The Pulpit Commentary — Job — Section 58

seooncl claUBe of the distioh repeate the idea the Cai;pian, opened by the Russian authori- of the first, merely varying the phraseology. ties, contained ornaments set with rubies and Ver. 12.-Why did the knees prevent me 1 em~ra)ds, together with four sheets of gold, i.e. "Why did my mother take me on her we1ghmg forty pounds. A third, near Aste- knees and nurse me, inetead of casting rabe.d, contained a golden goblet, weighing mo on the ground, where I should be.ve seventy ounces; e. pot, eleven ounces, and perished?" There seems to be an allusion two small trnmpets. The tombs of the kin!r!I to the practice of porents only bringing and queens in Egypt were so richly suppli;d up e. certain numbt1r of their children (see with treasure that, in the time of the twen- Rosenmilller, • Scholin in Vit. Test.,' vol. v. tieth dyne.sty, a thieves' society WII.B formed p. 101). Or why the breasts the.t I should for plundering them, especially of their nck 1 i.e. "Why were breasts offered to me, golden ornaments ( Drngach, • History of that I should suck them? How much Egypt,' vol. i. p. 247, 1st edit.). The tomb better would it he. ve been if I had been of Cyrus the Great contained, we are told allowed to perish of inanition I" (Arrian, 'Exp. Alex.,' vi. 29), a golden Ver. 18.-For now should I have lain still conch, o. golden table set out with drinking- and been quiet. "In that case, I should now cups, o. golden bowl, and much elegant (n!;l)/) have been lying still and resting my- clothing adorned with gems. Phcenicia.n self," instead of tossing about, and being full tombs, in Cypras especially, he.ve recently of restlessnese and suffering." I should have yielded enormous treasures (Di Cesnola, slept. The life in the intermediate state is ' Cypl'llil,' pp. 310-316). If the "gold" and called" sleep," even in the New Testament " silver " of the present passage refer to (Matt. ix. 24 ; John xi. 11 ; Acts vii. 60; treasures bnried with princes and kings, we 1 Cor. xv. 18, 51, etc.). Job, perhaps, ima- must understand by the " houses " of the gined it to be, actually, a sound, dreamless second clause their tombs. The Egyptians slumber. Then should I have been at rest; called their tombs their " eternal abodes" literally, then (1N) would there have been rest (Diod. Sic., i. 51), /07" me." Ver. 16.-0r as an hidden untimely birth I Ver. 14.-With kings and oounsellers of had not been; as infants which never saw the earth. As a great man himself, nobly light. This is added as another way in born probably, Job expects that his place in which Job might have escaped his misery. another world would have been with kings Though conceived and bronght to the birth. and nobles (see Isa. xiv. 9-11, where the he might have been still-horn, and so have King of Babylon, on entering Sheol, finds known no suffering. himself o.mong •• all the kings of the nations"). Ver. 17.-There. The word has no ex- Which built .desolate pleoes for themselves. pressed antecedent, but the general tenor of Somo. understand "restorers of cities which the passage supplies one. "There" is equi- had become waste and desole.te ; " others, valent to "in the grave.'' The wioked cease "buildeL"s of edifices which, since they built from troubling ; i.e. " cease from their state them, ha.ve become desolate;" others, a.gain, of continnal perturbation and unrest" ( comp. "builders of desolate e.nd dreary piles," such Isa.. lvii. 20, "But the wicked are like the as the Pyramids,. and the rock-tombs com- troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose mon in Are.bio, which were desolate e.nd wo.ters cast up mire e.nd dirt"). This is their dree.ry from the time that they were built. condition, so long as they live; nothing se.tis- The brevity studied by the writer makes his fies them; they o.re always in trouble them- mee.ning somewhat obscure. selves, and always causing trouble to others. Ver. 15.~0r with princes that had gold, In the grave alone do they rest, or seem who filled their houses with silver. This to rest. And ·there the weary be at rest; may either mean simply," priuoes who were literally, the weary in strength, or " in re- rich in silver and gold during their life· spect of strength ; " i.e. those whose strength time," or •• princes who have gold and silver is utterly exhausted and worn out. Here buried with them in their tombs." It was Job undoubtedly alludes to himself. He tht1 custom in Egypt, in Phamicia, and else- looks to the grave as his only refuge, the where throughout the East, to bury large only hope he has of recovering peace and quantities of treasure, eseeoie.lly gold e.nd tranquillity. silver vessels, and jewellery, in the se- • Ver. 18.-There the prisoners rest to- pulohres of kings and other great men. A gether. "There those who ~ life were tomb of a Scythiau king in the Crimeo, prisoners, condemned to work nt enforced opened about fifty years ago, contained a lo.hours, enjoy sweet rest together." They golden shield, a golden diadem, two silver hear not the voice of the oppressor ; ra tber, vases, a vase in electrnm, ond a number of of the taskmaster (comp. Exod. iii. 7; v. 6, ornaments, partly in electrum and partly in where the same word is usetl). The tnsk- gold (see the author's 'Herodotus,' vol. iii. p. master continuo.lly urged on the wearied 59, Srd edit.). Another Soythio.n tomb near labourers with such words BB those of Exod,  62 THE BOOK OF JOB.