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Job 3:14 World English Bible (WEB)

14 With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;

Cross Reference

Job 15:28 WEB

He has lived in desolate cities, In houses which no one inhabited, Which were ready to become heaps.

Isaiah 14:10-16 WEB

All they shall answer and tell you, Are you also become weak as we? are you become like us? Your pomp is brought down to Sheol, [and] the noise of your viols: the worm is spread under you, and worms cover you. How you are fallen from heaven, day-star, son of the morning! How you are cut down to the ground, who laid the nations low! You said in your heart, I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God; and I will sit on the mountain of congregation, in the uttermost parts of the north; I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will make myself like the Most High. Yet you shall be brought down to Sheol, to the uttermost parts of the pit. Those who see you shall gaze at you, they shall consider you, [saying], "Is this the man who made the earth to tremble, who shook kingdoms;

1 Kings 2:10 WEB

David slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David.

1 Kings 11:43 WEB

Solomon slept with his fathers, and was buried in the city of David his father: and Rehoboam his son reigned in his place.

Job 12:17 WEB

He leads counselors away stripped. He makes judges fools.

Job 30:23 WEB

For I know that you will bring me to death, To the house appointed for all living.

Psalms 49:6-10 WEB

Those who trust in their wealth, And boast in the multitude of their riches-- None of them can by any means redeem his brother, Nor give God a ransom for him. For the redemption of their life is costly, No payment is ever enough, That he should live on forever, That he should not see corruption. For he sees that wise men die; Likewise the fool and the senseless perish, And leave their wealth to others.

Psalms 49:14 WEB

They are appointed as a flock for Sheol. Death shall be their shepherd. The upright shall have dominion over them in the morning. Their beauty shall decay in Sheol, Far from their mansion.

Psalms 89:48 WEB

What man is he who shall live and not see death, Who shall deliver his soul from the power of Sheol? Selah.

Ecclesiastes 8:8 WEB

There is no man who has power over the spirit to contain the spirit; neither does he have power over the day of death. There is no discharge in war; neither shall wickedness deliver those who practice it.

Isaiah 5:8 WEB

Woe to those who join house to house, Who lay field to field, until there is no room, And you are made to dwell alone in the midst of the land!

Isaiah 58:12 WEB

Those who shall be of you shall build the old waste places; you shall raise up the foundations of many generations; and you shall be called The repairer of the breach, The restorer of paths to dwell in.

Ezekiel 26:20 WEB

then will I bring you down with those who descend into the pit, to the people of old time, and will make you to dwell in the lower parts of the earth, in the places that are desolate of old, with those who go down to the pit, that you be not inhabited; and I will set glory in the land of the living:

Ezekiel 27:18-32 WEB

Damascus was your merchant for the multitude of your handiworks, by reason of the multitude of all kinds of riches, with the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Vedan and Javan traded with yarn for your wares: bright iron, cassia, and calamus, were among your merchandise. Dedan was your trafficker in precious cloths for riding. Arabia, and all the princes of Kedar, they were the merchants of your hand; in lambs, and rams, and goats, in these were they your merchants. The traffickers of Sheba and Raamah, they were your traffickers; they traded for your wares with the chief of all spices, and with all precious stones, and gold. Haran and Canneh and Eden, the traffickers of Sheba, Asshur [and] Chilmad, were your traffickers. These were your traffickers in choice wares, in wrappings of blue and embroidered work, and in chests of rich clothing, bound with cords and made of cedar, among your merchandise. The ships of Tarshish were your caravans for your merchandise: and you were replenished, and made very glorious in the heart of the seas. Your rowers have brought you into great waters: the east wind has broken you in the heart of the seas. Your riches, and your wares, your merchandise, your mariners, and your pilots, your repairers of ship seams, and the dealers in your merchandise, and all your men of war, who are in you, with all your company which is in the midst of you, shall fall into the heart of the seas in the day of your ruin. At the sound of the cry of your pilots the suburbs shall shake. All who handled the oar, the mariners, [and] all the pilots of the sea, shall come down from their ships; they shall stand on the land, and shall cause their voice to be heard over you, and shall cry bitterly, and shall cast up dust on their heads, they shall wallow themselves in the ashes: and they shall make themselves bald for you, and gird them with sackcloth, and they shall weep for you in bitterness of soul with bitter mourning. In their wailing they shall take up a lamentation for you, and lament over you, [saying], Who is there like Tyre, like her who is brought to silence in the midst of the sea?

Commentary on Job 3 Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible


CHAPTER 3

THE POEM OR DEBATE ITSELF (Job 3:2-42:6).
FIRST SERIES IN IT (Job 3:1-14:22).
JOB FIRST (Job 3:1-26).

Job 3:1-19. Job Curses the Day of His Birth and Wishes for Death.

1. opened his mouth—The Orientals speak seldom, and then sententiously; hence this formula expressing deliberation and gravity (Ps 78:2). He formally began.

cursed his day—the strict Hebrew word for "cursing:" not the same as in Job 1:5. Job cursed his birthday, but not his God.

2. spake—Hebrew, "answered," that is, not to any actual question that preceded, but to the question virtually involved in the case. His outburst is singularly wild and bold (Jer 20:14). To desire to die so as to be free from sin is a mark of grace; to desire to die so as to escape troubles is a mark of corruption. He was ill-fitted to die who was so unwilling to live. But his trials were greater, and his light less, than ours.

