11 I will teach you about God's power. I will not conceal anything concerning the Almighty. 12 But you have seen all this, yet you say all these useless things to me. 13 "This is what the wicked will receive from God; this is their inheritance from the Almighty. 14 They may have many children, but the children will die in war or starve to death. 15 Those who survive will die of a plague, and not even their widows will mourn them. 16 "Evil people may have piles of money and may store away mounds of clothing. 17 But the righteous will wear that clothing, and the innocent will divide that money. 18 The wicked build houses as fragile as a spider's web, as flimsy as a shelter made of branches. 19 The wicked go to bed rich but wake to find that all their wealth is gone. 20 Terror overwhelms them like a flood, and they are blown away in the storms of the night. 21 The east wind carries them away, and they are gone. It sweeps them away. 22 It whirls down on them without mercy. They struggle to flee from its power. 23 But everyone jeers at them and mocks them.
Matthew Henry's Commentary on Job 27:11-23
Commentary on Job 27:11-23
(Read Job 27:11-23)
Job's friends, on the same subject, spoke of the misery of wicked men before death as proportioned to their crimes; Job considered that if it were not so, still the consequences of their death would be dreadful. Job undertook to set this matter in a true light. Death to a godly man, is like a fair gale of wind to convey him to the heavenly country; but, to a wicked man, it is like a storm, that hurries him away to destruction. While he lived, he had the benefit of sparing mercy; but now the day of God's patience is over, and he will pour out upon him his wrath. When God casts down a man, there is no flying from, nor bearing up under his anger. Those who will not now flee to the arms of Divine grace, which are stretched out to receive them, will not be able to flee from the arms of Divine wrath, which will shortly be stretched out to destroy them. And what is a man profited if he gain the whole world, and thus lose his own soul?