Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 26:6
Hell [is] naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.
6. Hell ] is in Heb. Sheol, the place where deceased persons congregate, the world beneath. It is not a place of pain, though a dark and dreary abode, ch. Job 10:21-22. Those there are the dead, who still subsist, though they do not live. “Destruction,” Heb. abaddon, is a synonym for Sheol, ch. Job 28:22. This as well as all things is naked to the eyes of Jehovah. Comp. Amo 9:2; Psa 139:8.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
Hell – Hebrew she‘ol, Sheol; Greek Hades Hades. The reference is to the abode of departed spirits – the nether world where the dead were congregated; see the notes at Job 10:21-22. It does not mean here, as the word hell does with us, a place of punishment, but the place where all the dead were supposed to be gathered together.
Is naked before him – That is, be looks directly upon that world. It is hidden from us, but not from him. He sees all its inhabitants, knows all their employments, and sways a scepter over them all.
And destruction – Hebrew ‘abaddon, Abaddon; compare Rev 9:11, And they had a king over them, which is the angel of the bottomless pit, whose name in the Hebrew is Abaddon, but in the Greek tongue hath his name Apollyon. The Hebrew word means destruction, and then abyss, or place of destruction, and is evidently given here to the place where departed spirits are supposed to reside. The word in this form occurs only here and in Pro 15:11; Psa 88:11; Job 26:6, in all which places it is rendered destruction. The idea here is, not that this is a place where souls are destroyed, but that it is a place similar to destruction – as if all life, comfort, light, and joy, were extinguished.
Hath no covering – There is nothing to conceal it from God. He looks down even on that dark nether world, and sees and knows all that is there. There is a passage somewhat similar to this in Homer, quoted by Longinus as one of unrivaled sublimity, but which by no means surpasses this. It occurs in the Iliad, xx. 61-66:
, . . .
Eddeisen d’ hupenerthen anac eneron Aidoneus, etc.
Deep in the dismal regions of the dead
Th infernal monarch reared his horrid head,
Leaped from his throne, lest Neptunes arm should lay
His dark dominions open to the day,
And pour in light on Plutos drear abodes,
Abhorred by men, and dreadful een to gods.
Pope
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 6. Hell is naked before him] Sheol, the place of the dead, or of separate spirits, is always in his view. And there is no covering to Abaddon – the place of the destroyer, where destruction reigns, and where those dwell who are eternally separated from God. The ancients thought that hell or Tartarus was a vast space in the centre, or at the very bottom of the earth. So VIRGIL, AEn. lib. vi., ver. 577: –
___________________ Tum Tartarus ipse
Bis patet in praeceps tantum, tenditque sub umbras,
Quantus ad aethereum coeli suspectus Olympum
Hic genus antiquum terrae, Titania pubes,
Fulmine dejecti, fundo volvuntur in imo.
“Full twice as deep the dungeon of the fiends,
The huge Tartarean gloomy gulf, descends
Below these regions, as these regions lie
From the bright realms of yon ethereal sky.
Here roar the Titan race, th’ enormous birth;
The ancient offspring of the teeming earth.
Pierced by the burning bolts of old they fell,
And still roll bellowing in the depths of hell.”
PITT.
And some have supposed that there is an allusion to this opinion in the above passage, as well as in several others in the Old Testament; but it is not likely that the sacred writers would countenance an opinion that certainly has nothing in fact or philosophy to support it. Yet still a poet may avail himself of popular opinions.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
Hell, as this word is frequently used, as Job 11:8; Isa 57:9, &c. And so it seems to be explained by the following word,
destruction, i.e. the place of destruction, which interpreters generally understand of hell, or the place of the damned. Others, the grave, the most secret and obscure places and things. Is naked before him, i.e. it is in his presence, and under his providence. So far am I from imagining that God cannot see through a dark cloud, as you traduced me, Job 22:13, that I very well know that even hell itself, that place of utter darkness, is not hid from his sight.
Destruction, i.e. the place of destruction, as it is also used, Pro 15:11, by a metonymy of the adjunct.
