Howbeit he will not stretch out [his] hand to the
grave
Or, "verily" F8, truly he will not I am well assured
he never will, meaning either he never would stretch out his hand
to shut up the grave; or rather keep it shut, and prevent Job
from going down into it; or to open it, and fetch him out of it
when in it: God is indeed able to do either of these, and has
done it; sometimes, when persons are brought as it were to the
gates of death and the grave, he says to them, Return; yea, when
they are brought to the dust of death, he prevents them going
into the grave, by restoring them to life before carried thither,
as the Shunammite's son, ( 2
Kings 4:32-37 ) ; Jairus's daughter, ( Mark 5:41 Mark 5:42 ) ; and the
widow's son of Nain, even when he was carrying to his grave, (
Luke
7:12-15 ) ; some have been laid in the grave, and God has
stretched out his hand, and raised them up again; as the man that
was laid in Elisha's grave, ( 2 Kings
13:21 ) , and Lazarus after he had lain in the grave some
days, ( John
11:39-44 ) ; but such things are not usually done; in common,
when a man dies, and is laid in the grave, he rises not again,
till the heavens be no more; and this Job was persuaded would be
his case:
though they cry in his destruction;
that is, though the friends and relations of the sick person, or
the poor that he has been kind and bountiful unto, should cry
unto God, while he is destroying him by the diseases upon him,
and which threaten him with destruction, that he would spare his
useful and valuable life; yet he is inexorable, and will not
hear, but go on with what he intends to do, and takes him off by
death, and lays him in the grave, "the pit of destruction", (
Psalms
55:23 ) , so called because it wastes and consumes bodies
laid in it; and when once laid there, all cries for a restoration
to life again are vain and fruitless. Some take these words as
expressed in a way of solace, as if Job comforted himself with
this thought under his present afflictions, that, when once he
was brought to death and the grave, there would be an end of all
his sorrow; the hand of the Lord, that was now stretched out on
him in a terrible way, would be no longer stretched out on him;
he would then cease to afflict him, and he should be where the
weary are at rest; and so the last clause is read with an
interrogation, "is there any cry", or "do any cry, in his
destruction?" {i}; no, when death has done its office, and the
body is laid in the grave, there is no more pain nor sorrow, nor
crying; all tears are wiped away, and there is no more sense of
afflictions and sufferings; they are all at an end. Mr. Broughton
renders these words as to the sense the same, and as in
connection with the following ones, "and prayed I not when plague
was sent? when hurt came to any, thereupon cried I not?" and so
do some others F11.
F8 (Ka) "verum", Mercerus; profecto, Drusius, Bolducius; "sane", Tigurine version.
F9 (ewv Nhl wdypb Ma) "aut clamant aliqui post obitum suum?" Tigurine version; "si in contritione ejus eis clamor?" Montanus, Bolducius.
F11 Junius & Tremellius.