Job 36:14

36:5-14 Elihu here shows that God acts as righteous Governor. He is always ready to defend those that are injured. If our eye is ever toward God in duty, his eye will be ever upon us in mercy, and, when we are at the lowest, will not overlook us. God intends, when he afflicts us, to discover past sins to us, and to bring them to our remembrance. Also, to dispose our hearts to be taught: affliction makes people willing to learn, through the grace of God working with and by it. And further, to deter us from sinning for the future. It is a command, to have no more to do with sin. If we faithfully serve God, we have the promise of the life that now is, and the comforts of it, as far as is for God's glory and our good: and who would desire them any further? We have the possession of inward pleasures, the great peace which those have that love God's law. If the affliction fail in its work, let men expect the furnace to be heated till they are consumed. Those that die without knowledge, die without grace, and are undone for ever. See the nature of hypocrisy; it lies in the heart: that is for the world and the flesh, while perhaps the outside seems to be for God and religion. Whether sinners die in youth, or live long to heap up wrath, their case is dreadful. The souls of the wicked live after death, but it is in everlasting misery.

They die in youth,.... They, or "their soul" (u); which, though that dies not, being immaterial and immortal; yet being the principal part of man, is put for the whole person, and which being taken away, the body dies. All men must die, but all do not die at an age; there is a common term of human life, Psalm 90:10 ; some few exceed it, multitudes arrive not to it; such who die before it may be said to die in youth; it seems to signify premature and untimely death: the word signifies an "excussion", or violent shaking out; and the Vulgate Latin version is, "in a tempest"; in a tempest of divine wrath, and in a storm in their consciences, Job 27:20 . Jarchi interprets it by suffocation or strangling; and their life is among the unclean: all men are by nature unclean, and all that is in them; some are more notoriously and openly so than others, who give themselves over to lasciviousness, to work all uncleanness with greediness; such as whoremongers and fornicators, of whom Mr. Broughton understands those unclean persons; or Sodomites, of whom the word is sometimes used, Deuteronomy 23:17.

And this may be understood either of the present life of hypocrites before they die; who are unclean persons themselves, whatever show of purity they make, and love to live and converse, at least privately, if not openly, with unclean persons, and die while they live with such and in their sins: or of their life after death; for wicked men live after death; their souls live in hell, and their bodies at the resurrection will be raised to life, and be reunited to their souls, and both together will live in endless punishment; and the life of hypocrites will be among such; as is a man in life, so he is at and after death; if filthy, filthy still; and such will have no admittance into the heavenly state, and with such impure ones, hypocrites will live for ever, Revelation 21:8. (u) "anima eorum", Pagninus, Montanus, Tigurine version, Vatablus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator, &c.

Verse 14. - They die in youth ; literally, their soul dieth in youth. The result is that, while they are still young, the vital strength of their soul is sapped; they "come to a premature end, like youths who have destroyed the spring of life by licentiousness" (Cook). And their life is among the unclean . (On the particular "uncleanness" intended, see Deuteronomy 23:17 .) Job 36:14

They die in youth; they provoke God to cut them off before their time. Heb. Their soul (i.e. they themselves) shall die in youth . Their life is ; or, their life shall die or be extinct; which verb is understood out of the former clause, after the manner of the Hebrews. The unclean; or, the filthy , or whoremongers , or sodomites ; to whose destruction (which happened not long before this time) he may seem to allude. The sense is, they shall die by some dreadful and exemplary stroke of Divine vengeance.

