Job 3:13-19 | Clarke | STEP | Verse 13 For now should I have lain still - In that case I had been insensible; quiet - without these overwhelming agitations; slept - unconscious of evil; been at rest - been out of the reach of calamity and sorrow.

‏ Job 3:13-19

Verse 13

For now should I have lain still - In that case I had been insensible; quiet - without these overwhelming agitations; slept - unconscious of evil; been at rest - been out of the reach of calamity and sorrow. Verse 14

With kings and counsellors of the earth - I believe this translation to be perfectly correct. The counsellors, יעצי yoatsey, I suppose to mean the privy council, or advisers of kings; those without whose advice kings seldom undertake wars, expeditions, etc. These mighty agitators of the world are at rest in their graves, after the lives of commotion which they have led among men: most of whom indeed have been the troublers of the peace of the globe.

Which built desolate places - Who erect mausoleums, funeral monuments, sepulchral pyramids, etc., to keep their names from perishing, while their bodies are turned to corruption. I cannot think, with some learned men, that Job is here referring to those patriotic princes who employed themselves in repairing the ruins and desolations which others had occasioned. His simple idea is, that, had he died from the womb, he would have been equally at rest, neither troubling nor troubled, as those defunct kings and planners of wars and great designs are, who have nothing to keep even their names from perishing, but the monuments which they have raised to contain their corrupting flesh, moldering bones, and dust. Verse 15

Or with princes that had gold - Chief or mighty men, lords of the soil, or fortunate adventurers in merchandise, who got gold in abundance, filled their houses with silver, left all behind, and had nothing reserved for themselves but the empty places which they had made for their last dwelling, and where their dust now sleeps, devoid of care, painful journeys, and anxious expectations. He alludes here to the case of the covetous, whom nothing can satisfy, as an Asiatic writer has observed, but the dust that fills his mouth when laid in the grave - Saady. Verse 16

Or as a hidden untimely birth - An early miscarriage, which was scarcely perceptible by the parent herself; and in this case he had not been - he had never had the distinguishable form of a human being, whether male or female.

As infants - Little ones; those farther advanced in maturity, but miscarried long before the time of birth. Verse 17

There the wicked cease - In the grave the oppressors of men cease from irritating, harassing, and distressing their fellow creatures and dependents.

And there the weary be at rest - Those who were worn out with the cruelties and tyrannies of the above. The troubles and the troubled, the restless and the submissive, the toils of the great and the labors of the slave, are here put in opposition. Verse 18

The prisoners rest together - Those who were slaves, feeling all the troubles, and scarcely tasting any of the pleasures of life, are quiet in the grave together; and the voice of the oppressor, the hard, unrelenting task-master, which was more terrible than death, is heard no more. They are free from his exactions, and his mouth is silent in the dust. This may be a reference to the Egyptian bondage. The children of Israel cried by reason of their oppressors or task-masters. Verse 19

The small and great are there - All sorts and conditions of men are equally blended in the grave, and ultimately reduced to one common dust; and between the bond and free there is no difference. The grave is "The appointed place of rendezvous, where all These travelers meet."

Equality is absolute among the sons of men in their entrance into and exit from the world: all the intermediate state is disparity. All men begin and end life alike; and there is no difference between the king and the cottager.

A contemplation of this should equally humble the great and the small.

The saying is trite, but it is true: -

Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum tabernas,

Regumque turres.

Hor. Odar. lib. i., Od. iv., ver. 13. "With equal pace impartial Fate

Knocks at the palace as the cottage gate."

Death is that state,"Where they an equal honor shareWho buried or unburied are.Where Agamemnon knows no moreThan Irus he contemn'd before.Where fair Achilles and Thersites lie,Equally naked, poor, and dry."

And why do not the living lay these things to heart?

There is a fine saying in Seneca ad Marciam, cap. 20, on this subject, which may serve as a comment on this place: Mors-servitutem invito domino remittit; haec captivorum catenas levat; haec e carcere eduxit, quos exire imperium impotens vetuerat. Haec est in quo nemo humilitatem suam sensit; haec quae nulli paruit; haec quae nihil quicquam alieno fecit arbitrio. Haec, ubi res communes fortuna male divisit, et aequo jure genitos alium alii donavit, exaequat omnia. - "Death, in spite of the master, manumits the slave. It loosens the chains of the prisoners. It brings out of the dungeon those whom impotent authority had forbidden to go at large. This is the state in which none is sensible of his humiliation. Death obeys no man. It does nothing according to the will of another. It reduces, by a just law, to a state of equality, all who in their families and circumstances had unequal lots in life."