to reside or permanently stay (literally or figurativel… · conjunction + verb, qal sequential imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
desolate
נִכְחָד֗וֹתnikh.cha.Dot
H3582
to secrete · verb, niphal active participle, feminine plural absolute
cities
עָ֘רִ֤ים'a.Rim
H5892
a city (a place guarded by waking or a watch) in the wi… · noun, common masculine plural absolute
houses
בָּ֭תִּיםBa.tim
H1004
a house (in the greatest variation of applications · noun, common masculine plural absolute
inhabiteth
יֵ֣שְׁבוּYe.she.vu
H3427
properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
ready
הִתְעַתְּד֣וּhit.'a.te.Du
H6257
to prepare · verb, hithpael perfect, 3rd person common plural
heaps
לְגַלִּֽיםle.ga.Lim
H1530
something rolled · preposition + noun, common masculine plural absolute
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Job 3:14 With kings and counsellors of the earth, which built desolate places for themselves;
Jeremiah 51:37 And Babylon shall become heaps, a dwellingplace for dragons, an astonishment, and an hissing, without an inhabitant.
Job 18:15 It shall dwell in his tabernacle, because it is none of his: brimstone shall be scattered upon his habitation.
Isaiah 5:8-10 Woe unto them that join house to house, that lay field to field, till there be no place, that they may be placed alone in the midst of the e…
Jeremiah 9:11 And I will make Jerusalem heaps, and a den of dragons; and I will make the cities of Judah desolate, without an inhabitant.
Jeremiah 26:18 Micah the Morasthite prophesied in the days of Hezekiah king of Judah, and spake to all the people of Judah, saying, Thus saith the LORD of…
Micah 3:12 Therefore shall Zion for your sake be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall become heaps, and the mountain of the house as the high places…
Micah 7:18 Who is a God like unto thee, that pardoneth iniquity, and passeth by the transgression of the remnant of his heritage? he retaineth not his…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 15:17–end
Eliphaz, having reproved Job for his answers, here comes to maintain his own thesis, upon which he built his censure of Job. His opinion is that those who are wicked are certainly miserable, whence he would infer that those who are miserable are certainly wicked, and that therefore Job was so. Observe,
I. His solemn preface to this discourse, in which he bespeaks Job's attention, which he had little reason to expect, he having given so little heed to and put so little value upon what Job had said (Job 15:17): "I will show thee that which is worth hearing, and not reason, as thou dost, with unprofitable talk." Thus apt are men, when they condemn the reasonings of others, to commend their own.…
The class of wicked here described is that of robbers who plunder "cities," and seize on the houses of the banished citizens (Isa 13:20). Eliphaz chooses this class because Job had chosen the same (Job 12:6).
heaps--of ruins.
John Gill on Job 15:28
And he dwelleth in desolate cities,.... This is either a continuation of the account of the wicked man's prosperity, which makes him haughty; such is his might and power, that he destroys cities and palaces, built and enjoyed by others, and then out of the ruins of them builds greater cities and more noble palaces, to perpetuate his name to posterity; which sense agrees with Job 3:14; and with the Targum,
"and he makes tabernacles in desert cities, that he may dwelt in houses which were not inhabited;''
and so Ben Gersom: and hence because of his success among men, and the grandeur he lives in, his heart is lifted up, and his hand is stretched out against God; or else this may express the…
25 Because he stretched out his hand against God,
And was insolent towards the Almighty;
26 He assailed Him with a stiff neck,
With the thick bosses of his shield;
27 Because he covered his face with his fatness,
And addeth fat to his loins,
28 And inhabited desolated cities,
Houses which should not be inhabited,
Which were appointed to be ruins.
29 He shall not be rich, and his substance shall not continue
And their substance boweth not to the ground.
30 He escapeth not darkness;
The flame withereth his shoots;
And he perisheth in the breath of His mouth.
This strophe has periodic members: Job 15:25-28 an antecedent clause with a double beginning (כּי־נטה because he has stretched out, כּי־כ…
The Church Fathers
"For others will take away what they have amassed. The sovereign power itself, like all other temporal hopes, will be with the whole world the sharing of the just.
He describes the absolute solitude of the impious and says that because of their misery, they inhabit desolation instead of prosperous cities and houses. "In fact," Eliphaz says, "their wealth will not last."
Ver. 28. And he dwelleth in desolate communities, and in deserted houses, which are become heaps. For as a 'community' has its name from the intercourse of persons living together in common, 'desolate communities' are the actual throngs of wicked followers, by whose shouts this bad man is commended, when he is hurried away by his wickedness into evil deeds. Whence it is written; The sinner is commended in the desires of his soul, and he that doeth unrighteousness is blessed. But 'deserted houses' are bad thoughts, which this wicked man inhabits, in that by all that he does he seeks to please the thoughts of the wicked. Which communities are rightly called 'desolate,' and houses 'deserted,' in that except Almighty God had abandoned the dealings and thoughts of such on account of their previous sins, they would never arrive at, the commission of worse ones. And it is well said, Which are reduced to heaps. For the ruined buildings of houses and cities make heaps; in that whilst the wicked severally are joined to one another for wicked deeds in confused courses of conduct, they shew without doubt, that they have fallen from the edifice of life.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
