Job 21:16 - Matthew Poole's English Annotations on the Holy Bible

Bible Comments

Their good is not in their hand: this seems to be an answer to the foregoing question, and a confutation of that ungodly opinion and practice, Job 21:14,15. Wicked men (saith he) have no reason to neglect and reject God because of their prosperity, for their good, i.e. all their wealth and felicity, is not in their hand, i.e. it neither was obtained nor can be kept by their own might, but only by God's power and favour, upon whom they wholly depend for it. Or the sense is, Though they have riches, and power, and glory in their hands, yet their true and proper good is not in their hand, i.e. they are destitute of that in which their true happiness lies, to wit, in God's love and favour; and all the comforts which they enjoy are attended with God's wrath and curse, and therefore not to be envied by any man in his wits. They say to God, Depart from us, when indeed their true and only felicity consists in the enjoyment of him: compare Psalms 4:6,7. The counsel of the wicked is far from me; therefore I am far from approving their opinion, or following their course, or enjoying their prosperity, or desiring to partake of their delicates upon such terms.

Job 21:16

16 Lo, their good is not in their hand: the counsel of the wicked is far from me.