\\INTRODUCTION TO JOB 21\\

This chapter contains Job's reply to Zophar's preceding discourse, in
which, after a preface exciting attention to what he was about to say,
\\#Job 21:1-6\\; he describes by various instances the prosperity of wicked
men, even of the most impious and atheistical, and which continues with
them as long as they live, contrary to what Zophar had asserted in
\\#Job 20:5\\, \\#Job 21:7-15\\; as for himself, he disapproved of such
wicked men as much as any, and owns that destruction comes upon them
sooner or later, and on their posterity also, \\#Job 21:16-21\\; but as
God is a God of knowledge, and needs no instruction from any, and is a
sovereign Being, he deals with men in different ways; some die in great
ease, and peace, and prosperity, and others in bitterness and distress,
but both are alike brought to the dust, \\#Job 21:22-26\\; and whereas
he was aware of their censures of him, and their objections to what he
had said, he allows that the wicked are reserved to the day of
destruction, which is future, and in the mean while lie in the grave,
where all must follow; yet they are not repaid or rewarded in this
life, that remains to be done in another world, \\#Job 21:27-33\\; and
concludes, that their consolation with respect to him was vain, and
falsehood was in their answers, \\#Job 21:34\\.