Job 20:1-16: a reflection

1Then Zophar the Naamathite answered, 2“Therefore my thoughts answer me, even by reason of my haste that is in me. 3I have heard the reproof which puts me to shame. The spirit of my understanding answers me. 4Don’t you know this from old time, since man was placed on earth, 5that the triumphing of the wicked is short, the joy of the godless but for a moment? 6Though his height mount up to the heavens, and his head reach to the clouds, 7yet he will perish forever like his own dung. Those who have seen him will say, ‘Where is he?’ 8He will fly away as a dream, and will not be found. Yes, he will be chased away like a vision of the night. 9The eye which saw him will see him no more, neither will his place see him any more. 10His children will seek the favor of the poor. His hands will give back his wealth. 11His bones are full of his youth, but youth will lie down with him in the dust. 12“Though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, though he hide it under his tongue, 13though he spare it, and will not let it go, but keep it still within his mouth, 14yet his food in his bowels is turned. It is cobra venom within him. 15He has swallowed down riches, and he will vomit them up again. God will cast them out of his belly. 16He will suck cobra venom. The viper’s tongue will kill him.

Zophar, one of Job's friends, launches into a speech about the fate of the wicked. Much of it is misapplied, aimed cruelly at the suffering Job as if his troubles proved him wicked. But a general truth runs through it worth hearing on its own: the triumphing of the wicked is short, and the joy of the godless is but for a moment. Though the wicked man's height reaches the clouds, he perishes; though wickedness is sweet in his mouth, hidden under his tongue, it turns to poison within him. Ill-gotten pleasure and gain do not satisfy in the end; they turn bitter.

Notice the image Zophar uses: sin is sweet in the mouth, savored, held under the tongue, unwilling to let it go, and then it turns to poison in the belly. The pleasure of wrongdoing is real but fleeting; what tastes sweet going down becomes bitter, even deadly, within. And the triumph of the wicked, however impressive it looks, is short-lived; it does not last. The riches swallowed are vomited up; the momentary joy fades.

Set aside Zophar's cruel misapplication to Job, and there is a true warning here about the pleasures and gains of wrongdoing. Sin often is sweet in the moment, genuinely pleasurable, which is what makes it tempting. But its sweetness is fleeting, and it turns, in the end, to something bitter within us; the triumph it seems to offer does not last. When you are tempted by a sin that promises sweetness, remember: it is sweet for a moment and bitter after; its triumph is short. Do not swallow what will turn to poison. The momentary sweetness is not worth the lasting bitterness.

Lord, though Zophar misapplied his words to Job, there is truth in them: the joy of wrongdoing is but for a moment, sweet in the mouth but turning to poison within. When I am tempted by a sin that promises sweetness, remind me that its pleasure is fleeting and its aftertaste bitter, that the triumph it seems to offer does not last. Help me not to swallow what will turn to poison. Keep me from trading lasting bitterness for a moment's sweetness. Satisfy me instead with what is truly good.