properly · verb, hophal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
grave
לִקְבָר֣וֹתlik.va.Rot
H6913
a sepulchre · preposition + noun, common feminine plural absolute
remain
יִשְׁקֽוֹדyish.Kod
H8245
to be alert · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine singular
tomb
גָּדִ֥ישׁga.Dish
H1430
a stack of sheaves · 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
Luke 16:22 And it came to pass, that the beggar died, and was carried by the angels into Abraham’s bosom: the rich man also died, and was buried;
Psalms 49:14 Like sheep they are laid in the grave; death shall feed on them; and the upright shall have dominion over them in the morning; and their bea…
Ezekiel 32:21-32 The strong among the mighty shall speak to him out of the midst of hell with them that help him: they are gone down, they lie uncircumcised,…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 21:27–end
In these verses,
I. Job opposes the opinion of his friends, which he saw they still adhered to, that the wicked are sure to fall into such visible and remarkable ruin as Job had now fallen into, and none but the wicked, upon which principle they condemned Job as a wicked man. "I know your thoughts," says Job (Job 21:27); "I know you will not agree with me; for your judgments are tinctured and biassed by your piques and prejudices against me, and the devices which you wrongfully imagine against my comfort and honour: and how can such men be convinced?" Job's friends were ready to say, in answer to his discourse concerning the prosperity of the wicked, "Where is the house of the prince? Job 21…
Yet--rather, "and."
brought--with solemn pomp (Psa 45:15).
grave--literally, "graves"; that is, the place where the graves are.
remain in--rather, watch on the tomb, or sepulchral mound. Even after death he seems still to live and watch (that is, have his "remembrance" preserved) by means of the monument over the grave. In opposition to Bildad (Job 18:17).
John Gill on Job 21:32
Yet shall he be brought to the grave,.... Or "and", "or yea he shall be brought", &c. (a); for the meaning is not, that though he is great in life he shall be brought low enough at death; for Job is still describing the grand figure wicked men make, even at death, as well as in life; for he is not only brought to the grave, as all men are, it being the house appointed for all living, and every man's long home; but the wicked rich man is brought thither in great funeral pomp, in great state, as the rich sinner was buried, Ecclesiastes 8:10; or "to the graves" (b), the place where many graves are, the place of the sepulchres of his ancestors; and in the chiefest and choicest of them he is inte…
32 And he is brought to the grave,
And over the tomb he still keepeth watch.
33 The clods of the valley are sweet to him,
And all men draw after him,
As they preceded him without number.
. . . . . .
34 And how will ye comfort me so vainly!
Your replies are and remain perfidy.
During life removed at the time of dire calamity, this unapproachable evil-doer is after his death carried to the grave with all honour (יוּבל, comp. Job 10:19), and indeed to a splendid tomb; for, like משׁכנות above, קברות is also an amplificative plural. It is certainly the most natural to refer ישׁקד, like יוּבל, to the deceased. The explanation: and over the tomb one keeps watch (Bttch., Hahn, Rd., Olsh.), is indeed…
The Church Fathers
"And yet the Lord Himself is brought to the tomb," so true is it that there is no reward here to hope for piety. "And he will awaken on the mass of corpses. He is indeed resurrected before all those whom he must bring out of the tomb. 32. "The stones of the torrent have been sweet to him; Those which the world has not made roll; his disciples. "After him every man follows him and many walked before him:" or else, in this passage, every man has the same meaning as a man, the first man, and "many" refers to those who have since taken rank among the men. Or again, after him the crowd of believers, before him the Patriarchs and the Prophets.
Ver. 32. He shall be brought to the graves, and in the heap of the dead bodies he shall watch. 70. Whereas graves cover dead bodies, what else is denoted by 'the graves' but the lost, in whom their souls extinct of the life of blessedness lie as in graves? Thus this wicked one shall be 'brought to the graves,' in that he shall be admitted in the hearts of the wicked, in that they only admit him, in whom are found souls dead to God, concerning whom it is rightly said by the Prophet likewise where his punishments are described, His graves are about him, all the slain, and those that felt by the sword. For they in hell 'are about him,' in whom that evil spirit lies dead, which same fell, having been slain by the sword of his wickedness. Whence it is written, Who hast delivered David Thy servant from the hurtful sword. And it is rightly said, in the heap of the dead bodies he shall watch, in that now in the assembly of sinners he puts forth the artifices of his cunning. And on this account, that in the world there is a scarcity of good men, and a multitude of bad, it is rightly called 'the heap of dead bodies,' that the very multitude of the wicked might be denoted. For broad is the way that leadeth to destruction, and many there be that go in thereat. [Matt. 7, 13] So Satan's 'keeping watch in the heap of dead bodies,' is his exercising the wiles of his wickedness in the hearts of the children of perdition.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Pride · 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).
houses have vanished because of their sins: Job was echoing Bildad (8:22), Eliphaz (15:34), and Zophar (20:26).
Rashi on Job 21:32
But he will be borne to the grave He will ultimately be borne to the grave.
and he will hasten to be beside the stacks of grain when he is buried in the fields beside the stacks of grain.
