For it is a fire that consumeth to destruction, and would root out all mine increase.
The passage comes at the very end of the long exchange between Job and his three friends, after they had charged him with apparent self-righteousness and he had maintained that their charge was unjust. It forms part of his final appeal to his own record of moral uprightness, in which he confronts his accusers and invites judgment upon himself if any moral stain can be found in his character. Within that defense, unfaithfulness in marriage is portrayed as a burning fire pressing on toward ruin, capable of tearing up by the roots everything he had produced and gained.
The same declaration reflects the life of a man who ranked among the wealthiest of his time, yet placed no trust in his possessions and took no exultant delight merely because his riches were large. Instead he put his confidence in the living God and kept in mind that it was God who supplied the ability to obtain wealth. He treated that wealth solely as an instrument for doing good to the poor, the needy, the fatherless, and the widow. Wrong lies not in the mere possession of riches, but in relying upon them, resting confidence in them, rejoicing over them, and growing proud and high-minded on account of them, for such an attitude disowns the God who is above.
The passage comes at the very end of the long exchange between Job and his three friends, after they had charged him with apparent self-righteousness and he had maintained that their charge was unjust. It forms part of his final appeal to his own record of moral uprightness, in which he confronts his accusers and invites judgment upon himself if any moral stain can be found in his character. Within that defense, unfaithfulness in marriage is portrayed as a burning fire pressing on toward ruin, capable of tearing up by the roots everything he had produced and gained.
The same declaration reflects the life of a man who ranked among the wealthiest of his time, yet placed no trust in his possessions and took no exultant delight merely because his riches were large. Instead he put his confidence in the living God and kept in mind that it was God who supplied the ability to obtain wealth. He treated that wealth solely as an instrument for doing good to the poor, the needy, the fatherless, and the widow. Wrong lies not in the mere possession of riches, but in relying upon them, resting confidence in them, rejoicing over them, and growing proud and high-minded on account of them, for such an attitude disowns the God who is above.