“Ipse ad sepulchra ducetur, et in congerie mortuorum vigilabit.”
“Yet shall he be brought to the grave, and shall remain in the tomb. grave: Heb. graves remain: Heb. watch in the heap”
“He is carried to the grave, and watch is kept over his tomb.”
“Yet he will be borne to the grave. Men shall keep watch over the tomb.”
“Yet shall he be borne to the grave, And men shall keep watch over the tomb.”
Dead. Hebrew, “the sheaves,” being quite ripe for harvest, and even in the tomb, the tyrant retains some sore of pre-eminence, as he is buried with honour, an set like a more elevated sheaf, to inspect the rest. (Calmet) — Godiss, is rendered by Protestants, “tomb,” (margin) “heap.” But (chap. v. 26.) where only the word occurs again, we find “a shock of corn,” and this comparison seems very suitable here. The damned shall watch, alas, when it will be to no purpose, among the heap of fellow-sufferers, who would not think while they had time to repent. After millions of night spent thus without sleep or ease, we may imagine we hear their mournful lamentations from the depth of the abyss. Always misery! and never any hope of ease! (Haydock) — “Eternity,” says Bridayne, (ser. in Maury’s Eloq.) “is a pendulum, the vibration of which sounds continually, Always! Never! In the mean while, a reprobate cries out: What o’clock is it? And the same voice answers, Eternity!” Thus at last the wicked shal awake from the sleep in which they have spent their days; (Haydock) and their watching, restless, and immortal souls (St. Thomas Aquinas) will bitterly lament their past folly. What profit will they derive from the honours paid to their corpse by surviving friends, (Haydock) even though they be embalmed, and seem to live in marble statues? (Pineda)
Verses 27-34 Job opposes the opinion of his friends, That the wicked are sure to fall into visible and remarkable ruin, and none but the wicked; upon which principle they condemned Job as wicked. Turn to whom you will, you will find that the punishment of sinners is designed more for the other world than for this, ( Jude 1:14 Jude 1:15 ) . The sinner is here supposed to live in a great deal of power. The sinner shall have a splendid funeral: a poor thing for any man to be proud of the prospect of. He shall have a stately monument. And a valley with springs of water to keep the turf green, was accounted an honourable burial place among eastern people; but such things are vain distinctions. Death closes his prosperity. It is but a poor encouragement to die, that others have died before us. That which makes a man die with true courage, is, with faith to remember that Jesus Christ died and was laid in the grave, not only before us, but for us. That He hath gone before us, and died for us, who is alive and liveth for us, is true consolation in the hour of death.