Job 24:18-24

This detailed and graphic picture of the enormities of wicked men (Job 24:2) suggests the question, What then is the fate of such men? Are they seized by the sudden judgments of God and delivered into the hand of their own transgression (ch. Job 8:4)? or, are they prolonged in the possession of their power, protected in their wickedness, and brought to a natural and peaceful end at last like men in general? The following passage gives both answers, one in Job 24:18, and the other in Job 24:22. The former answer is that of Job's friends, and perhaps of the common mind, a passage or fragments from a poetical expression of whose creed Job seems to cite. This answer is only introduced ironically and in order to supply the background to the true picture which Job himself draws of the history of these violent and wicked men. And this picture is a very different one.