Job 20:19 Because he has oppressed and has forsaken the poor; because he has violently taken away an house which he built not; What is it that excites all this Divine antagonism and judgment? Was the object of it a theological heretic? Was the man pronounced wicked because he had imbibed certain wrong notions? Was this a case of heterodoxy of creed being punished by the outpouring of the vials of Divine wrath? Look at the words again. His philanthropy was wrong. The man was wicked socially — wicked in relation to his fellow men. All wickedness is not of a theological nature and quality, rising upward into the region of metaphysical conceptions and definitions of the Godhead, which only the learned can present or comprehend; there is a lateral wickedness, a wickedness as between man and man, rich and poor, poor and rich young and old; a household wickedness, a market place iniquity. There we stand on solid rock. If you have been led away with the thought that wickedness is a theological conception, and a species of theological nightmare, you have only to read the Bible, in its complete sense, in order to see that judgment is pronounced upon what may be called lateral wickedness — the wickedness that operates among ourselves, that wrongs mankind, that keeps a false weight, and a short measure, that practises cunning and deceit upon the simple and innocent, that fleeces the unsuspecting, — a social wickedness that stands out that it may be seen in all its black hideousness, and valued as one of the instruments of the devil. There is no escape from the judgment of the Bible. If it pronounced judgment upon false opinions only, then men might profess to be astounded by terms they cannot comprehend: but the Bible goes into the family, the market place, the counting. house, the field where the labourer toils, and insists upon judging the actions of men, and upon sending away the richest man from all his bank of gold, if he have oppressed and forsaken the poor. (Joseph Parker, D.D.). Parallel Verses KJV: Because he hath oppressed and hath forsaken the poor; because he hath violently taken away an house which he builded not; |
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