“12.  So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their sleep.

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13.  O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me!”

What does this mean?  When in history have the waters failed from the sea?  Job believes in the immortality of the soul (xix, 26):  “Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God.”  Can these words then be of general application, and mean that those who lie down and rise not shall not awake for ever?  No; he is simply telling that when the conflagration came and dried up the seas, it slaughtered the people by the million; they fell and perished, never to live again; and he calls on God to hide him in a grave, a tomb, a cavern—­until the day of his wrath be past, and then to remember him, to come for him, to let him out.

“20.  My bone cleaveth to my skin and to my flesh, and I am escaped with the skin of my teeth.”

Escaped from what?  From his physical disease?  No; he carried that with him.

But Zophar insists that there is a special providence in all these things, and that only the wicked have perished (chap. xx): 

“5.  The triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the hypocrite but for a moment.”

“7.  Yet he shall perish for ever like his own dung:  they which have seen him shall say, Where is be?”

16.  He shall suck the poison of asps:  the viper’s tongue shall slay him.”

How?

“23.  When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of his wrath upon him, and shall RAIN IT UPON him, while he is eating.

“24.  He shall flee from the iron weapon, and the bow of steel shall strike him through.

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“25.  It is drawn and cometh out of the body; yea, the glittering sword” (the comet?) “cometh out of his gall:  terrors are upon him.

“26. All darkness shall be hid in his secret places:  a fire not blown shall consume him. . . .

“27.  The heavens shall reveal his iniquity; and the earth shall rise up against him.

“28.  The increase of his house shall depart, and his goods shall flow away in the day of his wrath.”

What does all this mean?  While the rich man, (necessarily a wicked man,) is eating his dinner, God shall rain upon him a consuming fire, a fire not blown by man; he shall be pierced by the arrows of God, the earth shall quake under his feet, the heavens shall blaze forth his iniquity; the darkness shall be hid, shall disappear, in the glare of the conflagration; and his substance shall flow away in the floods of God’s wrath.

Job answers him in powerful language, maintaining from past experience his position that the wicked ones do not suffer in this life any more than the virtuous (chap. xxi):