to pluck off · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
snow
שֶׁ֗לֶגShe.leg
H7950
snow (probably from its whiteness) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
waters
מֵֽימֵיmei.mei-
H4325
water · noun, common masculine plural construct
grave
שְׁא֣וֹלshe.'ol
H7585
Hades or the world of the dead (as if a subterranean re… · noun, common both genders singular construct
sinned
חָטָֽאוּcha.Ta.'u
H2398
properly · verb, qal perfect, 3rd person common plural
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
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…
Job 21:13 They spend their days in wealth, and in a moment go down to the grave.
Proverbs 14:32 The wicked is driven away in his wickedness: but the righteous hath hope in his death.
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 68:2 As smoke is driven away, so drive them away: as wax melteth before the fire, so let the wicked perish at the presence of God.
Ecclesiastes 9:4-6 For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
Luke 12:20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?
Job 6:15-17 My brethren have dealt deceitfully as a brook, and as the stream of brooks they pass away;
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 24:18–end
Job here, in the conclusion of his discourse,
I. Gives some further instances of the wickedness of these cruel bloody men. 1. Some are pirates and robbers at sea. To this many learned interpreters apply those difficult expressions (Job 24:18), He is swift upon the waters. Privateers choose those ships that are the best sailors. In these swift ships they cruise from one channel to another, to pick up prizes; and this brings them in so much wealth that their portion is cursed in the earth, and they behold not the way of the vineyards, that is (as bishop Patrick explains it), they despise the employment of those who till the ground and plant vineyards as poor and unprofitable. But others make t…
Arabian image; melted snow, as contrasted with the living fountain, quickly dries up in the sunburnt sand, not leaving a trace behind (Job 6:16-18). The Hebrew is terse and elliptical to express the swift and utter destruction of the godless; (so) "the grave--they have sinned!"
John Gill on Job 24:19
Drought and heat consume the snow waters,.... Melt the snow into water, and dry up that, which is done easily, quickly, and suddenly:
so doth the grave those which have sinned; all have sinned, but some are more notorious sinners than others, as those here meant; and all die and are laid in the grave, and are consumed; hence the grave is called the pit of corruption and destruction, because bodies are corrupted and destroyed in it, and which is the case of all, both good and bad men; but the metaphor here used to express it by, of the consumption of snow water by drought and heat, denotes either that the death of these persons is sudden and violent, and in such a manner are brought to the g…
18 For he is light upon the surface of the water;
Their heritage is cursed upon the earth;
He turneth no more in the way of the vineyard.
19 Drought, also heat, snatch away snow water -
So doth Shel those who have sinned.
20 The womb forgetteth him, worms shall feast on him,
He is no more remembered;
So the desire of the wicked is broken as a tree -
21 He who hath plundered the barren that bare not,
And did no good to the widow.
The point of comparison in Job 24:18 is the swiftness of the disappearing: he is carried swiftly past, as any light substance on the surface of the water is hurried along by the swiftness of the current, and can scarcely be seen; comp. Job 9:26 : "My days shoot by…
The Church Fathers
"They delighted what was deposited in the orphan's womb. By guilty insinuations they took from the heart of the weak the word that sustained him.
Let him pass to excessive heat from the snow waters. And his sin even to hell. Iniquity is on this account likened to cold, because the mind that sins it binds up with insensibility. Hence it is written; As a fountain has made her waters cold, so she has made her wickedness cold. Contrariwise charity is 'heat,' in this respect that it fires the soul it fills. Of which 'heat' is written, Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold. And there are some who while they shun the cold or their wickednesses come to true faith or to the wearing of sanctity, but because they presume on their own faculties for perceiving more than should be, oftentimes in the faith which they receive they are minded to pry curiously into the things that they do not take in, so as to be held fast in God rather by reason than by faith. But because the mind of man has not power to dive into the mysteries of God; all that they cannot get to the bottom of by reason, they care not to believe, and by overmuch investigation they fall into error. So these, when they did not as yet believe, or were still busied for works of wickedness, were 'snow waters;' but when abandoning carnal deeds, in the faith to which they have been brought they aim to dive deeper than they have capacity for, they are hot beyond what they ought to be. And so touching this wicked kind of person the sentence of one prophesying only and not wishing the thing is rightly delivered. Let him pass in overmuch heat from the snow waters. As if it were said in plain speech; 'he that is not restrained in humility under the fetters of self-discipline, from his unbelief, or from the coldness of bad practice, through immoderate wisdom falls into error. Whence too the great Preacher getting quit of this excessive heat of too refined wisdom from the hearts of his disciples saith well, Not to be wise of himself above that he ought to be wise; but to be wise unto sobriety. Lest perchance excessive heat might destroy those, of whom 'snow waters,' i.e. unbelief, or the fruits of deadened actions, held possession in the way to die. And because it is very difficult for him who accounts himself wise to bring down his mind to humility and believe those that preach right things, and reject the view of his own wrong thought, it is rightly said; For sin is 'brought even to hell,' which before the end of the present life is not…
Dictionary and topics
Hell — Derived from the Saxon helan, to cover; hence the covered or the invisible place. In Scripture there are three words so rendered: (1.) Sheol, occurring in the Old Testament sixty-five times. This…
Snow — Common in Palestine in winter (Ps. 147:16). The snow on the tops of the Lebanon range is almost always within view throughout the whole year. The word is frequently used figuratively by the sacred…
Citizens · General references — General references
Hell · “Sheol” is translated “grave” in A. V. in — “Sheol” is translated “grave” in A. V. in
Homicide · 24:22; — 24:22;
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).
These sentiments appear to oppose Job’s observations, so some scholars suggest that they were the words of Bildad or Zophar. However, Job might have been pronouncing curses on the wicked, sarcastically quoting his friends’ views, or saying that the fate of the wicked presented by Eliphaz (5:2-7; 15:17-25), Bildad (8:8-19; 18:5-21), and Zophar (20:4-29) also overtakes the righteous (21:23-26).
Rashi on Job 24:19
Dryness and heat they steal away Because of their evil, they caused for themselves that the world should change for one year from its six seasons: sowing, reaping, heat, cold, summer, and winter.
snow water Like: and snow water. This too they stole from the world, because they sinned so that they descended to the grave. In some words, the “vavin” are missing, like (Jer. 11:19), “And I was like a lamb, a bull,” which is interpreted as, a lamb and a bull. There are many more in Machbereth Menachem ben Saruk (p. 26).
