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 19:8 He hath fenced up my way that I cannot pass, and he hath set darkness in my paths.
Lamentations 3:7 He hath hedged me about, that I cannot get out: he hath made my chain heavy.
Isaiah 40:27 Why sayest thou, O Jacob, and speakest, O Israel, My way is hid from the LORD, and my judgment is passed over from my God?
Job 12:14 Behold, he breaketh down, and it cannot be built again: he shutteth up a man, and there can be no opening.
Job 19:12 His troops come together, and raise up their way against me, and encamp round about my tabernacle.
Psalms 31:8 And hast not shut me up into the hand of the enemy: thou hast set my feet in a large room.
Psalms 88:8 Thou hast put away mine acquaintance far from me; thou hast made me an abomination unto them: I am shut up, and I cannot come forth.
Lamentations 3:9 He hath inclosed my ways with hewn stone, he hath made my paths crooked.
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Job 3:20–end
Job, finding it to no purpose to wish either that he had not been born or had died as soon as he was born, here complains that his life was now continued and not cut off. When men are set on quarrelling there is no end of it; the corrupt heart will carry on the humour. Having cursed the day of his birth, here he courts the day of his death. The beginning of this strife and impatience is as the letting forth of water.
I. He thinks it hard, in general, that miserable lives should be prolonged (Job 3:20-22): Wherefore is light in life given to those that are bitter in soul? Bitterness of soul, through spiritual grievances, makes life itself bitter. Why doth he give light? (so it is in the origi…
whose way is hid--The picture of Job is drawn from a wanderer who has lost his way, and who is hedged in, so as to have no exit of escape (Hos 2:6; Lam 3:7, Lam 3:9).
John Gill on Job 3:23
Why is light given to a man whose way is hid,.... Some of the Jewish writers connect this with Job 3:22, thus; "who rejoice and are glad when they find a grave for a man", &c. but it should be observed that such are said to rejoice at finding a grave, not for others, but for themselves; the words stand in better connection with Job 3:20, from whence the supplement is taken in our version and others; and so it is a continuation or repetition of the expostulation why light and life, or the light of the living, should be given to persons as before described, and here more largely; and Job himself is principally designed, as is generally thought, whose way, according to him, was hid from the Lor…
20 Why is light given to the wretched,
And life to the sorrowful in soul?
21 Who wait for death, and he comes not,
Who dig after him more than for treasure,
22 Who rejoice with exceeding joy,
Who are enraptured, when they can find the grave?
23 To the man whose way is hidden,
And whom Eloah hath hedged round?
The descriptive partt. Job 3:21, Job 3:22, are continued in predicative clauses, which are virtually relative clauses; Job 3:21 has the fut. consec., since the sufferers are regarded as now at least dead; Job 3:22 the simple fut., since their longing for the grave is placed before the eye (on this transition from the part. to the verb. fin., vid., Ges. 134, rem. (2). Schlottm. and Hahn…
The Church Fathers
Death is a rest for the man whose life is hidden. Because it is only seen by God, or known only to a few. This is the death that makes us die in the world; in the other there is no rest. God shut him up on all sides; By not abandoning him to the desires of his heart.
"Death is rest for man." This is what Job declares. Now if death brings rest, why don't the majority of people rush to it? Because God has made life desirable in order to prevent us from running to death. "Its way is hidden." In my opinion Job is speaking about death, but by pretending that his words are about the way of humankind. This indicates that Job's words concerning death are what has been said before, especially in the expression, "they dig for it more than for hidden treasures," things that are evidently hidden. Our future is unknown, Job says. We do not uncover it. Please do not speak to me about those who hang themselves, because Job speaks about what conforms to nature and the commandments of God. "God has surrounded it," he says, "with a wall." As the gospel states, "The day of the Lord comes as a thief in the night." To avoid the response, "Why do you not choose death?" Job answers, "The Lord has surrounded it with a wall." Its doors are closed.
Why is light given to a man whose way is hid, and whom God hath encompassed with darkness? For 'man's way is hid to him,' in that though he already takes cognizance of the kind of life that he is leading, he does not yet know to what issue it tends. Though his affections are now fixed on things above, though he seeks them with all his longings, he is yet ignorant whether he shall persevere in the same longings. For forsaking our sins we strive after righteousness, and we know whence we are come, but we know nothing whereunto we may arrive. We know what we were yesterday, but we cannot tell what we may chance to be to-morrow. 'Man's way then is hid to him,' in that he so sets the foot of his labour, that, this notwithstanding, he can never foresee the issue of the accomplishment thereof. Now there is also another 'hiding of our way.' For there are times when we are ignorant, whether the very things which we believe we do aright, are rightly done in the strict Judge's eye. For, as we have also said a long way above, it often happens that an action of ours, which is cause for our condemnation, passes with us for the aggrandizement of virtue. Often by the same act, whereby we think to appease the Judge, He is urged to anger, when favourable. As Solomon bears witness, saying, There is a way which seemeth right unto a man; but the end thereof are the ways of death. Hence, whilst holy men are getting the mastery over their evil habits, their very good practices even become an object of dread to them, lest, when they desire to do a good action, they be decoyed by a semblance of the thing, lest the baleful canker of corruption lurk under the fair appearance of a goodly colour. For they know that they are still charged with the burthen of corruption, and cannot exactly discern the things that be good. And when they bring before their eyes the standard of the final Judgment, there are times when they fear the very things which they approve in themselves; and indeed they are in mind wholly intent on the concerns of the interior, yet alarmed from uncertainty about their doings, they know not whither they are going. Hence after he had said, Wherefore is light given to one that is in misery? it is with propriety added, to a man whose way is hid? As though the words were, 'Why has that man this life's success for his portion, who knows not of his course of conduct, in what…
Dictionary and topics
Despondency · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Hedges · Illustrative: Of numerous afflictions — Illustrative: Of numerous afflictions
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).
People in misery long for death with the desperation of those who dig for hidden treasure.
Rashi on Job 3:23
for a man whose way is hidden All the good deeds that he performed were hidden from the Great Recompenser, and He did not look at them.
and God hedged him in He made a wall in front of him to shut him up in a prison, as in (Hos. 2:8) “Behold I will close off your way.”
