Albert Barnes Commentary Job 22:20

"[Saying], Surely they that did rise up against us are cut off, And the remnant of them the fire hath consumed." — Job 22:20 (ASV)

Whereas our substance is not cut down - The margin reads, or, “Estate.” Gesenius suggests that this means our adversary or enemy. The word used here (קים qı̂ym) he regards as derived from קוּם qûm — to rise, to rise up; and, therefore, it may have the sense of rising up against, or an enemy. So Noyes understands it, and renders it:

“Truly, our adversary is destroyed;
And fire has consumed his abundance.”

Rosenmüller agrees with this, and it seems to me to be the correct view. According to this, it is the language of the righteous (Job 22:19) when exulting over the punishment of the wicked, saying, “Our foe is cut down.” Jerome renders it, Nonne succisa est erectio eorum, etc. The Septuagint, “Has not their substance ὑπόστασις hupostasis disappeared?” The sense is not materially different. If the word “substance,” or “property,” is to be retained, it should be read as a question and regarded as the language of the righteous who exult: “Has not their substance been taken away, and has not the fire consumed their property?” Dr. Good strangely renders it, “For our tribe is not cut off.”

But the remnant of them - The margin reads, “their excellency.” Hebrew יתרם yithrām. Jerome, “reliquias eorum” — “the remnants of them.” Septuagint, κατάλειμμα kataleimma — “the residue,” or “what is left.”

The Hebrew word יתר yether means “the remainder, the residue, the rest”; then, what is redundant, more than is needed, or that abounds; and then, “wealth,” the superabundant property which a person does not need for their own use or family. The word here probably means that which the rich sinner possessed.

The fire consumes - Or, has consumed. It has been suggested by many that the allusion here is to the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and it cannot be denied that such an allusion is possible. If it were certain that Job lived before that event, there could be little objection to such a supposition.

The only objection would be that a reference to such an event was not more prominent. It would be a case precisely relevant to the argument of Job’s three friends, and one to which it might be supposed they would have appealed as decisive in the controversy. They lived in the vicinity. They could not have been strangers to so remarkable an occurrence, and it would have furnished just the argument they wished, to prove that God punishes the wicked in this life.

If they lived after that event, therefore, it is difficult to account for the fact that they did not make a more distinct and prominent allusion to it in their argument. It is true that the same remark may be made respecting the allusion to the flood, which was a case equally relevant, and in reference to which the allusion, if it exists at all, is almost equally obscure.

As far as the language here is concerned, the reference may be to either the destruction of Sodom or to destruction by lightning, such as happened to Job’s possessions (Job 1:16); and it is difficult, if not impossible, to determine which is correct. The general idea is that the judgments of heaven, represented by fire, had fallen on the wicked, and that the righteous, therefore, had occasion to rejoice.