(13) In a moment.--They go down to death without being made to feel the lingering tortures that Job had to undergo.

Verse 13. - They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave. They die, i.e. without suffering from any prolonged or severe illness, such as that grievous affliction from which Job himself was suffering. Probably Job does not mean to maintain all this absolutely, or as universally the case, but he wishes to force his friends to acknowledge that there are many exceptions to their universal law, that wickedness is always visited in this world with condign punishment, and he wants them to account for them exceptions (see ver. 7).

21:7-16 Job says, Remarkable judgments are sometimes brought upon notorious sinners, but not always. Wherefore is it so? This is the day of God's patience; and, in some way or other, he makes use of the prosperity of the wicked to serve his own counsels, while it ripens them for ruin; but the chief reason is, because he will make it appear there is another world. These prospering sinners make light of God and religion, as if because they have so much of this world, they had no need to look after another. But religion is not a vain thing. If it be so to us, we may thank ourselves for resting on the outside of it. Job shows their folly.They spend their days in wealth,.... Or "in good" (p); not in the performance of good works, or in the exercise of that which is spiritually good; or in seeking after spiritual good things, or eternal happiness; but in earthly good, in the enjoyment of the temporal good things of this life, and which to enjoy in a moderate and becoming manner is not criminal, but commendable; but these men, and such as they, seek no other good but worldly good; their language is, "who will show us any good?" Psalm 4:6; any outward good; the way to get it, how to come at it, and be put in the possession of it: such place all their happiness in such sort of good, and spend all their time either in getting it, or in enjoying it, and in nothing else; not in spiritual exercises, in prayer, or praise, in their own houses, in private; nor in an attendance on the worship of God in public; it denotes also their continuance in prosperity unto the end of their days; for there is a various reading; we follow the Keri or margin, but the "Cetib", or writing, is, "they become old" (q); in wealth, or good things, and which is followed by many; they live all their days in the midst of wealth and riches, and die in such circumstances, contrary to what Zophar had asserted in Job 20:5;

and in a moment go down to the grave; the house appointed for all living, man's long home, into which he is said to go down, because let down and interred in the earth; hither wicked men must come, after all their wealth, riches, prosperity, and pleasure; and hither they descend "in a moment"; suddenly, no previous change being made in their outward circumstances; and without any presage or forenotice of it, without any lingering disease and sickness leading on to it, there being no bands in their death, nothing to hinder and restrain from dying; but they drop at once into the grave, without sickness or pain: or "in rest", or "quietly" (r); being wholly at ease and quiet, as in Job 21:23; not only free from acute pains and grievous distempers, as burning fevers, and violent tortures, and racks of the stone, and other distressing disorders; but without any distress of mind, ignorant of their state and condition, and unconcerned about it; as they are at ease from their youth, and settled on their lees, they remain so, and go out of the world in like manner; and as sheep are laid in the grave, die senseless and stupid, having no thought in their last moments what will become of them in another world: some render it, "they go down to hell" (s); the state and place of the wicked after death; which, though true, seems not so agreeable to Job's scope and design, which is not to describe the punishment of the wicked, but their easy circumstances in life and in death; and so the Jewish commentators generally understand it. Aben Ezra's note is,

"in a moment, without afflictions;''

Jarchi,

"quietly, without chastisements;''

and Bar Tzemach,

"without evil diseases;''

having nothing to distress them in body or mind, when many a good man lies long on a bed of languishing, tortured with diseases, chastened with sore pain, and his life gradually draws near to the grave, and to the destroyers.

(p) "in bono", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, &c. (q) "vetustate terent", Montanus; "veterascunt", Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, Mercerus; "vetusti fiunt", Cocceius; "ad senectam deterunt", Schultens. (r) "quiete", Pagninus; "in quiete", Vatablus. (s) "ad inferna", V. L. "ad infernum", Cocceius; "in infernum", Schmidt.