In Job 19:28 and 29 Job gave a warning to his friends. He warned them about saying, "How will we persecute him? /For the root of the matter is found in him." He told them to be fearful of the sword, for wrath brings the punishment of the sword, that they might know that there is a judgment. Here Job was warning them regarding a judgment that would be brought in by God's wrath. According to Job, if his friends continued to speak as they were speaking, God would come in to judge them.
Job's complaint against His friends and toward God shows that he was very sensitive. In his sensitivity he thought that others were intending to damage him and he misunderstood God, thinking that God had sent a troop against him. In contrast to Job, who was sensitive and who complained, Paul could rejoice in all that happened to him (Phil. 4:4).
In chapter twenty we have Zophar's anger toward Job and his teaching concerning the wicked.
In his anger toward Job, Zophar said that his own disquieting thoughts answered him, and hence haste was in him. Zophar continued by saying that he heard the reproof that humiliated him and that the spirit of his understanding answered him (vv. 1-3).
Zophar's teaching concerning the wicked (vv. 4-29) was based on the principle of good and evil.
In his teaching of Job, Zophar said that the joyous shouting of the wicked is short and that the rejoicing of the profane is for but a moment (vv. 4-11). Regarding the wicked person, Zophar said, "Like a dream he flies away and is not found;/Indeed he is chased away like a vision of the night" (v. 8).
Zophar claimed that though wickedness is sweet in the mouth of the wicked, his food in his bowels is the venom of asps within him (vv. 12-19).
Finally, Zophar taught Job that because the wicked knows no respite in his craving, of that which he desires he will save nothing. There will be nothing left of what he has devoured. Thus, his prosperity will not endure (vv. 20-29). Zophar concluded his teaching by saying, "This is the wicked man's portion from God/And the inheritance decreed to him by God" (v. 29).