Job 30:23
For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.
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EXPOSITORY (ENGLISH BIBLE)
30:15-31 Job complains a great deal. Harbouring hard thoughts of God was the sin which did, at this time, most easily beset Job. When inward temptations join with outward calamities, the soul is hurried as in a tempest, and is filled with confusion. But woe be to those who really have God for an enemy! Compared with the awful state of ungodly men, what are all outward, or even inward temporal afflictions? There is something with which Job comforts himself, yet it is but a little. He foresees that death will be the end of all his troubles. God's wrath might bring him to death; but his soul would be safe and happy in the world of spirits. If none pity us, yet our God, who corrects, pities us, even as a father pitieth his own children. And let us look more to the things of eternity: then the believer will cease from mourning, and joyfully praise redeeming love.For I know that thou wilt bring me to death - This is the language of despair. Occasionally Job seems to have had an assurance that his calamities would pass by, and that God would show himself to be his friend on earth (compare the notes at Job 19:25), and at other times he utters the language of despair. Such would be commonly the case with a good man afflicted as he was, and agitated with alternate hopes and fears. We are not to set these expressions down as contradictions. All that inspiration is responsible for, is the fair record of his feelings; and that he should have alternate hopes and fears is in entire accordance with what occurs when we are afflicted. Here the view of his sorrows appears to have been so overwhelming, that he says he knew they must terminate in death. The phrase "to death" means to the house of the dead, or to the place where the dead are. Umbreit.

And to the house appointed for all living - The grave; compare Hebrews 9:27. That house or home is "appointed" for all. It is not a matter of chance that we come there, but it is because the Great Arbiter of life has so ordained. What an affecting consideration it should be, that such a house is designated for all! A house so dark, so gloomy, so solitary, so repulsive! For all that sit on thrones; for all that move in the halls of music and pleasure; for all that roll along in splendid carriages; for all the beautiful, the happy, the vigorous, the manly; for all in the marts of business, in the low scenes of dissipation, and in the sanctuary of God; for every one who is young, and every one who is aged, this is the home! Here they come at last; and here they lie down in the narrow bed! God's hand will bring them all there; and there will they lie until his voice summons them to judgment!

23. This shows Job 19:25 cannot be restricted to Job's hope of a temporal deliverance.

death—as in Job 28:22, the realm of the dead (Heb 9:27; Ge 3:19).

I see nothing will satisfy thee but my death, which thou art bringing upon me in a lingering and dismal manner.

To the house appointed for all living; to the grave, to which all living men are coming and hastening.

For I know that thou wilt bring me to death,.... Quickly and by the present affliction upon him; he was assured, as he thought, that this was the view and design of God in this providence, under which he was to bring him to death and the grave; that he would never take off his hand till he had brought him to the dust of death, to that lifeless dust from whence he had his original; otherwise, that he would he brought thither, sooner or later, was no great masterpiece of knowledge; every man knows this will be the case with him as with all; death is become necessary by sin, which brought it into the world, and the sentence of it on all men in it, and by the decree and appointment of God, by which it is fixed and settled that all should die; and this is confirmed by all experience in all ages, a very few excepted, only two persons, Enoch and Elijah, Genesis 5:24, sometimes the death of persons is made known to them by divine revelation, as to Aaron and Moses, Numbers 20:12; and sometimes it may be gathered to be nigh from the symptoms of it on the body; from growing diseases, and the infirmities of old age; but Job concluded it from the manner of God's dealing with him, as he thought in wrath and indignation, determining to make an utter end of him:

and to the house appointed for all living; the grave, which is the house for the body when dead to be brought unto and lodged in; as the "house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens", 2 Corinthians 5:1, is for the soul in its separate state, until the resurrection morn; which house or grave is man's "long home", Ecclesiastes 12:5; and this is prepared and appointed for all men living, since all must die; and all that die have a house or grave, though that is sometimes a watery, and not an earthy one; however the dust of everybody has a receptacle provided for it, where it is reserved until the time of the resurrection, and then it is brought forth, Revelation 20:13; and this is by divine appointment; the word used signifies both an appointed time and place, and is often used of the Jewish solemnities, which were fixed with respect to both; and also of the people or congregation that attended them; the grave is the general rendezvous of mankind, and both the time when and the place where the dead are gathered and brought unto it are fixed by the determinate will and counsel of God.

For I know that thou wilt bring me to death, and to the house appointed for all living.
EXEGETICAL (ORIGINAL LANGUAGES)
23. This verse explains Job 30:22 and supports it. Job knows that his afflictions can end in nothing but his death.

house appointed for] Or, house of meeting for all living, i. e. the, grave, or Sheol, the place of the dead.

Verse 23. - For I know that thou wilt bring me to death. Job has all along expressed his conviction that he has nothing to look for but death. He feels within himself the seeds of a mortal malady; for such, practically, was elephantiasis in Job's time. He is devoid of any expectation of recovery. Death must come upon him, he thinks, ere long; and then God will bring him to the house appointed for all living. This, as he has already explained (Job 10:21, 22), is "the land of darkness and the shadow of death, a land of darkness, as darkness itself; and of the shadow of death, without any order, and where the light is as darkness." It is a melancholy prospect; but we must regard it as cheered by the hope of an ultimate resurrection, such as seems indicated, if not absolutely proclaimed, in Job 19:25-27 (see the comment on that passage). Job 30:2320 I cry to Thee for help, and Thou answerest not;

I stand there, and Thou lookest fixedly at me.

21 Thou changest Thyself to a cruel being towards me,

With the strength of Thy hand Thou makest war upon me.

22 Thou raisest me upon the stormy wind,

Thou causest me to drive along And vanish in the roaring of the storm.

23 For I:know: Thou wilt bring me back to death,

Into the house of assembly for all living.

If he cries for help, his cry remains unanswered; if he stands there looking up reverentially to God (perhaps עמד, with משּׁוּע to be supplied, has the sense of desisting or restraining, as Genesis 29:35; Genesis 30:9), the troubling, fixed look of God, who looks fixedly and hostilely upon him, anything but ready to help (comp. Job 7:20; Job 16:9), meets his upturned eye. התבּנן, to look consideringly upon anything, is elsewhere joined with אל, על, עד, or even with the acc; here, where a motionless fixed look is intended, with בּ ( equals fi). It is impossible to draw the לא, Job 30:20, over to ותּתבּנן (Jer., Saad., Umbr., Welte, and others), both on account of the Waw consec. (Ew. 351a), and on account of the separation by the new antecedent עמדתּי. On the reading of two Codd. ותתכנן ("Thou settest Thyself against me"), which Houbigant and Ew. prefer, Rosenm. has correctly pronounced judgment: est potius pro mendo habenda. Instead of consolingly answering his prayer, and instead of showing Himself willing to help, God, who was formerly so kind towards him, changes towards him, His creature, into a cruel being, saevum (אכזר in the book of Job only here and Job 41:2, where it signifies "foolhardy;" comp. לאויב in the dependent passage, Isaiah 63:10), and makes war upon him (שׂטם as Job 16:9) by causing him to feel the strength of His omnipotent hand (עצם יד as Deuteronomy 8:17, synon. חזק).

It is not necessary in Job 30:22 to forsake the accentuation, and to translate: Thou raisest me up, Thou causest me go in the wind (Ew., Hirz., and others); the accentuation of רוח is indeed not a disjunctive Dech, but a conjunctive Tarcha, but preceded by Munach, which, according to the rule, Psalter ii. 500, 5, here, where two conjunctives come together, has a smaller conjunctive value. Therefore: elevas me in ventum, equitare facis me, viz., super ventum (Dachselt), for one does not only say הרכּיב על, 1 Chronicles 13:7, or ל, Psalm 66:12, but also אל, 2 Samuel 6:3; and accordingly תּשּׂאני אל־רוּח is also not to be translated: Thou snatchest me into the wind or storm (Hahn, Schlottm.), but: Thou raisest me up to the wind or storm, as upon an animal for riding (Umbr., Olsh.). According to Oriental tradition, Solomon rode upon the east wind, and in Arabic they say of one who hurried rapidly by, racab al-genâhai er-rih, he rides upon the wings of the wind; in the present passage, the point of comparison is the being absolutely passively hurried forth from the enjoyment of a healthy and happy life to a dizzy height, whence a sudden overthrow threatens him who is unwillingly removed (comp. Psalm 102:11, Thou hast lifted me up and hurled me forth).