They die in youth - Margin, "Their soul dieth." The word "soul" or "life" in the Hebrew is used to denote oneself. The meaning is, that they would soon be cut down, and share the lot of the openly wicked. If they amended their lives they might be spared, and continue to live in prosperity and honor; if they did not, whether openly wicked or hypocrites. they would be early cut off. And their life is amnong the unclean - Margin, "Sodomites." The idea is, that they would be treated in the same way as the most abandoned and vile of the race. No special favor would be shown to them because they were "professors" of religion, nor would this fact be a shield against the treatment which they deserved. They could not be classed with the righteous, and must, therefore, share the fate of the most worth mss and wicked of the race. The word rendered "unclean" (קדשׁים qâdêsh) is from קדשׁ qâdash, "to be pure or holy"; and in the Hiphil to regard as holy, to consecrate, or devote to the service of God, as e. g. a priest; Exodus 28:41; Exodus 29:1. Then it means to consecrate or devote to "any" service or purpose, as to an idol god. Hence, it means one consecrated or devoted to the service of Astarte, the goddess of the Sidonians or Venus, and as this worship was corrupt and licentious, the word means one who is licentious or corrupt compare Deuteronomy 23:18; 1 Kings 14:24; Genesis 38:21-22.

Here it means the licentious, the corrupt, the abandoned; and the idea is, that if hypocrites did not repent under the inflictions of divine judgment, they would be dealt with in the same way as the most abandoned and vile. On the evidence that licentiousness constituted a part of the ancient worship of idols, see Spencer "de Legg. ritual Hebraedor." Lib. ii. cap. iii. pp. 613, 614, Ed. 1732. Jerome renders this, "intereffoeminatos." The Septuagint strangely enough has: "Let their life be wounded by angels."

13 Yet the hypocrites in heart cherish wrath, They cry not when He hath chained them. 14 Thus their soul dieth in the vigour of youth, And their life is like that of the unclean. 15 Yet He delivereth the sufferer by his affliction, And openeth their ear by oppression. He who is angry with God in his affliction, and does not humbly pray to Him, shows thereby that he is a חנף, one estranged from God (on the idea of the root, vid., i. 216), and not a צדיק. This connection renders it natural to understand not the divine wrath by אף: θησαυρίζουσιν ὀργήν (Rosenm. after Romans 2:5), or: they heap up wrath upon themselves (Wolfson, who supplies עליהם), but the impatience, discontent, and murmuring of man himself: they cherish or harbour wrath, viz., בּלבּם (comp. Job 22:22, where שׁים בלב signifies to take to heart, but at the same time to preserve in the heart). Used thus absolutely, שׂים signifies elsewhere in the book, to give attention to, Job 4:20; Job 24:12; Job 34:23, or (as Arab. wḍ‛) to lay down a pledge; here it signifies reponunt s. recondunt (with an implied in ipsis), as also Arab. šâm, fut. i, to conceal with the idea of sinking into (immittentem), e.g., the sword in the sheath.

With תּמת, for ותּמת (Isaiah 50:2) or ותמת, the punishment which issues forth undistinguished from this frustration of the divine purpose of grace follows ἀσυνδέτως, as e.g., Hosea 7:16. חיּה interchanges with נפשׁ, as Job 33:22, Job 33:28; נער (likewise a favourite word with Elihu) is intended just as Job 33:25, and in the Psalm 88:16, which resembles both the Elihu section and the rest of the book. The Beth of בּקּדשׁים has the sense of aeque ac (Targ. היך), as Job 34:36, comp. תּחת, Job 34:26. Jer. translates inter effeminatos; for קדשׁים (heathenish, equivalent to קדושׁים, as כּמרים, heathenish, equivalent to כּהנים) are the consecrated men, who yielded themselves up, like the women in honour of the deity, to passive, prematurely-enervating incontinence (vid., Keil on Deuteronomy 23:18), a heathenish abomination prevailing now and again even in Israel (1 Kings 14:24; 1 Kings 15:12; 1 Kings 22:47), which was connected with the worship of Astarte and Baal that was transferred from Syria, and to which allusion is here made, in accordance with the scene of the book. For the sufferer, on the other hand, who suffers not merely of necessity, but willingly, this his suffering is a means of rescue and moral purification. Observe the play upon the words יחלּץ and בּלחץ. The Beth in both instances is, in accordance with Elihu's fundamental thought, the Beth instrum.