Hath no covering, to wit, such as to keep it out of his sight.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
6. (Job 38:17;Psa 139:8; Pro 5:11).
destructionthe abodeof destruction, that is, of lost souls. Hebrew, Abaddon (Re9:11).
no coveringfrom God’seyes.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
Hell [is] naked before him,…. Which may be taken either for the place of the damned, as it sometimes is; and then the sense is, that though it is hidden from men, and they know not where it is, or who are in it, and what is done and suffered there; yet it is all known to God: he knows the place thereof, for it is made, ordained, and prepared by him; he knows who are there, even all the wicked dead, and all the nations that forget God, being cast there by him; he knows the torments they endure, for the smoke of them continually ascends before him; and he knows all their malice and envy, their enmity to him, and blasphemy of him; for thither are they gone down with their weapons of war, and have laid their swords under their heads, Eze 32:27; or for Hades, the invisible world of spirits, or state of the dead, as the Septuagint version renders the word; though that is unseen to men, it is naked and open to the eye of God; or for the grave, in which the bodies of men are laid; which is the frequent sense of the word used,
Ps 88:11; and though this is a land of darkness, and where the light is as darkness, yet God can look into it; and the dust of men therein is carefully observed and preserved by him, and will be raised again at the last day; who has the keys of death and hell, or the grave, and can open it at his pleasure, and cause it to give up the dead that are therein:
and destruction hath no covering; and may design the same as before, either hell, the place of the damned, where men are destroyed soul and body with an everlasting destruction; or the grave, which the Targum calls the house of destruction, as it sometimes is, the pit of destruction and corruption; because bodies cast into it corrupt and putrefy, and are destroyed in it; and there is nothing to cover either the one or the other from the all seeing eye of God; see Ps 139:7; as hell is supposed to be under the earth, and the grave is in it, Job is as yet on things below, and from hence rises to those above, in the following words.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
6. Hell Hebrew, sheol.
Naked Compare Heb 4:13.
Destruction Hebrews Abaddon. The rabbins were led, by Psa 88:11, where the same word is used, to regard Abaddon as the nethermost of the two worlds into which they divided the under world. (See Excursus III, page 74.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 26:6 Hell [is] naked before him, and destruction hath no covering.
Ver. 6. Hell and destruction are before him ] Here beginneth a magnificent and stately description of the majesty of God; and, 1. From his omniscience; 2. From his omnipotence. For the first, “Hell and destruction are before him.” Not the grave only, but the nethermost hell, that most abstruse part of the universe, and most remote from heaven, God’s court. Of hell we know nothing save only what the Scripture saith of it in general, that there is a hell, and that the pains of it are endless, easeless, and remediless, &c., but God only knoweth who are in hell, and who is yet to be hereafter hurled into it. It is the saints’ happiness that to them there is no such condemnation, Rom 8:1 , that over them this second death hath no power, Rev 20:6 . That if hell had already swallowed them up (as they sometimes when deserted feel themselves to be in the very suburbs of it), it could no better hold them than the whale’s stomach could do Jonah. Luk 22:31 , “Satan hath desired to have thee”; sc. to hell, but that he shall never have; for they are the redeemed of the Lord, saved from the wrath to come, and may triumphingly sing, Death, where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory? &c.
And destruction hath no covering
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
Hell. Hebrew. Sheol. App-35.
destruction. Hebrew. Abaddon.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
hell
Heb. “Sheol,” (See Scofield “Hab 2:5”). Also, Psa 139:8; Psa 139:11; Pro 15:11; Heb 4:13.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
Hell: Job 11:8, Psa 139:8, Psa 139:11, Pro 15:11, Isa 14:9, Amo 9:2, Heb 4:13
destruction: Job 28:22, Psa 88:10
Reciprocal: Job 37:14 – consider Job 38:16 – walked Psa 88:11 – in destruction Psa 139:12 – the darkness Dan 2:22 – he knoweth
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 26:6. Hell is naked before him Is in his presence, and under his providence. Hell itself, that place of utter darkness, is not hid from his sight. Destruction The place of destruction, hath no covering Such as can conceal it from his view.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
26:6 Hell [is] {e} naked before him, and {f} destruction hath no covering.
(e) There is nothing hidden in the bottom of the earth but he sees it.
(f) Meaning, the grave in which things putrify.