“451. DESOLATE PLACES—JOB 3:13-14”

Desolate Places—Job_3:13-14

In the latter part of his discourse, Job, amid the torture of his afflictions, gloats over ideas of rest—of that rest and immunity from all pain, which he would at this time have possessed, had he died in the early morning of his existence. This is, of course, a low idea of rest; a rest not consciously enjoyed, and to which no conscious refreshment follows; a rest consisting in the mere negation of existence. Job’s expressions provoke the inquiry—What were his notions of death? But we shall not enter into this question now; nor, perhaps, is it right to press his words too strictly, inasmuch as similar views with respect to death are expressed in the popular language of all religions and nations. Indeed, it might be a curious speculation to inquire how little popular expressions are to be taken as embodying the substantial views of those who employ them.

Among other things, Job indulges in the idea that had he then died, he would now have been at rest “with kings and counsellors of the earth, who built desolate places for themselves.” What does he mean by desolate places? The meaning is dubious. The term in Hebrew is desolations or destructions, and comes from a root that signifies to dry up; because dry or barren plains, or rocky and sandy mountains, are desolate places, unfit for the support of man or beast. Some conceive that Job means forests or parks, places which kings and great men frequently keep up in good order for their exercise and amusement. Others think that these “desolations” must indicate houses erected in solitary groves; for princes and nobles are often desirous of such secluded retreats, where they may pass their time at ease, disburdened of their state and relieved from the press of attendants and visitors. But this does not satisfy others, who take the meaning to be, that the great ones of the earth erect for themselves stately structures at an immense cost upon such places as are decayed and gone to ruin, in order to perpetuate and immortalize their names.

Ancient Sarcophagi

But all these explanations seem to want point and application to the idea on which the mind of Job is expatiating. There is no conceivable reason why any of these matters should be produced more than any other act which princes might execute. We, therefore, greatly prefer that interpretation which has a clear meaning and signification, taken with the context. This is, that these “desolate places” signify the magnificent tombs and sepulchers which the great are wont to build for the reception of themselves and their families, and which it was very much the custom of ancient times to prepare during one’s lifetime; a custom which we see reviving in our own public cemeteries, some of the most costly tombs in which, at least in the cemeteries near London, were prepared during their lives by the persons who expected to occupy them. These might be called desolate, as being generally solitarily apart from towns, or as being destined for the habitation only of the dead. Or we might lay stress upon the signification “destructions,” and say that it does not materially differ from the term sarcophagi, “flesh-consumers,” which the Greeks applied to their tombs. The idea would then be that these were places where the bodies of the dead were consumed or destroyed by moldering into dust.

That the magnificence of sepulchral isolation is of the most extreme antiquity, and might well and naturally furnish this allusion to Job, is well known. There are even existing monuments to attest it. So much have men in all ages cared for the preservation of their remains or for the perpetuation of their names, that among all the monuments of their pride, their tombs are the most enduring, whether reared above the ground or cut out of the rocks. Temples which seemed built for eternity have disappeared or are in ruins, while tombs of far earlier date remain in complete preservation; and of all the noble fabrics which the kings and great ones of the earth have in remote ages built for their living habitations, there are none of which any trace remains above ground that come within upwards of a thousand years of the earliest existing tombs. The palaces of Nineveh even, are assuredly of very far later date than the pyramidal and excavated tombs of Egypt; and whatever their date be, they owe their preservation, not to the strength or skill of their construction, but to the accident of their being buried beneath the ground, while there are sepulchral monuments which have stood apart in the waste, confronting the sun for the space of nearly forty centuries, and which are still so far from decay that they are likely to stand as long as the world endures. The great ones of the world know that there will be always living men to rear up temples and palaces for their own day and generation; but they also know, that the future will not care so greatly for the remote past as to bestow enduring and costly monuments upon it; and not trusting, therefore, to its care the task of monumentally eternizing the memory of their greatness, they strive in their lifetime “to build their desolate places for themselves.” But, alas for them! stones may last far longer than their names; and even the dried and drugged carcass may be preserved far beyond the time in which, great as they were in their day, and high as the place they took among the desolaters and masters of the earth, even the faintest trace of their name and memory has perished. There is the mausoleum. Who reared it? Whose mortal part was it destined for? On whose memory was it destined to bestow an earthly immortality? No one can answer. No one knows: and, unless as a matter of antiquarian curiosity, no one cares.

It may be, however, that the emphasis in the phrase, “built desolate places for themselves,” which we have construed to mean in their own lifetime and by their personal care, may rather lie in the complete isolation and separation from the rest of the world which the great ones of the earth affected. That this is involved in the idea we have no doubt, when we recollect the great solicitude evinced by high families, even in Scripture, and so early as the time of Abraham, to have a sepulcher apart, which none but themselves and theirs might use. In connection with this subject, and with the apparent date of the Book of Job, it is interesting to recollect that the very tomb—the sepulchral cavern which Abraham bought of Ephron the Hittite for a family sepulcher—the very tomb to which Jacob enjoined his sons to carry his remains, and of which he said, “There they buried Abraham and Sarah his wife; there they buried Isaac and Rebekah his wife; and there I buried Leah”—is to this day known and honored as theirs.

It was the master feeling of the Hebrew to desire to be in the same tomb with his family, but apart from the rest of the world. To be “gathered to his fathers” in the tomb, was with him almost a passion. Even in the open cemeteries (for all could not have rock sepulchers) this family separation, so far as possible, accomplished. This is still the case in the East, where separate families have often portions walled in like a garden, where the bones of their ancestors have remained undisturbed for many generations; for in these enclosures the graves are all distinct and separate, each of them having a stone placed upright both at the head and feet, inscribed with the name and title of the deceased.

Pyramid of Cheops

But in Egypt and some other countries, even this degree of isolation could not satisfy the pride of kings. They must be wholly alone and single. In Persia there are regal sepulchers singly apart from all others, cut out high up in the face of steep cliffs, inaccessible to ordinary enterprise, or unless by some such operation as swinging down from the top of the cliff. Then there are the pyramids of Egypt, to which we have already referred; the sepulchral chamber in the very chief of which is now destitute of every vestige of royal memorial, and void even of the corpse which such vast treasures and labors were expended to protect and preserve. Sadly does a recent traveller remark—“Whoever the proud mortal might be, who in life had probably commanded the homage, and perhaps provoked the enmity, of millions of his species, reasonably might he have hoped, when the eternal granite had closed upon him, and the secret of his hiding-place had been forgotten, that his chrysalis sleep would be undisturbed. And if mere high privilege of a future existence depended on the conservation of the material form, Note: Such was the notion of the Egyptians; and in this originated the extraordinary pains taken by them to preserve the bodies of their dead. his confidence might well have been strong that this great object of his ambition would be attained; but, alas! for the vanity of all human expectations, the fatal secret had been discovered, the embalmed corpse was scattered to the winds, and of all that infinite cost and pains, nothing now remains but an empty and dishonored tomb.” Note: Beldane’s Italy and the East. Vol. i. p. 182.

Autor: JOHN KITTO