TEXT [Commentary]
2. Wealth is poison to the wicked (20:12-29)
12 “They enjoyed the sweet taste of wickedness,
letting it melt under their tongue.
13 They savored it,
holding it long in their mouths.
14 But suddenly the food in their bellies turns sour,
a poisonous venom in their stomach.
15 They will vomit the wealth they swallowed.
God won’t let them keep it down.
16 They will suck the poison of cobras.
The viper will kill them.
17 They will never again enjoy streams of olive oil
or rivers of milk and honey.
18 They will give back everything they worked for.
Their wealth will bring them no joy.
19 For they oppressed the poor and left them destitute.
They foreclosed on their homes.
20 They were always greedy and never satisfied.
Nothing remains of all the things they dreamed about.
21 Nothing is left after they finish gorging themselves.
Therefore, their prosperity will not endure.
22 “In the midst of plenty, they will run into trouble
and be overcome by misery.
23 May God give them a bellyful of trouble.
May God rain down his anger upon them.
24 When they try to escape an iron weapon,
a bronze-tipped arrow will pierce them.
25 The arrow is pulled from their back,
and the arrowhead glistens with blood.[*]
The terrors of death are upon them.
26 Their treasures will be thrown into deepest darkness.
A wildfire will devour their goods,
consuming all they have left.
27 The heavens will reveal their guilt,
and the earth will testify against them.
28 A flood will sweep away their house.
God’s anger will descend on them in torrents.
29 This is the reward that God gives the wicked.
It is the inheritance decreed by God.”
NOTES
20:17 streams of olive oil. The Heb. appears to have two words for “rivers” (cf. “the floods,” KJV; RSV deletes the word). The line, however, requires a parallel with milk and honey; it is probable that nahar [TH5102A, ZH5642] (shine) refers to oil rather than a river, providing the usual combination of oil, milk, and honey to describe abundance.
20:18 They will give back everything they worked for. The Heb. returns to the metaphor of consumption already introduced: “they will vomit the wealth they swallowed” (20:15). The point seems to be that the rich were unable to make full use of their wealth.
20:20 They were always greedy. The Heb. resumes the metaphor of eating—i.e., “there was no contentment in his belly.”
20:23 rain down his anger. Alternate translations are numerous: “rain [wrath] upon him while he is eating” (KJV) or “rain [wrath] upon him as his food” (RSV); “rain down his missiles of war” (NAB) or “hurling against his flesh a hail of arrows” (NJB). The root lakham [TH3894/3894A, ZH4302/4303] is common throughout the Semitic languages, either in the sense of “food,” “flesh,” “eat,” or with the sense of “anger” or “fighting.” There may be an intended double meaning in this verse; Grabbe (1977:77) notes that both senses have a great deal to be said for them. Zophar has used the metaphor of eating throughout, so it makes perfectly good sense that God’s wrath becomes their food. At the same time, the sound of the word would evoke images of a rain of war or wrath, particularly following the immediately preceding words of God sending his wrath against them.
20:25 The arrow is pulled. This is the reading of the MT, but it is evident the Gr. translator had a different Heb. reading (Orlinsky 1964:74) which apparently became corrupted to the present text (the change is most easily explained if the Gr. is the original). The Gr. refers to a weapon such as a javelin which goes out from the back of the wicked, a logical parallel to the attack from the bow (20:24b). However, the Heb. text also makes good sense.
20:26 deepest darkness. The Heb. refers to the deepest darkness as the treasure (something hidden) that is preserved (hidden away) for the wicked.
wildfire. A fire outside of human initiation, such as lightning—the kind of fire that originally struck Job’s sheep and shepherds.
20:28 flood. The word yebul [TH2981, ZH3292] would normally refer to the produce of the field, which would not be kept in a house. “Possession” (RSV) is hardly the sense of the term; “flood” is certainly the idea required. There is evidence for a second root meaning “watercourse” (cf. Isa 30:25; 44:4; Jer 17:8).
