to descend (literally · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person feminine plural
bars
בַּדֵּ֣יba.Dei
H905
properly · noun, common masculine plural construct
pit
שְׁאֹ֣לshe.'Ol
H7585
Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean re… · noun, common both genders singular absolute
rest
נַחַתNachath
H5183
a descent
together
יַ֖חַדYa.chad
H3162
properly · noun, common masculine singular absolute
dust
עָפָ֣ר'a.Far
H6083
dust (as powdered or gray) · noun, common masculine singular 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 3:17-19 There the wicked cease from troubling; and there the weary be at rest.
Jonah 2:6 I went down to the bottoms of the mountains; the earth with her bars was about me for ever: yet hast thou brought up my life from corruption…
Job 18:13-14 It shall devour the strength of his skin: even the firstborn of death shall devour his strength.
Job 33:18-28 He keepeth back his soul from the pit, and his life from perishing by the sword.
Psalms 88:4-8 I am counted with them that go down into the pit: I am as a man that hath no strength:
Psalms 143:7 Hear me speedily, O LORD: my spirit faileth: hide not thy face from me, lest I be like unto them that go down into the pit.
Isaiah 38:17-18 Behold, for peace I had great bitterness: but thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption: for thou hast cast all m…
Ezekiel 37:11 Then he said unto me, Son of man, these bones are the whole house of Israel: behold, they say, Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost: we…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 17:10–end
Job's friends had pretended to comfort him with the hopes of his return to a prosperous estate again; now he here shows,
I. That it was their folly to talk so (Job 17:10): "Return, and come now, be convinced that you are in an error, and let me persuade you to be of my mind; for I cannot find one wise man among you, that knows how to explain the difficulties of God's providence or how to apply the consolations of his promises." Those do not go wisely about the work of comforting the afflicted who fetch their comforts from the possibility of their recovery and enlargement in this world; though that is not to be despaired of, it is at the best uncertain; and if it should fail, as perhaps it ma…
They--namely, my hopes shall be buried with me.
bars-- (Isa 38:10). Rather, the wastes or solitudes of the pit (sheol, the unseen world).
rest together--the rest of me and my hope is in, &c. Both expire together. The word "rest" implies that man's ceaseless hopes only rob him of rest.
Next: Job Chapter 18
John Gill on Job 17:16
They shall go down to the bars of the pit,.... He himself, and his friends, and the hopes they would have him entertain; these should all go down together to the grave, and there lie barred and locked up; these hopes, so as never to rise anymore, and the bodies of himself, and his friends, till loosed by him who has the keys of hell and death: or "the bars shall go down to the grave"; the members of his body, as Jarchi, which are the bars of it, as some in Bar Tzemach; the strength and support of it, as particularly the bones, these shall go down to the grave, and there turn to rottenness and dust; and therefore, as if he should say, as he elsewhere does, "what is my strength, that I should…
13 If I hope, it is for Shel as my house,
In darkness I make my bed.
14 I cry to corruption: Thou art my father! -
To the worm: Thou art my mother and sister!
15 Where now therefore is my hope?
And my hope, who seeth it?
16 To the bars of Shel it descends,
When at the same time there is rest in the dust.
All modern expositors transl.: If I hope (wait) for Shel as my house, etc., since they regard Job 17:13. as a hypothetical antecedent clause to Job 17:15, consisting of four members, where the conclusion should begin with ואיּה, and should be indicated by Waw apodosis. There is no objection to this explanation so far as the syntax is concerned, but there will then be weighty thoughts which…
The Church Fathers
Why do we build palaces? Why do we care for the drapery of beds and for the different garments? Why do we add estate to estate, strangle the poor and strike the needy? Why do we want to increase those riches that will not come together with us? And why do we not bend our ears to the truthful oracles? Why do we not believe in the commandment of the Judge and do not obey what he said, "Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal. But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust corrupt and where thieves do not break through nor steal"? For our angels protect our treasures, and, above all, the Lord of the angels.
Ver. 16. All of mine shall descend into the lowest hell. Whereas it appears that among those below the righteous are held bound not in places of punishment, but in the bosom of tranquillity above, an important question springs up before us, why it is that blessed Job declares, saying, All of mine shall descend into the lowest hell; who even if before the Advent of the Mediator between God and man he had to descend into hell, yet it is plain that into the lowest hell he had not to descend. Does he call the very higher regions of hell, 'the lowest hell?' Plainly because in relation to the loftiness of heaven, the region of this sky may not unappropriately be called the lower region. Whence when the Apostate Angels were plunged from the seats of heaven into this darksome region of the air, the Apostle Peter says, For if God spared not the Angels that sinned, but delivered them, dragged down with infernal chains, into hell, to be reserved for torments in the Judgment. If then relatively to the height of heaven this darksome air is infernal, relatively to the elevation of this air, the earth which lies below may be taken both as infernal, and as deep; and relatively to the height of that earth, even those parts of hell which are higher than the other mansions of the place below, may in this place not unsuitably be denoted by the designation of the lowest hell; in that what the sky is to heaven, and the earth to the sky, the same is that higher hollow of the regions below to the earth. But that is very wonderful which he subjoins, All of mine shall descend; for whereas the soul alone shall descend into the regions of hell, how is it that the holy man tells that 'all of his' shall descend there, but that he saw himself to be there entire where he perceives the great weight of his recompense? seeing that this which he leaves of himself without sense on the earth, until he returns to the incorruption of the resurrection, he does not feel to be himself. And so he declares that 'all of his will descend into the lowest hell,' whither he sees his soul only shall descend; in that the whole of him is there, where he is capable of having a sense of that which he has got. Or, surely, 'all of his did descend into hell,' in that the recompensing of all his toils was as yet expected to be received only in the rest of hell; and all that he has done as it were 'descends' there,…
Dictionary and topics
Dead (People) · UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO — UNCLASSIFIED SCRIPTURES RELATING TO
Despondency · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
the grave (literally the bars of Sheol): Sheol—the abode of the dead—was seen as having a barred gate, allowing no escape.
Rashi on Job 17:16
The limbs of the grave shall descend Those limbs [of my body] that will ultimately descend to the grave, for indeed they will all rest on the dust.
they rest on the dust Heb. נחת, will lodge, an expression of (Num. 11:26), “the spirit rested (ותנח) upon them.”
