Job 3:18

18 Prisoners are entirely at ease; they don't hear a boss's voice.

Job 3:18 Meaning and Commentary

Job 3:18

[There] the prisoners rest together
"Are at ease", as Mr. Broughton renders the words; such who while they lived were in prison for debt, or were condemned to the galleys, to lead a miserable life; or such who suffered bonds and imprisonment for the sake of religion, at death their chains are knocked off, and they are as much at liberty, and enjoy as much ease, as the dead that never were prisoners; and not only rest together with those who were their fellow prisoners, but with those who never were in prison, yea, with those who cast them into it; for there the prisoners and those that imprisoned them are upon a level, enjoying equal ease and liberty:

they hear not the voice of the oppressor;
or "exactor" F24; neither of their creditors that demanded their debt of them, and threatened them with a prison, or that detained them in it; nor of the jail keeper that gave them hard words as well as stripes; nor of cruel taskmasters, who kept them to hard service in prison, and threatened them severely if they did not perform it, like the taskmasters in Egypt, ( Exodus 5:11 Exodus 5:13 ) ; but, in the grave, the blustering, terrifying, voice of such, is not heard.


FOOTNOTES:

F24 (vgn) "exactoris", Pagninus, Montanus, Junius & Tremellius, Piscator

Job 3:18 In-Context

16 Or why wasn't I like a buried miscarried infant, like babies who never see light?
17 There the wicked rage no more; there the weak rest.
18 Prisoners are entirely at ease; they don't hear a boss's voice.
19 Both small and great are there; a servant is free from his masters.
20 Why is light given to the hard worker, life to those bitter of soul,
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