COMMENTARY [Text]
In this section, Zophar describes the wicked in terms of self-destructive consumption (20:12-23); greed is its own worst enemy. Beyond the destructive power of greed is the judgment of God decreed for greedy persons (20:24-29). The earth will reveal the guilt concealed within it, and all the wealth hoarded upon it will be swept away.
In modern Western society, the term “consumer” has a positive sound. Humans by nature must be consumers; consumption is the basis of a good economy and a life that is satisfying for all. There is, however, a very sinister side to consumption. The problem is insatiable desire; those who have the power to pursue physical satisfactions rob others of basic human necessities. This is wickedness, and Zophar depicts it as the chief characteristic of evil persons who bring the judgment of God upon themselves.
Eating is the most regular and fundamental aspect of consumption. Zophar chose the uncontrolled appetite as the one image that portrays all the excesses of the rich. The decadence of the rich is like food that is sweet and dissolves around the tongue. The titillating sensation is prolonged as long as possible, but eating cannot be an end in itself; food is for the body. Once food is swallowed, the sensual aspect of the experience comes to an end. Too much food leads to heartburn and considerable discomfort. Zophar chose an experience common to all who have occasionally overindulged as a means of illustrating the evil that comes to those who rob others in pursuing their own excesses. The wealth they savor becomes bile in their belly; it is a poisonous venom. It forces them to vomit. And though this may be quite a natural response, it is part of the natural order as a divine judgment. Too late the wicked realize that they have ingested a lethal poison into their system; what they found so savory becomes as fatal as a snakebite.
The irony of the whole situation is that indulgence in the diet of wickedness prevents the wicked from ever enjoying wholesome food. They will never experience the smooth taste of cream, the sweetness of honey, and the cool sensation of curdled milk. The wicked disgorge what they cannot keep down; they are never able to enjoy any return on their wealth as they had expected. In 20:19 Zophar specifies what he means by the “food of the wicked”; it is wealth obtained at the cost of oppressing the poor. In their zeal for acquisition, the wicked crushed the poor and abandoned them—so much so that they robbed them of the ability to make their own living. One particular example is the confiscation of a house to live in, the most basic of human needs. Foreclosing on property is done in the name of “good business,” but economic power is readily open to abuse. According to Isaiah, the judgment that would reduce prosperous Judah to a war zone of rubble was because of those “who buy up house after house and field after field, until everyone is evicted and [they] live alone in the land” (Isa 5:8). Zophar said that this is the way of the wicked (20:20); the belly of the indulgent will never be satisfied. In their attempt to satisfy all their desires, nothing is left. Their prosperity cannot last. While stuffed to the full, great hardship will come upon them.
Zophar concluded his picture of the self-immolation of the indulgent rich by making it clear that theirs is a divine judgment. God is the one who fills their belly; but the food God grants is his wrath, the manna he rains upon them is destruction. Two points may be drawn from Zophar’s concluding words. The first is the wisdom theme that the righteous are in control of their own life and will experience the rivers of oil, honey, and milk. The second is that the righteous should never envy the wicked, for their destruction is happening even as they savor the satisfactions of their wealth.
The judgment of the wicked comes in the day of God’s wrath, from which there is no escape. Amos had given the same warning to the wealthy wicked nation of Jeroboam’s day; he called the day of God’s wrath the “day of the LORD.” It is a time of terror and certain demise. It is like fleeing from a lion and meeting a bear, and then escaping the bear only to lean on the wall of your house and be bitten by a deadly snake (Amos 5:18-20).
The wicked live with paranoia; they feel terror constantly, for they have much to lose that they cannot keep. They can savor it in their mouth for a while, but they cannot retain their wealth. Darkness is stored up for the wicked; that is the only lasting treasure for all the things they hoarded. Fire will consume their goods like lightning. This has nothing to do with human revenge; it is simply the arrival of the day of divine wrath. The heavens will expose their guilt and the earth will rise to testify against them. They can never outlive the witnesses of their wickedness. Their portion and their inheritance—that which is the legacy of one’s life on this earth—will be total darkness and complete loss.