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Selected Verse: Job 14:13 - King James
| Verse |
Translation |
Text |
| Job 14:13 |
King James |
O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave, that thou wouldest keep me secret, until thy wrath be past, that thou wouldest appoint me a set time, and remember me! |
Summary Of Commentaries Associated With The Selected Verse
| A Commentary, Critical, Practical, and Explanatory on the Old and New Testaments, by Robert Jamieson, A.R. Fausset and David Brown [1882] |
Job wishes to be kept hidden in the grave until God's wrath against him shall have passed away. So while God's wrath is visiting the earth for the abounding apostasy which is to precede the second coming, God's people shall be hidden against the resurrection glory (Isa 26:19-21).
set time--a decreed time (Act 1:7). |
| Notes on the Bible, by Albert Barnes, [1834] |
Oh that thou wouldest hide me in the grave; - compare the notes at Job 3:11 ff. Hebrew "in Sheol" - ב־שׁאול bı̂-she'ôl. Vulgate, "in inferno." Septuagint ἐν ἅδῃ en Hadē - "in Hades." On the meaning of the word "Sheol," see the notes at Isa 5:14. It does not mean here, I think, the grave. It means the region of departed spirits, the place of the dead, where he wished to be, until the tempest of the wrath of God should pass by. He wished to be shut up in some place where the fury of that tempest would not meet him, and where he would be safe. On the meaning of this passage, however, there has been considerable variety of opinion among expositors. Many suppose that the word here properly means "the grave," and that Job was willing to wait there until the wrath of God should be spent, and then that he desired to be brought forth in the general resurrection of the dead.
So the Chaldee interprets it of the grave - קבורתא. There is evidently a desire on the part of Job to be hid in some secret place until the tempest of wrath should sweep by, and until he should be safe. There is an expectation that he would live again at some future period, and a desire to live after the present tokens of the wrath of God should pass by. It is probably a wish for a safe retreat or a hiding-place - where he might be secure, as from a storm. A somewhat similar expression occurs in Isa 2:19, where it is said that people would go into holes and caverns until the storm of wrath should pass by, or in order to escape it. But whether Job meant the grave, or the place of departed spirits, cannot be determined, and is not material. In the view of the ancients the one was not remote from the other. The entrance to Sheol was the grave; and either of them would furnish the protection sought. It should be added, that the grave was with the ancients usually a cave, or an excavation from the rock, and such a place might suggest the idea of a hiding-place from the raging storm.
That thou wouldest appoint me a set time - When I should be delivered or rescued. Herder renders this, "Appoint me then a new term." The word rendered "a set time" - חק chôq - means, properly, something decreed, prescribed, appointed and here an appointed time when God would remember or revisit him. It is the expression of his lingering love of life. He had wished to die. He was borne down by heavy trials, and desired a release. He longed even for the grave; compare Job 3:20-22. But there is the instinctive love of life in his bosom, and he asks that God would appoint a time, though ever so remote, in which he would return to him, and permit him to live again. There is the secret hope of some future life - though remote; and he is willing to be hid for any period of time until the wrath of God should pass by, if he might live again. Such is the lingering desire of life in the bosom of man in the severest trials, and the darkest hours; and so instinctively does man look on even to the most remote period with the hope of life. Nature speaks out in the desires of Job; and one of the objects of the poem is to describe the workings of nature with reference to a future state in the severe trials to which he was subjected. We cannot but remark here, what support and consolation would he have found in the clear revelation which we have of the future world, and what a debt of gratitude do we owe to that gospel which has brought life and immortality to light! |
| The Scofield Bible Commentary, by Cyrus Ingerson Scofield, [1917] |
grave
Hebrew, "Sheol,"
(See Scofield) - (Hab 2:5). |
| Commentary on the Old Testament, by Carl Friedrich Keil and Franz Delitzsch [1857-78] |
13 Oh that Thou wouldst hide me in Shel,
That Thou wouldst conceal me till Thine anger change,
That Thou wouldst appoint me a time and then remember me!
14 If man dieth, shall he live again?
All the days of my warfare would I wait,
Until my change should come.
15 Thou wouldst call and I would answer,
Thou wouldst have a desire for the work of Thy hands -
16 For now thou numberest my steps,
And dost not restrain thyself over my sins.
