The wicked man travaileth with pain all [his] days, and the number of years is hidden to the oppressor.
Ver. 20. The wicked man travaileth with pain all his days] He tormenteth himself, or thrusteth himself through (so some read it), 1 Timothy 6:10. He takes no more rest than one upon a rack; he hath his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail, Jeremiah 30:6; he smiteth upon his thigh; sicut mulierculae in puerperio facere solent, saith Luther in his marginal note on Jeremiah 31:19. And if he would do so for his sin, as he doth for his misery, pia esset illa tristitia, et, si disci potest, beata miseria, as Austin hath it (Aug. Epist. 545), his grief would be godly, and his misery a blessing, God would pity him, as he did his moan making Ephraim, and earnestly remember him still, Job 15:23. But, alas, that wicked are strong, the hypocrite in heart, as he heaps up wrath, so he crieth not when God bindeth him, Job 36:16. Or if he do cry, it is peril, and not peccavi, I am undone, and not, I have done amiss. Hence God many times turneth loose upon him those three vultures, care, fear, and grief, to feed upon his heart. It is seldom seen that God alloweth unto the greatest darlings of the world a perfect contentment. In the very pursuit of these outward vanities is much anguish, many grievances, fears, jealousies, disgraces, interruptions, discontentments. In the unsanctified enjoyment of them, something the wicked shall have to complain of, that shall give an unsavoury verdue to their sweetest morsels, and make their very felicity miserable; witness Ahab, Haman, &c. But then followeth the sting of conscience, that maketh a Cain, a Pashur, a Richard III, to be a terror to himself. And with this pain some wicked men travail all their days here, but hereafter it shall infallibly and inexpressibly torment the souls of them all, through all eternity. And this, with the following illustrations, is that oracle or divine sentence which Eliphaz received from those famous men above mentioned, and which he not obscurely applieth and wresteth against Job, whom herehence he would prove a wicked man by his own confessions, Job 3:25,26; Job 7:13,14, compared with Lev 26:36 Deuteronomy 28:65, for that which Eliphaz had heard from his ancestors was but the same law, for substance, that was afterwards written by Moses.
And the number of years is hidden to the oppressor] Heb. To the terrible tyrant, who, as he hath not a more cruel executioner than his own conscience, so not a more sensible displeasure than to know that he is mortal, and yet to be ignorant when his tyranny must end. The number of the years of his tyranny is uncertain, saith the Vulgate translation. And from this uncertainty, which he knoweth not how to remedy (though he run to light a candle at the devil sometimes, viz. by consulting with soothsayers and sorcerers, to know of them how long he shall live, and who shall succeed him, as Tiberius and other tyrants did), followeth suspicion and fear, saith Aquinas upon this text.