Hell [is] naked before him
Which may be taken either for the place of the damned, as it
sometimes is; and then the sense is, that though it is hidden
from men, and they know not where it is, or who are in it, and
what is done and suffered there; yet it is all known to God: he
knows the place thereof, for it is made, ordained, and prepared
by him; he knows who are there, even all the wicked dead, and all
the nations that forget God, being cast there by him; he knows
the torments they endure, for the smoke of them continually
ascends before him; and he knows all their malice and envy, their
enmity to him, and blasphemy of him; for thither are they gone
down with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under
their heads, ( Ezekiel
32:27 ) ; or for Hades, the invisible world of spirits, or
state of the dead, as the Septuagint version renders the word;
though that is unseen to men, it is naked and open to the eye of
God; or for the grave, in which the bodies of men are laid; which
is the frequent sense of the word used, ( Psalms 88:11
Psalms
88:12 ) ( Isaiah 38:18
) ; and though this is a land of darkness, and where the light is
as darkness, yet God can look into it; and the dust of men
therein is carefully observed and preserved by him, and will be
raised again at the last day; who has the keys of death and hell,
or the grave, and can open it at his pleasure, and cause it to
give up the dead that are therein:
and destruction hath no covering;
and may design the same as before, either hell, the place of the
damned, where men are destroyed soul and body with an everlasting
destruction; or the grave, which the Targum calls the house of
destruction, as it sometimes is, the pit of destruction and
corruption; because bodies cast into it corrupt and putrefy, and
are destroyed in it; and there is nothing to cover either the one
or the other from the all seeing eye of God; see ( Psalms
139:7-10 ) ( Proverbs
15:11 ) ; as hell is supposed to be under the earth, and the
grave is in it, Job is as yet on things below, and from hence
rises to those above, in the following words.