What is the meaning of Job 20:15? He swallows wealth • The verse pictures a wicked man devouring riches as fast as he can, as though gulping them down without restraint. • Scripture consistently warns against this kind of greedy consumption: “Ill-gotten treasures profit nothing” (Proverbs 10:2); “Whoever loves money is never satisfied” (Ecclesiastes 5:10). • Job’s friend Zophar is insisting that any wealth gained by unrighteous means—oppression, fraud, or simple covetousness—will be short-lived (compare Job 15:29 and Job 27:16–17). • The image reminds us that material gain can’t fill the spiritual emptiness inside a person (Luke 12:16-21). but vomits it out • What was greedily swallowed must be disgorged. The riches that once seemed sweet now become nauseating and impossible to retain. • Proverbs 20:17 says, “Food gained by fraud is sweet to a man, but later his mouth is full of gravel”. The pleasure of ill-gotten gain turns into painful loss. • Psalm 62:10 cautions, “If riches increase, do not set your heart on them.” When the heart clings to wealth, the inevitable reversal feels like violent sickness. • James 5:1-3 shows the same pattern: the hoarded wealth of the ungodly “has rotted,” testifying against them. God will force it from his stomach • The ultimate cause of the loss is not random chance but the active justice of God. He pries the stolen treasure out of the innermost part of the offender. • Jeremiah 17:11 pictures this divine intervention: “Like a partridge hatching eggs it did not lay is he who makes a fortune unjustly; in the middle of his days it will desert him, and in the end he will be the fool”. • Nothing stays hidden from the Lord; even what is “in the stomach” is under His authority (Hebrews 4:13). • The verse reassures sufferers like Job that God sees every corrupt gain and will reverse it in His timing (Psalm 73:18-19). summary Job 20:15 teaches that greedy, unjust wealth is fleeting. The wicked may gulp it down, but God Himself will make them disgorge it. Every attempt to secure prosperity apart from righteousness ends in loss, proving that true security is found only in the fear of the Lord and obedience to His ways. |
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