Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Job 7:9

[As] the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no [more].

9. goeth down to the grave ] Heb., down to She’l, the place of departed persons. This is never in the Old Testament confounded with the grave, although, being an ideal place and state, the imagination often paints it in colours borrowed from the grave and the condition of the body in death; cf. ch. Job 3:13 seq., Job 10:21 seq.

Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away – This image is taken from the light and fleecy clouds, which become smaller and smaller until they wholly vanish. For an illustration of a similar phrase, see the notes at Isa 44:22.

To the grave – – sh^e‘ol. Septuagint, eis haden, to Hades. The word may mean grave, or the place of departed spirits; see Isa 5:14, note; Isa 14:9, note; compare the notes at Job 10:21-22. Either signification will apply here.

Shall come up no more – Shall no more live on the earth. It would be pressing this too far to adduce it as proving that Job did not believe in the doctrine of the resurrection. The connection here requires us to understand him as meaning only that he would not appear again on the earth.

Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible

Verse 9. As the cloud is consumed] As the cloud is dissipated, so is the breath of those that go down to the grave. As that cloud shall never return, so shall it be with the dead; they return no more to sojourn with the living. See on the following verses.

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

The cloud is consumed; being dried up or dissolved by the heat of the sun.

Vanisheth away; never returneth again.

Shall come up no more, to live a natural, mortal life amongst men. For that he doth not deny a future life is manifest from Job 19:25, &c.

Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole

9. (2Sa12:23).

the gravethe Sheol, orplace of departed spirits, not disproving Job’s belief in theresurrection. It merely means, “He shall come up no more”in the present order of things.

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

[As] the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away,…. Which being dispersed by the wind, or broke up by the sun, is never seen, or returns more; for though the wise man speaks of clouds returning after the rain, this is not to be understood of the same clouds, but of succeeding ones, Ec 12:2; so pardon of sin is expressed by the same metaphor, to show that sin thereby is no more, no more to be seen or remembered, Isa 43:25; the Targum renders it “as smoke”, by which the shortness and consumption of men’s days are expressed,

Ps 102:3; but by the simile of a cloud here is not so much designed the sudden disappearance of life as the irrevocableness of it when gone, as the reddition or application following shows:

so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no [more]; the grave is the house or long home that all must go to, it being the appointment of God that all should die, or be in the state of the dead; which is meant by the grave, since all are not interred in the earth; and this, as here, is frequently expressed, as if it was man’s act being hither brought; and when it designs an interment in the earth, it is with great propriety called a going down; and however that be, yet the state of the dead is a state of humiliation, a coming down from all the grandeur, honour, and glory of the present state, which are all laid in the dust; and when this is man’s case, he comes up no more from it, that is, of himself, by his own power; none but Christ, who is God over all, ever did this; or none naturally, or by the laws of nature, for noticing short of almighty power can effect this; it must be done in an extraordinary way, and is no less than a miraculous operation; nor will this be done until the general resurrection of the just and unjust, when all that are in their graves shall come forth, the one to the resurrection of life, and the other to the resurrection of damnation; excepting in some few instances, as the Shunammite’s son, 2Ki 4:32; the man that touched the bones of the prophet Elisha, 2Ki 13:21; the daughter of Jairus, Mr 5:41; the widow of Nain’s son, Lu 7:14; Lazarus, Joh 11:43; and those that rose at our Lord’s resurrection, Mt 27:53; this is further explained in Job 7:10.

Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible

(9) As the cloud is consumed.It is a fine simile that man is as evanescent as a cloud; and very apt is the figure, because, whether it vanishes on the surface of the sky or is distributed in rain, nothing more completely passes away than the summer cloud. It is an appearance only, which comes to nought.

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

9. The grave , sheol. See Excursus III, at close of chapter.

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

Job Arraigns God

v. 9. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away, the vapor disappearing in the dry air of the wilderness, so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more, if he is once in the realm of the dead, he cannot return to the former life on earth.

v. 10. He shall return no more to his house, neither shall his place, his home, know him any more, this earthly life is past forever, so far as he is concerned.

v. 11. Therefore, since God had practically abandoned him to dwell in the realm of the dead, I will not refrain my mouth, put no restraint on his speech; I will speak in the anguish of my spirit, in the bitterness and pain which possessed his soul; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul, because his soul was so disturbed and troubled; he threw aside, for once, the awe which he ordinarily showed in the presence of God.

v. 12. Am I a sea or a whale, some monster of the deep, that Thou set test a watch over me? He felt himself watched, shut in, by God, like a dangerous creature which might threaten to overwhelm the world.

v. 13. When I say, My bed shall comfort me, my couch shall ease, help bear, my complaint, a fact which is usually the case,

v. 14. then Thou scarest me with dreams, shaking him thereby to prevent his resting in comfort, and terrifiest me through visions, in consequence of them,

v. 15. so that my soul chooseth strangling, in wishing that the asthma which accompanied his illness might choke him, and death rather than my life, literally, “than these bones,” that is, in preference to having his body reduced to a skeleton.

v. 16. I loathe it, he was disgusted with this life; I would not live alway, on account of the unendurable pain which he suffered. Let me alone, he asked God to withdraw His chastening hand from him; for my days are vanity, a puff of breath which vanishes away.

v. 17. What is man that Thou shouldest magnify him? and that Thou shouldest set Thine heart upon him? the bitter irony of this passage consists in Job’s asking why the great and majestic God should single out him, insignificant as he was, for the object of ever new and unceasing sufferings,

v. 18. and that Thou shouldest visit him every morning and try him every moment, putting his patience and power to a continuous test?