The lot which threatens him from this painful suspense Job expresses (Job 30:22) in the puzzling words: וּתמגגני תשׁיּה. Thus the Keri, after which lxx transl. (if it has not read מישׁוּעה), καὶ ἀπέῤῥηιψάς με ἀπὸ σωτηρίας. The modern expositors who follow the Keri, by taking ותמגגני for ותמגג לי (according to Ges. 121, 4), translate: Thou causest counsel and understanding (Welte), happiness (Blumenf.), and the like, to vanish from me; continuance, existence, duration would be better (vid., Job 6:13, and especially on Job 26:3). The thought it appropriate, but the expression is halting. Jerome, who translates valide, points to the correct thing, and Buxtorf (Lex. col. 2342f.) by interpreting the not less puzzling Targum translation in fundamento equals funditus or in essentia equals essentialiter, has, without intending it, hit upon the idea of the Hebr. Keri; תשׁיּה is intended as a closer defining, or adverbial, accusative: Thou causest me to vanish as to existence, ita ut tota essentia pereat h.e. totaliter et omnino. Perhaps this was really the meaning of the poet: most completely, most thoroughly, altogether, like the Arab. ḥaqqan. But it is unfavourable to this Keri, that תושׁיה (from the verb ושׁי), as might be expected, is always written plene elsewhere; the correction of the תשׁוה is violent, and moreover this form, correctly read, gives a sense far more consistent with the figure, Job 30:22. Ges., Umbr., and Carey falsely read תּשׁוּה, terres me; this verb is unknown in Hebr., and even in Chaldee is only used in Ithpeal, אשׁתּוי ( equals Hebr. חרד); for a similar reason Bttcher's תּשׁוה (which is intended to mean: in despair) is also not to be used. Even Stuhlmann perceived that תשׁוה is equivalent to תּשׁוּאה; it is, with Ew. and Olsh., to be read תּשׁוּה (not with Pareau and Hirz. תּשׁוה without the Dag.), and this form signifies, as תשׁואה, Job 36:29, from שׁוא equals שׁאה, from which it is derived by change of consonants, the crash of thunder, or even the rumbling or roar as of a storm or a falling in (procellae sive ruinae). The meaning is hardly, that he who rides away upon the stormy wind melts and trickles down like drops of rain among the pealing of the thunder, when the thunder-storm, whose harbinger is the stormy wind, gathers; but that in the storm itself, which increases in fury to the howling of a tempest, he dissolves away. תּשׁוּה for בּתּשׁוּה, comp. Psalm 107:26 : their soul melted away (dissolved) בּרעה. The compulsory journey in the air, therefore, passes into nothing or nearly nothing, as Job is well aware, Job 30:23 : "for I:know: (without כּי, as Job 19:25; Psalm 9:21) Thou wilt bring me back to death" (acc. of the goal, or locative without any sign). If תּשׁיבני is taken in its most natural signification reduces, death is represented as essentially one with the dust of death (comp. Job 1:21 with Genesis 3:19), or even with non-existence, out of which man is come into being; nevertheless השׁיב can also, by obliterating the notion of return, like redigere, have only the signification of the turn of destiny and change of condition that is effected. The assertion that שׁוּב always includes an "again," and retains it inexorably (vid., Khler on Zechariah 13:7, S. 239), is untenable. In post-biblical Hebrew, at least, it is certain that שׁוּב signifies not only "to become again," but also "to become," as Arab. ‛âd is used as synon. of jâ'in, devenir.

(Note: Vid., my Anekdota der mittelalterlichen Scholastik unter Juden und Moslemen, S. 347.)

With מות, the designation of the condition, is coupled the designation of the place: Hades (under the notion of which that of the grave is included) is the great involuntary rendezvous of all who live in this world.

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