Job's friends had so often repeated to him the familiar truths about the fate of the wicked that Job finally decided to answer their instruction seriously. He demolishes the common ideas about the reward of the righteous and the punishment of the wicked in this world. He says to his friends: look around; are there not many wicked people who prosper? They live comfortably and die peacefully, thinking neither about God nor about the commandments (vv. 7-15). Job himself, of course, understands that the wicked are mistaken when they think they achieve everything by themselves. He has no intention of becoming like them by denying God's involvement in human life (v. 16). But the fact remains: in a fallen world, the fate of the wicked is often more prosperous than the fate of the righteous (vv. 17-18).
One could suppose, in keeping with ideas widely held in those days, that children would be punished for the sins of their fathers. But besides the fact that punishing some people in place of others can hardly be considered just, it is not really punishment at all: after his death the wicked man will no longer know anything about what is happening in the world of the living, including what happens to his own children (vv. 19-21).
Of course, God knows better when, whom, and how to judge (v. 22), but in that case the question of justice remains unanswered, because in a world where the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer, there is no room to speak of it (vv. 23-25). And if we remember that postexilic Judaism knows nothing of recompense after death, and death merely makes everyone equal (vv. 25-26), then it turns out that there is no justice not only in the world of the living, but also in the world of shadows. If that is so, then all the lofty words of Job's friends about the punishment awaiting the wicked are worthless (vv. 27-34). Of course, Job does not object to his friends simply for the sake of argument. For him, the prosperity of the wicked and the disasters of the righteous become another proof that God, as it appears, has no concern for people. He sees this situation as part of the absurdity that the world and his own life have become for him after the God of religion was no longer enough for him. And commonplace maxims about good and evil could no longer help him.