The optative יתּן מי introduces a wish that has reference to the future, and is therefore, as at Job 6:8, followed by futt.; comp. on the other hand, Job 23:3, utinam noverim. The language of the wish reminds one of such passages in the Psalms as Psa 31:21; Psa 27:5 (comp. Isa 26:20): "In the day of trouble He hideth me in His pavilion, and in the secret of His tabernacle doth He conceal me." So Job wishes that Hades, into which the wrath of God now precipitates him for ever, may only be a temporary place of safety for him, until the wrath of God turn away (שׁוּב, comp. the causative, Job 9:13); that God would appoint to him, when there, a חק, i.e., a terminus ad quem (comp. Job 14:5), and when this limit should be reached, again remember him in mercy. This is a wish that Job marks out for himself. The reality is indeed different: "if (ἐὰν) a man dies, will he live again?" The answer which Job's consciousness, ignorant of anything better, alone can give, is: No, there is no life after death. It is, however, none the less a craving of his heart that gives rise to the wish; it is the most favourable thought, - a desirable possibility, - which, if it were but a reality, would comfort him under all present suffering: "all the days of my warfare would I wait until my change came." צבא is the name he gives to the whole of this toilsome and sorrowful interval between the present and the wished-for goal, - the life on earth, which he likens to the service of the soldier or of the hireling (Job 7:1), and which is subject to an inevitable destiny (Job 5:7) of manifold suffering, together with the night of Hades, where this life is continued in its most shadowy and dismal phase. And חליפה does not here signify destruction in the sense of death, as the Jewish expositors, by comparing Isa 2:18 and Sol 2:11, explain it; but (with reference to צבאי, comp. Job 10:17) the following after (Arab. chlı̂ft, succession, successor, i.e., of Mohammed), relief, change (syn. תּמוּרה, exchange, barter), here of change of condition, as Psa 55:20, of change of mind; Aquila, Theod., ἄλλαγμα. Oh that such a change awaited him! What a blessed future would it be if it should come to pass! Then would God call to him in the depth of Shel, and he, imprisoned until the appointed time of release, would answer Him from the deep. After His anger was spent, God would again yearn after the work of His hands (comp. Job 10:3), the natural loving relation between the Creator and His creature would again prevail, and it would become manifest that wrath is only a waning power (Isa 54:8), and love His true and essential attribute. Schlottman well observes: "Job must have had a keen perception of the profound relation between the creature and his Maker in the past, to be able to give utterance to such an imaginative expectation respecting the future."
In Job 14:16, Job supports what is cheering in this prospect, with which he wishes he might be allowed to console himself, by the contrast of the present. עתּה כּי is used here as in Job 6:21; כי is not, as elsewhere, where עתה כי introduces the conclusion, confirmatory (indeed now = then indeed), but assigns a reason (for now). Now God numbers his steps (Job 13:27), watching him as a criminal, and does not restrain himself over his sin. Most modern expositors (Ew., Hlgst, Hahn, Schlottm.) translate: Thou observest not my sins, i.e., whether they are to be so severely punished or not; but this is poor. Raschi: Thou waitest not over my sins, i.e., to punish them; instead of which Ralbag directly: Thou waitest not for my sins = repentance or punishment; but שׁמר is not supported in the meaning: to wait, by Gen 37:11. Aben-Ezra: Thou lookest not except on my sins, by supplying רק, according to Ecc 2:24 (where, however, probably משׁיאכל should be read, and מ after אדם, just as in Job 33:17, has fallen away). The most doubtful is, with Hirzel, to take the sentence as interrogative, in opposition to the parallelism: and dost Thou not keep watch over my sins? It seems to me that the sense intended must be derived from the phrase אף שׁמר, which means to keep anger, and consequently to delay the manifestation of it (Amo 1:11). This phrase is here so applied, that we obtain the sense: Thou keepest not Thy wrath to thyself, but pourest it out entirely. Mercerus is substantially correct: non reservas nec differs peccati mei punitionem. |
| Explanatory Notes on the Whole Bible, by John Wesley [1754-65] |
| The grave - The grave is not only a resting - place, but an hiding - place to the children of God. He hides them in the grave, as we hide our treasure in a place of secrecy and safety. Hide me there, not only from the storms of this life, but for the glory of a better. Until thy wrath be past - As long as our bodies lie in the grave, there are some fruits of God's wrath against sin: until the set time comes, for their being remembered, as Noah was remembered in the ark, Gen 8:1. Our bodies shall not be forgotten in the grave, there is a time set for their being enquired after. |
| Adam Clarke Commentary on the Whole Bible - Published 1810-1826 |
O that thou wouldest hide me in the grave - Dreadful as death is to others, I shall esteem it a high privilege; it will be to me a covert from the wind and from the tempest of this affliction and distress.
