Job 30:23

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.

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; whi

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 30:23

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!

20 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.