Job 3:14

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

Job 3:14 Meaning and Commentary

Job 3:14

With the kings and counsellors of the earth
From whom he might descend, he being a person of great distinction and figure; and so, had he died, he would have been buried in the sepulchres of his ancestors, and have lain in great pomp and state: or rather this he says, to observe that death spares none, that neither the power of kings, who have long hands, nor the wisdom of counsellors, who have long heads, can secure them from death; and that after death they are upon a level with others; and even he suggests, that children that die as soon as born, and have made no figure in the world, are equal to them:

which built desolate places for themselves;
either that rebuilt houses and cities that had lain in ruins, or built such in desolate places, where there had been none before, or formed colonies in places before uninhabited; and all this to get a name, and to perpetuate it to posterity: or rather sepulchral monuments are meant, such as the lofty pyramids of the Egyptians, and superb mausoleums of others; which, if not built in desolate places, yet are so themselves, being only the habitations of the dead, and so they are called the desolations of old, ( Ezekiel 26:20 ) ; and this is the sense of many interpreters F17; if any man desires, says Vansleb F18, a prospect and description of such ancient burying places, let him think on a boundless plain, even, and covered with sand, where neither trees, nor grass, nor houses, nor any such thing, is to be seen.


FOOTNOTES:

F17 Pineda, Bolducius, Patrick, Caryll, Schultens, and others.
F18 Relation of a Voyage to Egypt, p. 91.

Job 3:14 In-Context

12 Why did the knees receive me? Or why the breast, that I should suck?
13 For now should I have lain down and been quiet. I should have slept, then I would have been at rest,
14 With kings and counselors of the earth, Who built up waste places for themselves;
15 Or with princes who had gold, Who filled their houses with silver:
16 Or as a hidden untimely birth I had not been, As infants who never saw light.
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