Keep me secret - Hide my soul with thyself, where my enemies cannot invade my repose; or, as the poet expresses it: -
"My spirit hide with saints above,
My body in the tomb."
Job does not appear to have the same thing in view when he entreats God to hide him in the grave; and to keep him secret, until his wrath be past. The former relates to the body; the latter to the spirit.
That thou wouldest appoint me a set time - As he had spoken of the death of his body before, and the secreting of his spirit in the invisible world, he must refer here to the resurrection; for what else can be said to be an object of desire to one whose body is mingled with the dust?
And remember me! - When my body has paid that debt of death which it owes to thy Divine justice, and the morning of the resurrection is come, when it may be said thy wrath, אפך appecha, "thy displeasure," against the body is past, it having suffered the sentence denounced by thyself: Dust thou art, and unto dust thou shalt return, for in the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die; then remember me - raise my body, unite my spirit to it, and receive both into thy glory for ever. |
7 And he said unto them, It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power.
19 Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.
20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
21 For, behold, the LORD cometh out of his place to punish the inhabitants of the earth for their iniquity: the earth also shall disclose her blood, and shall no more cover her slain.
20 Wherefore is light given to him that is in misery, and life unto the bitter in soul;
21 Which long for death, but it cometh not; and dig for it more than for hid treasures;
22 Which rejoice exceedingly, and are glad, when they can find the grave?
19 And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and into the caves of the earth, for fear of the LORD, and for the glory of his majesty, when he ariseth to shake terribly the earth.
14 Therefore hell hath enlarged herself, and opened her mouth without measure: and their glory, and their multitude, and their pomp, and he that rejoiceth, shall descend into it.
11 Why died I not from the womb? why did I not give up the ghost when I came out of the belly?
5 Yea also, because he transgresseth by wine, he is a proud man, neither keepeth at home, who enlargeth his desire as hell, and is as death, and cannot be satisfied, but gathereth unto him all nations, and heapeth unto him all people:
11 Thus saith the LORD; For three transgressions of Edom, and for four, I will not turn away the punishment thereof; because he did pursue his brother with the sword, and did cast off all pity, and his anger did tear perpetually, and he kept his wrath for ever:
17 That he may withdraw man from his purpose, and hide pride from man.
24 There is nothing better for a man, than that he should eat and drink, and that he should make his soul enjoy good in his labour. This also I saw, that it was from the hand of God.
11 And his brethren envied him; but his father observed the saying.
27 Thou puttest my feet also in the stocks, and lookest narrowly unto all my paths; thou settest a print upon the heels of my feet.
21 For now ye are nothing; ye see my casting down, and are afraid.
16 For now thou numberest my steps: dost thou not watch over my sin?
8 In a little wrath I hid my face from thee for a moment; but with everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the LORD thy Redeemer.
3 Is it good unto thee that thou shouldest oppress, that thou shouldest despise the work of thine hands, and shine upon the counsel of the wicked?
20 He hath put forth his hands against such as be at peace with him: he hath broken his covenant.
17 Thou renewest thy witnesses against me, and increasest thine indignation upon me; changes and war are against me.
11 For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone;
18 And the idols he shall utterly abolish.
7 Yet man is born unto trouble, as the sparks fly upward.
1 Is there not an appointed time to man upon earth? are not his days also like the days of an hireling?
5 Seeing his days are determined, the number of his months are with thee, thou hast appointed his bounds that he cannot pass;
13 If God will not withdraw his anger, the proud helpers do stoop under him.
20 Come, my people, enter thou into thy chambers, and shut thy doors about thee: hide thyself as it were for a little moment, until the indignation be overpast.
5 For in the time of trouble he shall hide me in his pavilion: in the secret of his tabernacle shall he hide me; he shall set me up upon a rock.
21 Blessed be the LORD: for he hath shewed me his marvellous kindness in a strong city.
3 Oh that I knew where I might find him! that I might come even to his seat!
8 Oh that I might have my request; and that God would grant me the thing that I long for!
1 And God remembered Noah, and every living thing, and all the cattle that was with him in the ark: and God made a wind to pass over the earth, and the waters asswaged;