Job 14:13

"What have you kept me in the tomb? Such are my hopes of resurrection, that I wish I were no longer prey to the uncertainties of this life. "Why did you not hide me until your anger was appeased? Hence this word: "Hide yourself until the wrath of God is past." That is to say, until this mortal life ends, and the resurrection arrives.

The meaning is, "Oh that in the time when you were inflamed with rage against me, you would have kept me in custody in the netherworld—there, in fact, custody is not due to faults—and that you would not have forgotten me completely but would have set a time for my custody there!" Job has given us a reason for his desiring death. Without trials, he says, while being kept there, I will wait for resurrection. In fact, Job says, if a person dies after completing the days of this life, he does not withdraw into nonexistence but lives in his soul and waits for resurrection.

Ver. 13. O that Thou wouldest defend me in hell! That before the coming of the Mediator between God and man, every person, though he might have been of a pure and approved life, descended to the prisons of hell, there can be no doubt; in that man, who fell by his own act, was unable by his own act to return to the rest of Paradise, except that He should come, Who by the mystery of His Incarnation should open the way into that same Paradise. For hence after the sin of the first man it is recorded, that a flaming sword was placed at the entrance of Paradise, which is also called 'moveable,' in that the time should come one day, that it might even be removed. Nor yet do we maintain that the souls of the righteous did so go down into hell, that they were imprisoned in places of punishment; but it is to be believed that there are higher regions in hell and that there are lower regions apart, so that both the righteous might be at rest in the upper regions, and the unrighteous be tormented in the lower ones. Hence the Psalmist, by reason of the grace of God preventing him, says, Thou hast delivered my soul from the lowest hell. Thus blessed Job before the coming of the Mediator, knowing of his going down into hell, implores the protecting hand of his Maker there, in order that he might be a stranger to the places of punishment; where, while he is brought to enjoy rest, he might be kept hidden from punishment. Hence he subjoins; That thou wouldest keep me secret, until Thy wrath quite pass by. For the wrath of Almighty God does herein execute the force of its severity every day, that those who live unworthily it swallows up in most worthy punishments. Which wrath now indeed 'passes by,' but at the end it 'quite passes by,' in that now it is executed, but at the end of the world it is finally consummated. Yet this wrath as to the souls of the righteous 'quite passed by' on the coming of our Redeemer, in that those the Mediator between God and man brought back from the prisons of hell to the joys of Paradise, when He did Himself go down there in pity. And on this subject it is necessary to be known, that the term 'wrath' does not suit the Divine Being, in that no disquieting influence disorders the simple nature of God. Whence it is said to Him, But Thou, Ruler of power, judgest with tranquillity, and orderest us with exceeding great regard. But because the souls of…