in Job. 22:19.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
20. Contains THE TRIUMPHANT SONG of the righteous:
Truly our adversary is cut off,
And their residue fire consumeth.
Whereas , truly, the strongest form of affirmation: same as in Job 1:11; Job 17:2. Substance, etc. , He who is set up, adversary, a singular form used collectively. Our translators followed the Septuagint. Our adversary, not in a personal but in a moral sense, for the wicked are the natural enemies of the good.
The remnant of them That which remains to them, or of them. The destruction is radical and complete, a fact symbolized by the fire.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 22:20 Whereas our substance is not cut down, but the remnant of them the fire consumeth.
Ver. 20. Whereas our substance is not cut down ] That is, while life lasteth, and while it is called today; before death cometh: and after death, judgment; when the remnant of the wicked fire shall consume. Where we have a forcible motive to repent, because we must either turn or burn, Aut poenitendum, aut pereundum. See Act 17:31 2Co 5:10-11 Heb 12:28-29 . Eliphaz seemeth here on purpose to have mentioned that fire wherewith wicked men shall be tormented at the last day (and before, for every man’s death day is his doomsday), and to have changed the person.
The remnant (or excellence) of them the fire consumeth] That it might the more effectually move men to repent, that they might be delivered from the wrath to come. And here I could willingly take up Chrysostom’s wish, Utinam ubique de Gehenna dissereretur! Oh that men would talk more everywhere of hell fire unquenchable, intolerable, and the fuel thereof made of the most tormenting temper, Isa 30:33 . It was a speech of Gregory Nyssen, He that does but hear of hell is, without any further labour or study, taken off from sin filled pleasures, and set upon the practice of mortification. But men’s hearts are grown harder today, and he that shall observe their impiety and impenitence may well say to them, as Cato once did to Caesar, Credo quae de inferis dicuntur falsa existimas, I believe thou thinkest all but a fable that is said concerning hell (Juven. Sat. 2.).
Esse aliquos Manes, &c.
Nec pueri credunt nisi qui nondum aere lavantur.
Whereas. Supply Ellipsis (App-6), “[and say] Surely”, &c. See translation below.
our substance: or, our estate, Job 4:7, Job 8:3, Job 8:4, Job 15:5, Job 15:6, Job 20:18, Job 20:19, Job 21:27, Job 21:28, Luk 13:1-5
the remnant: or, their excellency
the fire: Job 1:16, Job 20:26, Gen 19:24, Luk 17:29, Luk 17:30, 2Pe 2:6, 2Pe 2:7
Reciprocal: Eze 14:16 – they shall
Job 22:20. Whereas Or rather, seeing that, or, because, when wicked men are destroyed, they are preserved. He should have said their substance; but he changes the person, and saith, our substance; either as including himself in the number of righteous persons, and thereby intimating that he pleaded the common cause of all such, while Job pleaded the cause of the wicked; or because he would hereby thankfully acknowledge some eminent and particular preservation given to him among other righteous men. The remnant of them All that was left undestroyed in the general calamity. The fire consumeth He is thought by some to allude to the judgment of God upon Sodom and Gomorrah: as if he had said, Thou mayest find here and there an instance of a wicked man dying in peace. But what is that to the two great instances of the final perdition of ungodly men, the drowning the whole world, and the burning of Sodom and Gomorrah. It seems, however, much more natural, as Dr. Dodd observes, to understand him as referring to the last general conflagration: for how could the destroying a little city or two be said, with any propriety, to consume the remnant; that is, the whole remainder of wicked men? when, at the very same time, Chaldea, and perhaps the greatest part of the world, was overrun with idolatry. The dissolution of the world by fire is what St. Peter calls expressly, The day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men, 2Pe 3:7. And St. Jude, Job 22:14, seems to say, that this was prophesied of by Enoch before the flood; and if so, must have been known to Noah, and by him, no doubt, transmitted to posterity, and so might be well known to Job and his friends. Eliphaz, therefore, may be understood as saying, Though the judgment by water, extensive as it was, did not thoroughly purge the world, but wickedness and wicked men again sprung up, spread widely, and abounded; yet know, there shall come a time hereafter when the world shall be consumed by fire, and then the whole race and remainder of wicked men shall be delivered up, once for all, to such an absolute destruction, as that none shall ever spring from their ashes, nor shall the new world and its inhabitants know wickedness, or a defection from God any more. If this view of the passage be admitted, it will appear that the doctrine of the future dissolution of the world by fire, so plainly taught us in the New Testament, and so immediately connected with that of the resurrection, was not unknown in Jobs time, and consequently we shall have a further confirmation of the interpretation we have given of Job 19:25, and some other passages in this book. See Peters, p. 409; and the 24th, 25th, and 26th chapters of Isaiah, where the prophet seems to speak copiously on this subject, using an expression, Job 26:11, very like to this of Eliphaz. The fire of thine enemies, which is prepared for thine enemies, shall consume them.
22:20 Whereas {o} our substance is not cut down, but the remnant of {p} them the fire consumeth.
(o) That is, the state and preservation of the godly, is hid under God’s wings.
(p) Meaning of the wicked.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes