Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 3:19
The small and great are there; and the servant [is] free from his master.
19. small and great are there ] i. e. are there alike, the same.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
The small and the great are there – The old and the young, the high and the low. Death levels all. It shows no respect to age; it spares none because they are vigorous, young, or beautiful. This sentiment has probably been expressed in various forms in all languages, for all people are made deeply sensible of its truth. The Classic reader will recall the ancient proverb,
Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat,
And the language of Horace:
Aequae lege Necessitas
Sortitur insignes et imos.
Omne capax movet urna nomen.
Tristis unda scilicet omnibus,
Quicunque terrae munere vescimur,
Enaviganda, sive reges,
Sive inopes erimus coloni.
Divesne prisco natus ab lnacho
Nil interest, an pauper et infima
De gente sub dio moreris
Victima nil miserantis Orci.
Omnes codem cogimur. Omnium
Versatur urna. Serius, ocyus,
Sors exitura.
– Omnes una manet nox,
Et calcauda semel via leti. (Nullum)
Mista senum acjuvenum densantur funera.
Saeva caput Proserpina lugit. (tabernas)
Pallida mors aequo pulsat pede pauperum
Regumque turres.
And the servant is free from his master – Slavery is at an end in the grave. The master can no longer tax the powers of the slave, can no longer scourge him or exact his uncompensated toil. Slavery early existed, and there is evidence here that it was known in the time of Job. But Job did not regard it as a desirable institution; for assuredly that is not desirable from which death would be regarded as a release, or where death would be preferable. Men often talk about slavery as a valuable condition of society, and sometimes appeal even to the Scriptures to sustain it; but Job felt that it was worse than death, and that the grave was to be preferred because there the slave would be free from his master. The word used here and rendered free ( chophshy) properly expresses manumission from slavery. See it explained at length in my the notes at Isa 58:6.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Job 3:19
The small and great axe there.
The common lot
Notice the sameness of all men in their birth. One and all are equal by nature. All inherit the sin of their first parents. The necessary consequence following from this truth is that there is a need of a new birth for everyone that would inherit everlasting life. There is, however, a distinction among men in their lives. There is a vast difference between men, both in spiritual and in temporal things. The inferences are simply these. If we look at men in matters temporal, and receive the truth that God makes one man great and another man small, we learn to be contented in whatsoever position of life God Himself has placed us. We learn that God is willing to make man that which man ought to be, even though He has to work with such wretched materials as we are made of. But whatever mens differences in life, there is nevertheless a similarity in their death. The small and the great are there. Whether young or old, all must come to this. He seeth that wise men die, likewise the fool and the brutish person perish. Man being in honour, abideth not. (H. M. Villiers, M. A.)
Small and great in death
1. Death seizeth equally upon all sorts and degrees of men. The small and the great are there. The small cannot escape the hands, or slip through the fingers of death, because they are little; the greatest cannot rescue themselves from the power, or break out of the hands of death, because they are big.
2. That death makes all men equal; or, that all are equal in death. As there is one glory of the sun, and another glory of the moon, and another glory of the stars: for one star differeth from another star in glory (1Co 15:41). So there is one terrestrial glory of kings, and another glory of nobles, and another glory of the common people, and these have not the same glory in common; even among them, one man differs from another man in this worldly glory; but when death comes, there is an end of all degrees, of all distinctions; there the small and the great are the same. There is but one distinction that will outlive death; and death cannot take it away; the distinction of holy and unholy, clean and unclean, believer and an infidel; these distinctions remain after death, and shall remain forever. (J. Caryl.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
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 travellers 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 honour share
Who buried or unburied are.
Where Agamemnon knows no more
Than 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.”
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The small and great, i.e. persons of all qualifies and conditions, whether higher or lower.
Are there, in the same place and state, all those kinds of distinctions and differences being for ever abolished.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
19. servantThe slave is theremanumitted from slavery.
Job3:20-26. HE COMPLAINSOF LIFE BECAUSE OFHIS ANGUISH.
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
The small and great are there,…. Both as to age, and with respect to bulk and strength of body, and also to estate and dignity; children and men, or those of low and high stature, or in a mean or more exalted state of life, as to riches and honour, these all come to the grave without any difference, and lie there without any distinction y “little and great are there all one”; as Mr. Broughton renders the words, see Re 20:12;
and the servant [is] free from his master; death dissolves all relations among men, and takes away the power that one has legally over another, as the husband over the wife, who at death is loosed from the law and power of her husband, Ro 7:2; and so parents over their children, and masters over their servants; there the master and the servant are together, without any superiority of the one to the other: the consideration of all the above things made death and the state of the dead in the grave appear to Job much more preferable than life in his present circumstances; and therefore, since it had not seized on him sooner, and as soon as he before had wished it had, he desires it might not be long before it came upon him, as in Job 3:20.
y “Grandia cum parvis Orcus metit”. Horat. Ep. l. 2. ep. 2. ver. 178. “—-Mista senum ac juvenum densantur funera”. Horat. Carmin. l. 1. Ode. 28.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
19. The first clause reads, literally, “The small and great, there ( is) he,” in the sense that they are the same, or on the same level. So in Psa 22:9. “Thou art he,” that is, the same. (Isa 41:4.)
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Job 3:19 The small and great are there; and the servant [is] free from his master.
Ver. 19. The small and the great are there ] In Calvary are skulls of all sizes, say the Hebrews. Stat sua cuique dies (Virg. Aeneid, lib. 1 0). It is appointed for all once to die, be they great or small, low or high. Mors sceptra ligonibus aequat, death makes no difference; kings and captives, lords and lowlies come, then under an equal parity; death takes away all distinctions. William the Conqueror’s corpse lay unburied three days; his interment was hindered by one that claimed the ground to be his (Daniel). King Stephen was interred at Feversham monastery; but since his body, for the gain of the lead, wherein it was coffined, was cast into the river, where at length it rested; as did likewise the dead corpse of Edward V, and his brother, smothered in the Tower by Richard III, and cast into a place called the black deeps at the Thames’ mouth (Speed.).
The servant is free from his master
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
master = masters. Hebrew, plural for emphasis.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
The small: Job 30:23, Psa 49:2, Psa 49:6-10, Ecc 8:8, Ecc 12:5, Ecc 12:7, Luk 16:22, Luk 16:23, Heb 9:27
and the servant: Psa 49:14-20
Reciprocal: 2Ki 23:2 – both small and great 2Ch 15:13 – whether small 2Ch 34:30 – great and small Job 21:26 – alike
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Job 3:19. The small and great are there It should rather be rendered, are equal there; persons of all qualities and conditions, whether higher or lower, are in the same circumstances. There is no distinction in the grave, but the meanest and most despised peasant is in a situation equal to that of his rich and powerful neighbour. The man of birth and fortune appears there to no advantage: he commands no place; he usurps no authority; neither does he lord it over the poorest or meanest of the human race. And the servant is free from his master The most contemptible slave, who was entirely subject to the impositions and exactions of his owner, has got his discharge, and is now free from the power of him that tyrannized over him: a good reason this, why those who have power should use it moderately, and why those that are in subjection should take it patiently.