[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.