Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:10

He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.

He shall return no more to his house – He shall not revisit his family. Job is dwelling on the calamity of death, and one of the circumstances most deeply felt in the prospect of death is, that a man must leave his own house to return no more. The stately palaces that he has built; the splendid halls which he has adorned; the chamber where he slept; the cheerful fireside where he met his family; the place at the table which he occupied, he will revisit no more. His tread will be no more heard; his voice will no more awaken delight in the happy family group; the father and husband returning from his daily toil will no more give pleasure to the joyous circle. Such is death. It removes us from all earthly comforts, takes us away from home and kindred – from children and friends, and bids us go alone to an unknown world. Job felt that it was a sad and gloomy thing. And so it is, unless there is a well-founded hope of a better world. It is the gospel only that can make us willing to leave our happy dwellings, and the embraces of kindred and friends, and to tread the lonely path to the regions of the dead. The friend of God has a brighter home in heaven. He has more numerous and better friends there. He has there a more splendid and happy mansion than any here on earth. He will be engaged in more blissful scenes there, than can be enjoyed by the most happy fireside here; will have more cheerful employments there, than any which can be found on earth; and will have higher and purer pleasures there, than can be found in parks, and lawns, and landscapes; in splendid halls, in music, and the festive board; in literary pursuits, and in the love of kindred. How far Job had the means of consolation from such reflections as these, it is not easy now to determine. The probability, however, is, that his views were comparatively dim and obscure.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 10. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place know him any more.] He does not mean that he shall be annihilated but that he shall never more become an inhabitant of the earth.

The word , which we properly enough translate grave, here signifies also the state of the dead, hades, and sometimes any deep pit, or even hell itself.

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

He shall return no more, to enjoy his house and possessions again; he shall no more be seen and known in his former habitation and condition by his friends and neighbours. The

place put for the men of the place, as Job 8:18; 20:9; Psa 37:10.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

10. (Ps103:16). The Oriental keenly loves his dwelling. In Arabianelegies the desertion of abodes by their occupants is often a themeof sorrow. Grace overcomes this also (Luk 18:29;Act 4:34).

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

He shall return no more to his house,…. In a literal sense, built or hired by him, or however in which he dwelt; and if a good man, he will have no desire to return to that any more, having a better house, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens; or in a figurative sense, either his body, the earthly house of his tabernacle, an house of clay, which has its foundation in the dust; to this he shall not return until the resurrection, when it will be rebuilt, and fitted up for the better reception and accommodation of him; or else his family, to whom he shall not come back again, to have any concern with them in domestic affairs, or in part of the business of life, as David said of his child when dead, “I shall go to him, but he shall not return to me”, 2Sa 12:23;

neither shall his place know him any more; the place of his office, or rather of his habitation; his dwelling house, his farms and his fields, his estates and possessions, shall no more know, own, and acknowledge him as their master, proprietor, and possessor, these, coming at his death into other hands, who now are regarded as such; or the inhabitants of the place, country, city, town, village, and house in which he lived, shall know him no more; no more being seen among them, he will soon be forgotten; out of sight, out of mind b.

b “Linquenda tellus et domus”, &c. Horat. Carmin. l. 2. Ode 14.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(10) Neither shall his place . . .This language is imitated in Psa. 103:16. We need not force these words too much, as though they forbad our ascribing to Job any belief in a future life or in the resurrection, because, under any circumstances, they are evidently and accurately true of man as we know him here. Even though he may live again in another way, it is not in this world that he lives again, and it is of this world and of man in this world that Job is speaking. And man, in the aspect of his mortality, is truly a pitiable object, demanding our compassion and sympathy. Happily, the appeal to mans Maker is not in vain, and He who has made him what he is has looked upon his misery. Consequently Job can say, therefore, I will not refrain my mouth; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul.

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

10. No more to his house According to the “Book of the Dead,” the Egyptians believed that the man who had successfully undergone the ordeal in Hades could return whenever he pleased to the house he had formerly occupied.

Know him Among the people of the East, inanimate objects are often spoken of as if they knew their owners. A man who has sold his field says, “that will not know me any more.” ROBERTS’ Scripture Illustrations.

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