In Job, chapter twenty-one, verse seven, Job questioned the inequities of life, especially the prosperity, success, and happiness of many wicked. Psalms seventy-three addresses this theological problem. At times, those “of a clean heart” are “plagued” in verses one and fourteen of the same chapter, while the wicked prosper and “are not in trouble as other men, as in Psalms seventy-three, verses three through five. God responds by revealing the outcome of both the ungodly and the wicked, as in Psalms seventy-three, verses sixteen through twenty-eight. Ultimately, God will justly rectify all things and render to each one according to his or her deeds and love of the truth, as in Romans two, verses five through eleven. The wicked will not remain unpunished, nor will the righteous be left unvindicated or unrewarded, as in Romans two, verses five through eleven, and Revelation two, verses ten.
Job says remarkable judgments are brought upon notorious sinners, but not always. Wherefore is it so? The day of God’s patience. And, in some way or other, he may use the prosperity of the wicked to serve his counsels while it ripens them for ruin. However, the chief reason is because he will make it appear there is another world. These prospering sinners make light of God and religion as if because they have so much of this world, they have no need to look after another. But religion is not a vain thing. If so, we may thank ourselves for resting on the outside of it. Job shows their folly.
Job shows that it is a fact that the wicked often have great prosperity and are not mistreated in this life according to their character. And that it is not a fact that men of eminent wickedness, as his friends maintained, would meet, in this life, with proportionate sufferings. He says that they enjoy great prosperity. They reach a great age and by the comforts of life to an eminent degree.
Wherefore do the wicked live, become old, and are mighty? Job proves against his adversaries that God does not punish the wicked immediately but often gives them long life and prosperity, so we must not judge God, just or unjust, by the things that appear to our eyes.