3. the night in which—rather "the night which said." The words in italics are not in the Hebrew. Night is personified and poetically made to speak. So in Job 3:7, and in Ps 19:2. The birth of a male in the East is a matter of joy; often not so of a female.

4. let not God regard it—rather, more poetically, "seek it out." "Let not God stoop from His bright throne to raise it up from its dark hiding-place." The curse on the day in Job 3:3, is amplified in Job 3:4, 5; that on the night, in Job 3:6-10.

5. Let … the shadow of death—("deepest darkness," Isa 9:2).

stain it—This is a later sense of the verb [Gesenius]; better the old and more poetic idea, "Let darkness (the ancient night of chaotic gloom) resume its rights over light (Ge 1:2), and claim that day as its own."

a cloud—collectively, a gathered mass of dark clouds.

the blackness of the day terrify it—literally, "the obscurations"; whatever darkens the day [Gesenius]. The verb in Hebrew expresses sudden terrifying. May it be suddenly affrighted at its own darkness. Umbreit explains it as "magical incantations that darken the day," forming the climax to the previous clauses; Job 3:8 speaks of "cursers of the day" similarly. But the former view is simpler. Others refer it to the poisonous simoom wind.

6. seize upon it—as its prey, that is, utterly dissolve it.

joined unto the days of the year—rather, by poetic personification, "Let it not rejoice in the circle of days and nights and months, which form the circle of years."

7. solitary—rather, "unfruitful." "Would that it had not given birth to me."

8. them … curse the day—If "mourning" be the right rendering in the latter clause of this verse, these words refer to the hired mourners of the dead (Jer 9:17). But the Hebrew for "mourning" elsewhere always denotes an animal, whether it be the crocodile or some huge serpent (Isa 27:1), such as is meant by "leviathan." Therefore, the expression, "cursers of day," refers to magicians, who were believed to be able by charms to make a day one of evil omen. (So Balaam, Nu 22:5). This accords with Umbreit's view (Job 3:7); or to the Ethiopians and Atlantes, who "used to curse the sun at his rising for burning up them and their country" [Herodotus]. Necromancers claimed power to control or rouse wild beasts at will, as do the Indian serpent-charmers of our day (Ps 58:5). Job does not say they had the power they claimed; but, supposing they had, may they curse the day. Schuttens renders it by supplying words as follows:—Let those that are ready for anything, call it (the day) the raiser up of leviathan, that is, of a host of evils.

9. dawning of the day—literally, "eyelashes of morning." The Arab poets call the sun the eye of day. His early rays, therefore, breaking forth before sunrise, are the opening eyelids or eyelashes of morning.

12. Why did the knees prevent me?—Old English for "anticipate my wants." The reference is to the solemn recognition of a new-born child by the father, who used to place it on his knees as his own, whom he was bound to rear (Ge 30:3; 50:23; Isa 66:12).

13. lain … quiet … slept—a gradation. I should not only have lain, but been quiet, and not only been quiet, but slept. Death in Scripture is called "sleep" (Ps 13:3); especially in the New Testament, where the resurrection-awakening is more clearly set forth (1Co 15:51; 1Th 4:14; 5:10).

14. With kings … which built desolate places for themselves—who built up for themselves what proved to be (not palaces, but) ruins! The wounded spirit of Job, once a great emir himself, sick of the vain struggles of mortal great men, after grandeur, contemplates the palaces of kings, now desolate heaps of ruins. His regarding the repose of death the most desirable end of the great ones of earth, wearied with heaping up perishable treasures, marks the irony that breaks out from the black clouds of melancholy [Umbreit]. The "for themselves" marks their selfishness. Michaelis explains it weakly of mausoleums, such as are found still, of stupendous proportions, in the ruins of Petra of Idumea.

15. filled their houses with silver—Some take this to refer to the treasures which the ancients used to bury with their dead. But see Job 3:26.

16. untimely birth—(Ps 58:8); preferable to the life of the restless miser (Ec 6:3-5).

17. the wicked—the original meaning, "those ever restless," "full of desires" (Isa 57:20, 21).

the weary—literally, "those whose strength is wearied out" (Re 14:13).

18. There the prisoners rest—from their chains.

19. servant—The slave is there manumitted from slavery.

Job 3:20-26. He Complains of Life because of His Anguish.

20. Wherefore giveth he light—namely, God; often omitted reverentially (Job 24:23; Ec 9:9). Light, that is, life. The joyful light ill suits the mourners. The grave is most in unison with their feelings.

23. whose way is hid—The picture of Job is drawn from a wanderer who has lost his way, and who is hedged in, so as to have no exit of escape (Ho 2:6; La 3:7, 9).

24. my sighing cometh before I eat—that is, prevents my eating [Umbreit]; or, conscious that the effort to eat brought on the disease, Job must sigh before eating [Rosenmuller]; or, sighing takes the place of good (Ps 42:3) [Good]. But the first explanation accords best with the text.

my roarings are poured out like the waters—an image from the rushing sound of water streaming.

25. the thing which I … feared is come upon me—In the beginning of his trials, when he heard of the loss of one blessing, he feared the loss of another; and when he heard of the loss of that, he feared the loss of a third.

that which I was afraid of is come unto me—namely, the ill opinion of his friends, as though he were a hypocrite on account of his trials.

26. I was not in safety … yet trouble came—referring, not to his former state, but to the beginning of his troubles. From that time I had no rest, there was no intermission of sorrows. "And" (not, "yet") a fresh trouble is coming, namely, my friends' suspicion of my being a hypocrite. This gives the starting-point to the whole ensuing controversy.