Job 22:19

The righteous see it, and are glad,.... Not the counsel of the wicked, nor their outward prosperity, but their ruin and destruction, which is sure and certain; though it may sometimes seem to linger,

The righteous see it, and are glad: and the innocent laugh them to scorn. Triumph of the pious at the fall of the recent followers of the antediluvian sinners.

The righteous see it; whom God oft spares in common calamities, and makes them to survive and see the destruction of the wicked; as Noah, Lot, &c. Are glad; not that they insult over or rejoice in the ruin of any men, but because they delight in the vindication of God’ s honour, and justice, and holiness, which is conjoined with the destruction of his enemies, and which is and ought to be dearer to them than all the interests of men. The innocent laugh them to scorn; they justly deride them, for their vain and yet strong confidences, which are now destroyed; and for their profane contempt of God and of his judgments, which now they feel; and for their deep and crafty counsels, which are now frustrated and turned against themselves.

Job 22:19 The righteous see [it], and are glad: and the innocent laugh them to scorn.Ver. 19. The righteous see it, and are glad] And as or myself, the counsel of the wicked is far from me: I do therefore abominate their present prosperity, because they shall shortly be for a laughing stock to all good men; the upright shall see it and be glad, and all iniquity shall stop her mouth, as self condemned, and therefore by the saints (swallowed up with a zeal of God’ s glory) rightly derided, Psalms 52:9; Psalms 58:11. And the innocent laugh them to scorn] Not out of ill will, or envy, or other corrupt affection; but, 1. For the glory of God, whose power, justice, and goodness is hereby evinced and evidenced. 2. For the good of others, who stumble at the prosperity of the ungodly, or else are eased of their cruelty. 3. Add hereunto, that it is never the worse for the wicked themselves that God taketh them off. For if they be elect, they repent ere they die; as if reprobates, they are kept hereby from adding to their sin and so to their torments, which shall be proportioned thereunto. Those who understand this verse of Noah and his sons, rejoicing when they saw the rest drowned and themselves preserved, render the words thus, The righteous saw it and were glad, and the innocent laughed them to scorn. A late reverend man of God among us, in a discourse of his about the benefit of a good conscience in times of common calamity, brings in Noah and those with him in the ark, insulting over the perishing old world thus (Mr Jeremy Dyke, p. 1 83): “ Now, Jubal, let us hear one of your merry songs; pipe now, and make yourself merry, as you were wont in jibing at Noah’ s folly in making a ship to sail on dry land. What ailest thou, Jubal, to howl and wring thine hands thus? Where is thy harp and organs now? Now the flood is come, now Noah is in his cabin, and the water begins to be chin deep, tell me, O Jubal, whether building of tents or building of an ark be the wiser work? Would you not give all the shoes in your shop, all the tools in your tents, all the cattle in your flocks, to be but where Noah’ s dog lies?

(19) The righteous see it.—That is, the destruction of the wicked, as in the days of Noah.

Verse 19. The righteous see it, and are glad] They see God's judgments on the incorrigibly wicked, and know that the Judge of all the earth does right; hence they rejoice in all the dispensations of his providence.

12–20. Eliphaz, having in Job 22:6-10 suggested what Job’s offences must have been, now suggests under what feeling in regard to God he must have committed them. He thought God so far removed from the world that He did not observe men’s conduct.

The righteous see it, and are glad - see the destruction of the wicked; compare Revelation 15:3; Revelation 16:7; Revelation 19:1-2.

19. Are glad — They rejoice, not in the sufferings of the wicked, but in the triumph of justice.