Do you live a good life? There used to be a television comedy called The Good Life. It was a play on the word ″good″, which can mean morally good (as opposed to evil) or enjoyable (as opposed to unpleasant).

Job's comforters are sure that these two always coincide. They believe that a man who lives a morally good life will enjoy a pleasant life, and that suffering is always evidence of moral wickedness. They deduce from Job's sufferings that Job must be wicked.

Job now takes them head-on. He demonstrates with powerful poetry that plenty of wicked people enjoy thoroughly pleasant lives. Lots of good things happen to bad people. ″Why,″ he asks, ″do the wicked live on, growing old and increasing in power?″ (Job 21:7). He paints a picture of their happy families, their safe homes, their prosperous farms, their fun and parties, and their long lives of prosperity and peaceful deaths (vv. 7-13).

So, according to Job's comforters, they must be good people. Their blessings must be evidence of their moral goodness. But, says Job, not at all! Listen to their own words (vv. 14-15). They demonstrate by what they say that they care nothing for God. They just want God to leave them alone.

Of course, Job would admit that some wicked people get punished. But not many. In verses 17-21, he asks how often this happens. Mostly, these people escape calamity and live long, happy lives. Everybody dies, and whether they were wicked or good seems to make very little difference to whether they enjoyed their lives (vv. 22-26).

Job challenges his blind comforters to get out more, to ask ″those who travel″ (v. 29)–those who actually look at the world as it is–what they have found. They will discover that their system simply doesn't work. Even in their funerals, wicked people are honoured (vv. 32-33)!

Job concludes by rebuking his friends for their ″nonsense″ and ″falsehood″ (v. 34). If good things happen to bad people, then is it not possible that bad things might happen to good people, which is indeed what has happened to Job?