Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 28:22

Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof with our ears.

22. destruction and death ] Heb. Abaddon and Death. Abaddon is Sheol, the realm of the dead, here personified, as also is Death. Comp. Rev 1:18; Rev 9:11, and see on ch. Job 26:6.

the fame thereof ] i. e. the report or rumour thereof. Destruction and Death have only heard of Wisdom, they have no knowledge of it, much less is it to be found with them. It is not true, alas! in this sense that

There must be wisdom with great Death.

The words “we have heard the report thereof” ascribe neither a less nor a greater knowledge of Wisdom to Death than the living possess. Both are equally ignorant of it, and equally without it. As Job 28:13-14 told how Wisdom was nowhere to be found in the upper world so Job 28:22 states that it is not to be found in the under world. The process of exhaustion is complete: Wisdom is nowhere to be found, neither in the bowels of the earth nor in the markets of mankind, in the deep nor in the sea; neither in the land of the living nor in the place of the dead.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

Destruction – This is a personification which is exceedingly sublime. Job had spoken of the wonderful discoveries made by science, but none of them had disclosed true wisdom. It had not been discovered in the shaft which the miner sank deep in the earth; in the hidden regions which he laid open to day, nor by the birds that saw to the farthest distance, or that were regarded as the interpreters of the will of the gods. It was natural to ask whether it might not have been discovered in the vast profound of the nether world – the regions of death and of night; and whether by making a bold appeal to the king that reigned there, a response might not be heard that would be more satisfactory. In Job 28:14, the appeal had been made to the sea – with all its vast stores; here the appeal is to far deeper regions – to the nether world of darkness and of death. On the word used here ( ‘abaddon), destruction, see the notes at Job 26:6. It is employed here, as in that place, to denote the nether world – the abode of departed spirits – the world where those are who have been destroyed by death, and to which the destruction of the grave is the entrance.

And death – Death is used here to denote Sheol, or the abode of the spirits of the dead. The sense is, that those deep and dark regions had simply heard the distant report of wisdom but they did not understand it, and that if one went down there it would not be fully revealed to him. Perhaps there is an allusion to the natural expectation that, if one could go down and converse with the dead, he could find out much more than can be known on earth. It was to be presumed that they would understand much more about the unseen and future world, and about the plans and government of God, than man can know here. It was on this belief, and on the hope that some league or alliance could be made with the dead, inducing them to communicate what they knew, that the science of necromancy was founded; see the notes at Isa 8:19.

We have heard the fame thereof – We have heard the report of it, or a rumor of it. The meaning is, that they did not understand it fully, and that if man could penetrate to those dark regions, he could not get the information which he desired. Wisdom is still at such an immense distance that it is only a report, or rumor of it, which has reached us.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 22. Destruction and death say, We have heard the fame thereof] Abaddon vamaveth, the destroyer, and his offspring death. This is the very name that is given to the devil in Greek letters , Re 9:11, and is rendered by the Greek word , Apollyon, a word exactly of the same meaning. No wonder death and the devil are brought in here as saying they had heard the fame of wisdom, seeing Job 28:28 defines it to be the fear of the Lord, and a departure from evil; things point blank contrary to the interests of Satan, and the extension of the empire of death.

Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible

Destruction and death; either,

1. Men that are dead, and thereby freed from the encumbrance of their bodies, which depress their minds, and have more raised thoughts than men that live here. Or,

2. The grave, the place of the dead, to which these things are here ascribed, as they are to the depths, and to the sea, Job 28:14, by a figure called prosopopaeia. If a man should search for this wisdom, either amongst living men, or amongst the dead, he could not find it; yea, though he should and might inquire of all men that formerly lived in the world, some of whom were persons of prodigious wit and learning, and of vast experience, as having lived nigh a thousand years, and made it their great business in that time to search out the depths of this Divine wisdom in the administration of the world.

We have heard the fame thereof; we know it only by slight and uncertain rumours, but not fully and perfectly.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

22. That is, the abodes ofdestruction and of the dead. “Death” put forSheol (Job 30:23; Job 26:6;Psa 9:13).

We have [only] heardthereport of her. We have not seen her. In the land of the living(Job 28:13) the workings ofWisdom are seen, though not herself. In the regions of the dead sheis only heard of, her actings on nature not being seen (Ec9:10).

Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible

Destruction and death say,…. Meaning the dead that are in the pit of destruction, the grave; not their dead bodies there, devoid of life and sense, and know not anything, but their souls; either the damned in hell, or the saints in heaven: the Targum is, the house of destruction, and the angel of death; or rather it regards such as are dead, who while alive had only a report of this wisdom; wherefore if their records and writings, or traditions handed down from them, are inquired into, the result of the information they will give concerning it will amount to no more than this:

we have heard the fame thereof with our ears; it has been reported to us there is such wisdom, but what it is we know not; and this is all that we can say about it.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(22) Destruction and death say.That destruction and death should have heard the fame of wisdom is natural, as it consists in departing from the evil which leads to their abode.

Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)

22. We have heard the fame thereof The silence of the living suggests appeal to the dead. New regions of being may perchance have opened new resources of knowledge. In sublime figure the poet summons destruction (Hebrew, Abaddon, see Job 26:6) and death. All the information they can give is hearsay. They have heard a vague report. In the gloomy view of the ancients, death gave but little increase of knowledge. If the living know not, much less the dead.

Third strophe With God is the lofty abode of wisdom, as is attested by its display in the creation and ordering of the world. True wisdom he imparts to man through obedience to the divine law and through the fear of God two divinely appointed conservators against wickedness and the consequent doom of those who practice evil, Job 28:23-28. “The last of these three divisions (of the chapter), into which the highest truths are compressed, is for emphasis the shortest, in its calmness and abrupt ending the most solemn, because the thought finds no expression that is altogether adequate, floating in a height that is immeasurable, but opening a boundless field for further reflection.” Ewald.

Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments