CHAPTER 27 Dec. 21 
Job’s Parables Continue
Job again took up his parable and said, 2As God lives, who has taken away my right, the Almighty, who has made my soul bitter. 3For the length of my life is still in me, and the spirit of God is in my nostrils; 4surely my lips shall not speak unrighteousness, neither shall my tongue utter deceit. 5Far be it from me that I should justify you. Until I die I will not put away my integrity from me. 6I hold fast to my righteousness, and will not let it go. My heart shall not reproach me so long as I live. 7Let my enemy be as the wicked. Let him who rises up against me be as the unrighteous. 8For what is the hope of the godless, when he is cut off, when God takes away his life? 9Will God hear his cry when trouble comes on him? 10Will he delight himself in the Almighty, and call on God at all times? 11I will teach you about the hand of God. That which is with the Almighty will I not conceal. 12Behold, all of you have seen it yourselves; why then have you become altogether vain? 13This is the portion of a wicked man with God, the heritage of oppressors, which they receive from the Almighty. 14If his children are multiplied, it is for the sword. His offspring shall not be satisfied with bread. 15Those who remain of him shall be buried in death. His widows shall make no lamentation. 16Though he heap up silver as the dust, and prepare clothing as the clay; 17he may prepare it, but the just shall put it on, and the innocent shall divide the silver. 18He builds his house as the moth, as a booth which the watchman makes. 19He lies down rich, but he shall not do so again. He opens his eyes, and he is not. 20Terrors overtake him like waters. A storm steals him away in the night. 21The east wind carries him away, and he departs. It sweeps him out of his place. 22For it hurls at him, and does not spare, as he flees away from his hand. 23Men shall clap their hands at him, and shall hiss him out of his place. 

Commentary

27:2-4 See on 10:9.
27:14 Job comments that if the children of the wicked "are multiplied, it is for the sword". Seeing his own children had been destroyed, Job presumably was accepting that he was among the "wicked", as he does elsewhere (e.g. 9:2). Hos. 9:13,16 repeats such language regarding the punishment of sinful Israel: "Ephraim shall bring forth his children to the murderer". Dt. 28:41 has the same idea. Job was a symbol of the suffering servant, Israel, struggling in Babylon to come to terms with their sinfulness and the rightness of God’s judgments against them (see on 3:23). On a personal level, Job is here moving closer to the final total acceptance of sinfulness and personal guilt which brings his sufferings to a close in chapter 42.