Job 33:22

22 His soul shall nigh to corruption, and his life to things bringing death.

Job 33:22 Meaning and Commentary

Job 33:22

Yea, his soul draweth near unto the grave
Not the soul, strictly and properly speaking, for that does not, nor is it laid in the grave at death, but returns to God that gave it; rather the body, for which it is sometimes put, and of which what is here said is true, see ( Psalms 16:10 ) ; or the person of the sick man, whose disease being so threatening, all hope is gone, and he is given up by his physicians and friends, and seemingly is at the grave's mouth, and that is ready for him, and he on the brink of that; which were the apprehensions Job had of himself, ( Job 17:1 ) ; see ( Psalms 88:3 ) ( 107:17 ) ;

and his life to the destroyers;
the destroying angels, as Aben Ezra, and so the Septuagint version: or destroying diseases, and so Mr. Broughton renders it, "to killing maladies"; or it may be to worms, which destroy the body in the grave, and which Job was sensible of would quickly be his case, ( Job 19:26 ) ; though some interpret it of those that kill, or of those that are dead, with whom they are laid that die; or of deaths corporeal and eternal, and the horrors and terrors of both, with which persons in such circumstances are sometimes distressed.

Job 33:22 In-Context

20 Bread is made abominable to him in his life, and the meat, that before was to him desirable, loathed to his soul after. (And so for him, bread is made abominable, and the food, which he desired before, is now loathed by his soul.)
21 His flesh shall fail for rot, and his bones, that were covered, shall be made naked.
22 His soul shall nigh to corruption, and his life to things bringing death.
23 If an angel, one of a thousand, is speaking for him, that he show the equity of man, (Now if an angel, one of thousands, speaketh for man, to declare what he hath done right,)
24 (then) God shall have mercy on him, and shall say, Deliver thou him, that he go not down into corruption; I have found in what thing I shall do mercy to him.
Copyright © 2001 by Terence P. Noble. For personal use only.