v. 19. How long wilt Thou not depart from me, looking away from him, turning His attention to some other object upon which He might vent His wrath, nor let me alone till I swallow down my spittle, at least for a little instant, for one moment of time?

v. 20. I have sinned; what shall I do unto Thee, O thou Preserver of men? The thought is really conditional: If I have sinned, what harm could thereby strike Thee; what detriment would be caused to Thy great glory and majesty! Why hast Thou set me as a mark against Thee, a target, or mark, for every blow, so that I am a burden to myself, which the Lord Himself would try to shake off?

v. 21. And why dost Thou not pardon my transgression and take away mine iniquity, pardon his guilt, since the end was now so near? For now shall I sleep in the dust; and Thou shalt seek me in the morning, but I shall not be. He requests God’s immediate help, fearing that else he must die. The thought in the speech of Job is that of an accusation of cruelty on the part of God, an idea which may readily become blasphemous, if not driven away by a proper regard for the righteousness of God at all times.

Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann

Job 7:9 [As] the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no [more].

Ver. 9. As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away ] A cloud is nothing else but a vapour thickened in the middle region of the air by the cold encompassing and driving it together, Psa 18:11-12 , vessels they are as thin as the liquor that is in them; but some are waterless: the former are soon emptied and dissolved; the latter as soon scattered by the wind, and vanish away. See Trapp on “ Job 7:7 “

So he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more ] sc. To live and converse here with men, as Job 7:10 . Or, he shall come up no more, sc. without a miracle (as Lazarus and some others long since dead rose again) he cannot return to me, said David to his deceased child, 2Sa 12:23 . God could send some from the dead to warn the living; but that is not now to be expected, as Abraham told the rich man, Luk 16:27-31 Those spirits of dead men that so oft appeared in times of Popery (requiring their friends to sing masses and dirges for them; and that drew this verse from Theodorus Gaza, Sunt aliquid manes, lethum non omnia finit ) were either delusions, or else devils in the shape of men. That Job doubted the resurrection, or denied it (as Rabbi Solomon, and some other, both Hebrew and Greek writers, conclude from this text) is a manifest injury done to this good man, and a force offered to the text, as appeareth by that which next followeth.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

the grave. Hebrew. Sheol. See App-35.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

grave

Heb. “Sheol.” Hab 2:5. (See Scofield “Hab 2:5”).

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

the cloud: Job 37:11

he: Job 10:21, Job 14:10-14, Job 16:22, 2Sa 12:23, 2Sa 14:14, Psa 39:13, Isa 38:11

Reciprocal: Ecc 3:20 – go

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

A VAPOUR THAT VANISHETH AWAY

As the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall come up no more.

Job 7:9

It is thus that mans soul is at once darkened and agitated by his grief. There were times in his spiritual history when Job could say, I know that my Redeemer liveth. Amid crowding cares he could then walk with buoyant step, anticipating the radiant joys of his eternal home. Faith was in direct and active operation. But at other times he fell from his steadfastness; he swerved from the simple word; he took counsel of his own heart and not of the Holy One, and the result was griefs which beclouded, or fears which distressed and distempered his soul.

I. This chapter suggests many particulars in which Job was a beacon to warn us where dangers lie.While sore pained by his trials and wounded to the quick by the words of his friends, the patriarch not seldom gives utterance to sentiments which seem to challenge the awards of God only wise. Now, while we see him thus tossed like a dismantled vessel from wave to wave, let us try to be warned by his example, and repose with confidence which increases every day upon the sure word of the unchanging One. As well seek constancy in the wind as in the creature which sin has tainted; but all our experience of the creatures insufficiency should just warn us to confide the more in Him with Whom is no variableness nor shadow of turning. When this is done, our dwelling-place is better far than a munition of rocks. Let each hearer, then ask, Am I abiding there?

II. But to escape from the region of mere generalities, let us apply this to some specific examples.There is a lone and widowed one. He who was her stay is in the grave; she and her fatherless little ones are left alone in a cold, inhospitable world. But amid her griefs she sees a Fathers hand at work. She recalls the promises made to the widow and the fatherless; she not merely recallsshe reposes upon themand bread is provided and water made sure. Or, another is stretched upon a bed of languishing. A brief period more, and the verse of our present meditation is literally true of him. But he remembers Who it is that comforts even in the valley of the shadow of death. Remembering that, he leans his head upon the outstretched arm; and feeble, languid, fainting as the body may be, the soul can exclaim, O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Illustration

In this lamentation there are two movementsfirst, a great complaint concerning the stress and misery of life (Job 7:1-10), and secondly, a complaint directed against God (Job 7:11-21). The toil of life is strenuous indeed. It is a warfare. A man is a hireling, a servant, whose labour issues in nothing, and whose rest is disturbed with tossing. Nothing is satisfying, for nothing is lasting, and figure is piled on figure to emphasise this: a weavers shuttle, wind, the look of the eye, the vanishing cloud. There is absolutely no ray of hope in this outlook on life.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Job 7:9-10. As the cloud is consumed Being dissolved by the heat of the sun. And vanisheth away Never to return again. So he that goeth down, &c., shall come up no more Never until the general resurrection. When you see a cloud, which looked great, as if it would eclipse the sun, of a sudden dispersed and disappearing, say, Just such a thing is the life of man, a vapour that appears for a while and then vanisheth away. He shall return no more to his house He shall no more be seen and known in his former habitation. It concerns us to secure a better place when we die: for this will own us no more.

Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments

7:9 {e} [As] the cloud is consumed and vanisheth away: so he that goeth down to the grave shall {f} come up no [more].

(e) If you behold me in your anger I will not be able to stand in your presence.

(f) Shall no more enjoy this mortal life.

Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes