“Quomodo igitur consolamini me frustra, cum responsio vestra repugnare ostensa sit veritati ?”
“How then comfort ye me in vain, seeing in your answers there remaineth falsehood? falsehood: Heb. transgression?”
“So how can you comfort me with empty words? For your answers remain full of falsehood.””
“So how can you comfort me with nonsense, because in your answers there remains only falsehood?””
“How then comfort ye me in vain, Seeing in your answers there remaineth only falsehood?”
Saying, that the just in this world have prosperity, and the wicked adversity.
Vain. These arguments shew that your assertions are destitute of proof, and afford me no comfort. (Calmet)
2. From all this Job infers the impertinency of their discourses, v. 34. (1.) Their foundation is rotten, and they went upon a wrong hypothesis: "In your answers there remains falsehood; what you have said stands not only unproved but disproved, and lies under such an imputation of falsehood as you cannot clear it from." (2.) Their building was therefore weak and tottering: "You comfort me in vain. All you have said gives me no relief; you tell me that I shall prosper again if I turn to God, but you go upon this presumption, that piety shall certainly be crowned with prosperity, which is false; and therefore how can your inference from it yield me any comfort?" Note, Where there is not truth there is little comfort to be expected.
Verses 27-34 Job opposes the opinion of his friends, That the wicked are sure to fall into visible and remarkable ruin, and none but the wicked; upon which principle they condemned Job as wicked. Turn to whom you will, you will find that the punishment of sinners is designed more for the other world than for this, ( Jude 1:14 Jude 1:15 ) . The sinner is here supposed to live in a great deal of power. The sinner shall have a splendid funeral: a poor thing for any man to be proud of the prospect of. He shall have a stately monument. And a valley with springs of water to keep the turf green, was accounted an honourable burial place among eastern people; but such things are vain distinctions. Death closes his prosperity. It is but a poor encouragement to die, that others have died before us. That which makes a man die with true courage, is, with faith to remember that Jesus Christ died and was laid in the grave, not only before us, but for us. That He hath gone before us, and died for us, who is alive and liveth for us, is true consolation in the hour of death.